When NAND flash first started gaining popularity, storage protocols and interconnect speeds were the performance bottlenecks. While PCIe’s theoretical bandwidth appears attractive, limitations due to design create significant overhead – thereby reducing its real-world applicability.
PCIe is not a native storage interface and requires an onboard controller to manage resources between flash and server I/O. Handling large amounts of flash create computational complexity, limiting both the performance and reliability of the controller. Thus, despite access to a wide pipe, PCIe-based SSDs are unable to realize the high-speed interface under load – making theoretical bandwidth irrelevant.
The above architectural limitations impact the throughput of data and subsequent IOPS supported for both read and write operations. As a result, when outstanding I/O requests scale beyond controller thresholds, latencies dramatically increase. Furthermore, due to the limited number of card slots, it is often impractical to scale PCIe-based solutions without significant investment in additional IT infrastructure.
To overcome the drawbacks of traditional PCI Express architectures, Diablo Technologies has developed a no-compromise approach that represents the next logical step in the evolution of server-side flash storage technology.
“Memory Channel Storage is a ‘purpose-built’ solution, designed to provide a scalable interface that expands the architectural advantages of flash as memory,” said Riccardo Badalone, CEO and Co-Founder of Diablo Technologies. “By maximizing parallelism and eliminating the complexity of PCIe-based architectures, MCS accelerates and virtually eliminates the latency overhead associated with data persistence. Applications can now perform several million IO operations per second with ease.”