The RAM-SAN storage appliance by Texas Memory Systems offers a combination of high bandwidth and low latency unmatched by any competing storage device.  It removes the time-critical bottlenecks inherent to RAID-based storage, resulting in a dramatic decrease in response time for SAN file accesses.  Unlike rotational storage media, the RAM-SAN’s ultra low latency (< 20 microseconds) is maintained across a wide range of operating scenarios – whether file accesses are short or long, random or sequential, shared or private.  Used alone, the RAM-SAN delivers unmatched READ and WRITE performance.  Used in conjunction with a network RAID, the RAM-SAN delivers unmatched READ performance while still maintaining the data persistence of magnetic storage.

While the RAM-SAN requires only a modest 10.5” of rack space, it still provides higher bandwidth than refrigerator-sized disk arrays.  This available bandwidth provides an upward growth path for more demanding future applications, as well as extra bandwidth for truly demanding current applications.  This performance is independent of storage capacity, with even the smallest RAM-SAN offering 3 Gigabytes per second of system bandwidth.  RAM-SAN systems start at $54,000 for 8 Gigabytes of solid-state storage and a single Fibre Channel link.  This capacity can easily be expanded to 64 Gigabytes and as many as fifteen total Fibre Channel links.

In addition to bandwidth, the RAM-SAN also delivers unmatched access latency.  Typical disk-based storage becomes progressively slower as more users attempt to access the same file.  This same decrease in performance occurs as file accesses become “more random”.  The RAM-SAN, by comparison, provides immediate data access, even under conditions of maximal loading and highly random addressing.  While most high performance RAIDs are capable of delivering approximately 1,000 IOPS, a fully loaded RAM-SAN is capable of delivering over 500,000 IOPS!   Typical RAM-SAN applications include multi-user relational databases, “hot files,” high-traffic web page retrievals, recording or playback of real-time data streams, and any other application with a significant “hate-to-wait” factor.

The RAM-SAN includes three separate hot-swappable power supplies, each with its own AC power source.  This redundancy allows for failed power supplies to be easily replaced without the need for a system shutdown.  While the RAM-SAN has no internal hard disk dedicated to backup service, TMS does provide several external backup options that are available to the user as described in the Backup Method section.