Skyera Extends Consumer-Grade Flash for Enterprise Arrays

Skyera, a startup that has developed some of the densest all-NAND flash storage arrays on the planet, on Aug. 14 launched its Skyhawk series of enterprise systems based on low-cost, consumer-grade 19/20-nanometer multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash.

Skyera’s compact half-depth form factor sports a whopping 44TB of high-performance per 1U unit. Now that is what The Station considers dense. This is low-latency, high-performance native capacity that works well for big data, analytics and virtualization-related applications.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company is competing aggressively on pricing, with a system price of under $3 per raw gigabyte–before compression and deduplication, which would lower the capacity need by more than half, thus saving half the cost.

The company’s engineers focused–and apparently succeeded–in extending the life of consumer-grade MLC flash. Only a ground-up, system-wide approach to the design, development and integration of all components in the technology stack–including the flash controller, RAID controller, storage blades, communication bus and network interface–could yield the 100 times life amplification required to exceed enterprise reliability and endurance.

Yes–a 100X lifecycle for NAND flash is what Skyera claims, and it’s sticking to its story.

“The ‘norms’ of solid-state storage have seen much change and improvement over the last few years,” Mark Peters, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said. “But Skyera’s flagship product introduction challenges even the best of those new ‘norms’ and looks set to be a true game changer.

“Its compact, high-capacity form, together with impressive longevity and–most notably and unapologetically–a dramatically attractive price, promise to change the storage landscape; users who thought they could not afford solid state are simply going to have to revise their thinking.”

Skyera will be demonstrating its Skyhawk enterprise solid-state storage system at the Flash Memory Summit, Aug. 21-23, in Santa Clara, Calif.