Toshiba Memory America, Inc. (TMA), the U.S.-based subsidiary of Toshiba Memory Corporation, unveiled a new category of SAS SSDs (serial-attached SCSI solid-state drives) expected to replace SATA SSDs (serial advanced technology attachment solid-state drives) in server applications. The RM5 12Gbit/s value SAS (vSAS) series features capacity, performance, reliability, manageability, and data security advantages.
A homogeneous SAS environment has long been the gold standard for enterprise server and storage systems. With vertical integration expertise in flash technology, firmware and controller design, Toshiba leveraged its leading position as the world’s leading1 SAS SSD line optimizing RM5 to close the cost gap with SATA — and usher in a new class of SSD. SATA simply cannot compete with SAS, falling well short in terms of performance, robustness and encryption options.
Designed with affordability and server applications in mind, Toshiba’s RM5 vSAS series seeks to provide a cost-effective and much higher performing solution to overcome the bottlenecks that are inherent with SATA today. Where SATA drives often use SAS expanders to scale out, RM5 enables the use of native SAS from end-to-end, eliminating the need for protocol translation to SATA. Customers can now take full advantage of SAS’s richer feature set and realize up to 4x performance throughput superiority over SATA.
Featuring Toshiba’s BiCS FLASH™ TLC (3-bit-per-cell) 3D flash memory, the RM5 series will initially be available in capacities up to 7.68TB2 with a single 12Gb/s port, SFF-8639 connector and in a 2.5 in. form factor.
