Diablo Technologies Disrupts Latency and Performance Metrics

[btarunr]

Diablo Technologies, a proven innovator in advanced memory system interface products, today introduced Memory Channel Storage (MCS), a transformational new storage and system memory solution, resetting the bar for latency and throughput for enterprise applications.

Diablo leveraged its extensive experience in advanced memory channel interfaces and protocols to deliver a superior system architecture that directly attaches persistent memory to the host processors of a server or storage array. This innovative approach utilizes the industry standard DIMM form factor and native CPU memory interface, allowing MCS to be a drop-in replacement for standard RDIMMs. The architecture delivers the highest, most economical scaling of any enterprise storage solution on the market today, with persistent latencies approaching that of DRAM and linear scaling of throughput with additional modules.



"Flash SSDs boost system performance, and flash over PCIe is even faster, but the best performance will come from flash on the memory channel," said Jim Handy, Director at Objective Analysis. "Diablo is on the right path by providing a way to plug flash right into the DDR memory buses on today's servers."

Configuring MCS as a traditional block storage device enables new performance levels for applications, all the while reducing latencies by more than 85% over PCI-Express based SSDs and 96% over SATA/SAS based SSDs. MCS latencies are not only significantly lower than any other flash based storage, but also provides deterministic latencies with minimal variability, allowing applications to commit data quickly and consistently.

In addition to block storage, Memory Channel Storage can also be configured to expand system memory from gigabytes to terabytes, dramatically improving the performance of large in-memory applications. This unparalleled capability provides a 100x increase in accessible memory and allows the entire application data set to reside in the CPU memory space. This disruptive capability makes MCS uniquely well suited for memcached, big data analytics, and other large in-memory applications.

"Performance in storage and density in DRAM have massively fallen behind the curve of CPU capability and growing data capacity needs, which ultimately reduces application performance and increases TCO for users. Flash is the key to a balanced compute architecture and massive application acceleration," said Riccardo Badalone, Chief Executive Officer at Diablo. "The arrival of MCS finally allows applications to leverage the benefits of flash memory connected directly to the processor's memory controllers, which will ultimately change the cost/density/performance rules forever."

Memory Channel Storage is ideally suited for applications critical to large enterprise customers where high performance at deterministic, ultra-low latency is required for ultimate efficiency, including:

• Database / Cloud
• Big Data Analytics
• High Frequency Trading and other financial applications
• Server and Storage Virtualization and Consolidation
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

MCS is compatible with any industry-standard DDR3 memory slot, allowing deployment across the full spectrum of server and storage system designs, chassis' and form-factors. The MCS architecture is particularly attractive for blade servers, where PCIe slots are severely limited in availability and size, requiring costly and custom designs and reduced flash storage capacity.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Mussels]

flash memory into RAM slots :/



this could get interesting, fast.

 

[Prima.Vera]

"Diablo Technologies"...

 

[Deleted member 67555]

This is HDD in RAM slot?
Awesome...if right y this no happen b4 dis?

 

[lyndonguitar]

I thought it had something to do with the game

 

[Frick]

This is HDD in RAM slot?

SSD.

But yeah this is interesting. How do the system know what is what though? Lets say you pop a 256GB stick in there, and you already have 8GB RAM. Will that storage be seen as RAM then, or will you be able to access it as a logical drive? If it's seen as RAM, will it only be used when the 8GB RAM is maxed out, and is there a way to tie certain programs to certain blocks or whatever?

 

[d1nky]

may have to install some kind of driver/software to use it. and RAMdisks would be fun, click Disk C: and insert.

boards have a max capacity for RAM (not sure on server types) so it must or may be 'disk' shown.

i like how things are going forward.

 

[Mussels]

im going to expect that this will work as RAM, and appear as ram to the OS.

clearly you would need a compatible BIOS/UEFI for it to function (or a hardware based emulation - oh look i'm 64GB of DDR3 1333, when i'm really 64GB of slower SSD)

 

[CounterZeus]

They talk about the RAM speeds that are much slower than CPU. How much faster than traditional RAM is it? They only give number for SSDs..

edit: nvm, it's "approaching" the speeds, so it's a tad slower

 

[Mussels]

They talk about the RAM speeds that are much slower than CPU. How much faster than traditional RAM is it? They only give number for SSDs..

edit: nvm, it's "approaching" the speeds, so it's a tad slower

i think many of us would gladly lose some RAM speed to go 10x the capacity, especially if we could regain the bandwidth with stuff like quad channel 'ram'.

 

[digibucc]

flash memory into RAM slots :/



this could get interesting, fast.

no pun intended really though, this is pretty exciting news.

 

[CounterZeus]

i think many of us would gladly lose some RAM speed to go 10x the capacity, especially if we could regain the bandwidth with stuff like quad channel 'ram'.

Oh well, I saw the title and was a bit disappointed when I read the rest. It's not something I can use. I've been working on video quality metrics for this past year and my RAM usage is still low. But of course, there will always be situations where this is useful.

 

[Frick]

im going to expect that this will work as RAM, and appear as ram to the OS.

clearly you would need a compatible BIOS/UEFI for it to function (or a hardware based emulation - oh look i'm 64GB of DDR3 1333, when i'm really 64GB of slower SSD)

Which brings the question: Will the normal RAM be downclocked to match this, or will they have different speeds? And again how will the software decide where to put things? Because I see it as a kind of cache memory, but for RAM.

 

[Mussels]

Which brings the question: Will the normal RAM be downclocked to match this, or will they have different speeds? And again how will the software decide where to put things? Because I see it as a kind of cache memory, but for RAM.

that would be dependant on whatever its connected to, and how they set it up.


it COULD be done so the BIOS recognises it, and sets it independently as a storage drive. (new hardware only)

Or it could be set to emulate RAM to JEDEC standards (works on current hardware, assuming your board can detect the higher capacity), but im not sure how that would work mixing and matching with normal ram, since the real-world speeds would not be equal.

 

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

Few quick points:

1. Flash is pretty slow compared to RAM chips, terrible latency. Why would you want to make already terrible memory bottleneck worse?

2. Write durability. Flash has very limited write cycles. RAM practically infinite. People need to start replacing "RAM" sticks much sooner.

3. I can already slap +300GB ram on a highend server without any problem.

4. Need some extra hw/sw to keep track what stick is flash and what is ram.

 

[Mussels]

Few quick points:

1. Flash is pretty slow compared to RAM chips, terrible latency. Why would you want to make already terrible memory bottleneck worse?

2. Write durability. Flash has very limited write cycles. RAM practically infinite. People need to start replacing "RAM" sticks much sooner.

3. I can already slap +300GB ram on a highend server without any problem.

4. Need some extra hw/sw to keep track what stick is flash and what is ram.

1. to fit 10x or 100x as much in. they say its faster than SSD, which is a good start.

2. fair point. but there would also be a LOT of these modules, evening it out somewhat (and its a rapidly evolving tech)

3. i hate you

4. yeah