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The
RamSan-330 is the fastest, largest external cache around. It acts as a
high speed buffer for any number of RAID devices to provide 100x less
latency and 50x more bandwidth than the best mechanical disk drives. It
does not require special software - simply attach it between server(s)
and storage. The RamSan-330 automatically caches all accessed data writes and reads to drastically improve storage performance. Storage
vendors and solution providers have struggled to meet the needs of end
users with increasingly demanding application environments, such as
large, write-intensive databases. The RamSan-330 provides the solution
by invisibly accelerating storage to the speed of DDRRAM. By installing
the RamSan-330 in front of RAID devices, bandwidth increases and
response time decreases.
To order, please contact Texas
Memory Systems Sales. |
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The World's
Fastest Storage®
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Applications
While solid state disks are designed to have
"hot" data actively placed on them by administrators for
acceleration, the RamSan-330 RAID cache dynamically and automatically
accelerates large capacities of storage according to use.
A solid state RAID cache is most appropriate
when:
- Data
needing acceleration constantly changes.
- Large
amounts of data needs acceleration.
- Terabyte
solid state disks are not an option due to cost.
- Existing
storage infrastructures need an "invisible" performance boost.
- A
storage area network (SAN) needs overall performance improvements.
Performance
The RamSan-330 turbo charges storage by caching the
most popular data and distributing it at maximum rates of 3 GB/s
bandwidth and 250,000 I/Os a second. End users can use the RamSan-330 to
overcome the costly bottlenecks associated with slow read/write
performance across a large segment of data. While some intensive
applications need a terabyte of solid state disk to fully perform, many
others could simply benefit from a large cache such as the RamSan-330 to
make terabytes of RAIDs behave like solid state disk.
The state-of-the-art caching algorithms and
firmware built in to the RamSan-330 support three widely used caching
methods:
- Write
through caching: the server is not notified that a write is
committed until it is written to disk.
- Write-back
caching: all writes are to the RamSan-330. In the background, the
system uses available bandwidth to flush writes to the external
storage.
- Read-ahead
caching: Optimizes reads by pre-fetching blocks from disk in
anticipation of system storage requests.
These
methods are configurable per system or per segment.
Reliability
The RamSan-330 offers an ideal mix of speed and
data persistence. To ensure non-volatility, the RamSan-330 provides
redundant cache destaging and internal battery support. In the event of
external power loss, internal redundant batteries will keep the unit
powered for 25 minutes-- long enough to copy all data to internal
redundant hard disks and (if available) to an external storage device.
This ensures the resumption of normal operation as quickly as possible
after power failure.
The
unit also features redundant hot swappable power supplies, redundant hot
swappable disks for cache destaging, active:passive and active:active failover for Fibre Channel ports, ECC
memory error protection, and redundant cooling fan banks (front/back
airflow) to ensure the highest levels of reliability.
Manageability
One of the largest advantages of external cache systems such as the
RamSan-330 is the exceptional manageability and versatility of such a
unit. From a directly connected PC or over a standard ethernet network
via an intuitive browser interface, and administrator can flexibly
configure the RamSan-330 to meet current and future storage
performance challenges.
The RamSan-330 can accelerate one or many RAID
devices simultaneously, giving a virtually unlimited number of devices
access to a large bank of cache as needed. Different devices can be
configured with custom caching methods. The unit can be directly
attached or communicate via a Fibre Channel fabric. Write-back
priority, write queue depth, degree of read-ahead caching, and size of
cache lines are all configurable on a per-device basis. Additionally,
the unit is fully SNMP compatible.
Scalability
While 16 GB of RAID cache was once an expensive
luxury to datacenters, the RamSan-330's 16-64 GB of fast RAID cache
makes it available to any IT storage environment. While far larger than
most integrated cache systems in terms of capacity, the RamSan packs it
all into a mere 3U of rack space and provides far more scalability in
terms of capacity, performance, and connectivity options.
A
minimal RamSan-330 comes with 16 GB of cache and four Fibre Channel
ports. Additional Fibre Channel ports can be added (up to 8 total) to
either increase the number of connections available or to maximize
performance from cache. By increasing capacity, real world performance
is increased as the likelihood of getting data from cache instead of
disk increases.
Connectivity
The RamSan-330's four to eight 2Gbit Fibre
Channel ports can be flexibly allocated to servers, switches or storage
products. This means that a single RamSan-330 can simultaneously serve
as a cache for multiple Fibre Channel RAID, JBOD or other storage
devices.
The
RamSan-330 is transparent to the operating system. It automatically
caches writes and frequently accessed blocks in its high-performance memory
subsystem, improving read and write performance.
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RamSan-330 Resources
Datasheet 
In-Depth Whitepaper
Free White Papers
Web-Based Management Demonstration 
Learn more about
RamSan Product Line
Applications and Solutions
Pricing
Warranty and Support
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