pureSilicon Inc. (pureSilicon) is launching the new highest density solid state drive (SSD), the 1TB Nitro Series, at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Four of these drives deliver 4TB in the same space as a standard 3.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD), so server footprint requirements and the energy consumption in data-intensive applications can be decreased. This Nitro Series is designed for applications where data throughput and the power consumption are vital.

The 1TB Nitro SSD is the most compact SSD per gigabyte: 15.40GB per cubic centimeter in a 2.5-inch form-factor, at least three times greater than any other SSD. This high density in a small form factor has been attained through new engineering techniques coupled with the advanced industrial design that yields an exceptionally thin enclosure.

This represents a major advance for storage industry as it combines maximum density with the high performance and low power demand.

The applications Nitro Series include: server, networking, datacenter, supercomputing, and professional media. These applications need fast transfer speeds and involve the storage of huge amounts of data. The company has benchmarked these drives at speeds approaching maximum bus speed of SATA II (300 MB/s).

Feature summary:

1TB SSD in 2.5-inch form-factor (highest density ever at 2.5-inch),

300MB/s SATA II interface,

Industry-leading performance,

State-of-the-art industrial design.

Specifications – Nitro Series SSD:

Capacities: 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1024GB,

Performance:

Transfer rate: 300MB/sec,

Sustained read: 240MB/sec,

Sustained write: 215MB/sec,

Random read (IOPS 4K): 50,000,

Random write (IOPS 4K): 10,000,

Latency < 100 µsec.

Reliability:

MTTF: 2.0 million hours.

Environmental:

Temperature (operating): 0°C to +70°C,

Temperature (non-operating): -45°C to +85°C,

Shock (operating): 1500G, duration 0.5ms, half sine wave,

Vibration (operating): 20G peak, 10~2,000Hz, x3 axis.

Power:

Active: 4.8W typical,

Idle: 0.1W typical.

Physical:

2.5in form factor: 100.2mm x 69.85mm x 9.5mm.

The company also provides Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)-compliant, rugged SSD:

Also on show on the company’s booth is the new Renegade Series SSD, the first SSDs to integrate hardware based encryption approved by FIPS. The Renegade SSD is also compliant with the MIL-STD-810F, a military standard that needs the SSD to sustain reliable operation during a series of painstaking tests that validate its ability to endure extreme environments typically seen in the industrial and military applications.

The company’s Renegade SSD addresses the demands of most challenging environments where heat, vibration, and the humidity preclude the use of the traditional hard disk drives or regular, consumer-grade SSDs. A dedicated on-board cryptographic processor offers hardware-driven 256-bit AES encryption that gives instantaneous encryption and decryption of the data without degrading the performance.

Green philosophy:

The company is committed to energy efficiency and develops the storage products that yield high performance per watt. Whether the goal is to increase the productivity in a mobile environment or decrease energy costs in a data center, installing pureSilicon SSDs will help attain successful results. Legacy storage products like hard disk drives are becoming less energy-efficient as manufacturers strive for the higher performance; SSDs provide superior performance scalability while attaining significantly lower energy consumption.

Available in early 2009:

The company has started sampling its Renegade SSD units on the limited basis to select the customers, with shipments anticipated to start in the first quarter of 2009. The Nitro Series SSDs will be available in third quarter of 2009, pricing TBD.