HITACHI Corporate Flash Solution Review

Today, flash memory technology has already taken a strong position in the consumer device market, and there is every reason to expect its rapid spread also in the area of ​​corporate solutions. The main question is how organizations navigate through the different types of flash drives available, their uses, the benefits and the opportunities they can provide to companies. Habraobzor about what Hitachi Data Systems has to offer in this plan

Hitachi sees tremendous potential for its customers in flash memory technology and creates new solutions for using this technology in mission-critical enterprise-level applications. Having kept Hitachi's tradition for many years, they have offered options for each storage system based on solid-state drives, and recently released a series of integrated flash devices that are based on Hitachi’s new flash memory management technology.
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We present to your attention a flash solution that consists of the entry-level enterprise storage system Hitachi Unified Storage VM (HUS VM) and flash drives Flash Module Drive (FMD).
The proposal includes three main models, characterized by a different number of flash modules and, accordingly, performance, but the solution supports extensive scalability for demanding tasks and expansion for further growth.

The table below summarizes some of the characteristics of the various solution models.

Flash solutions based on the HUS VM platform and FMD modules

The HUS VM system is able to provide the necessary balance between large storage capacity and high performance through the use of modern solid-state drives for storing the most requested data. However, the use of SSD drives is subject to certain restrictions, the most significant of which is low data storage density. The solution to the problem was an innovative product - the result of Hitachi's own development, called the Flash Module Drive.

Each module combines flash memory chips and a dedicated Hitachi controller used to monitor operations on chips and implement advanced functionality. Such a controller allowed to implement a number of extremely useful functions, such as:
• Address conversion. Logical-physical address conversion allows you to asynchronously delete old data, this allows you to reduce the load on the processor during peak loads.

• Buffer for short entries. Since the memory cells on flash modules have a certain size, short records are first collected in a special buffer and only after reaching the required size are recorded as a whole block. This mechanism allows you to significantly optimize the capacity of FMD-modules.

• Update data. In order to avoid data loss, each module automatically once every 30 days overwrites the information available on it.

• Real-time data compression. With a constant stream of “1” or “0”, the data compression algorithm is activated, thanks to which only one first character is written, after which a pointer is put indicating the number of identical characters to be written. This mechanism allows you to save up to 94% of storage capacity.

• Global record distribution. To increase the performance and service life of the FMD module, the controller separately ensures that data is recorded evenly across all memory cells. This significantly reduces the wear of flash memory cells and increases the performance of the system as a whole.

To connect the FMD modules as part of HUS VM systems, specialized disk shelves are used. Each shelf has a height of only 2U and supports the installation of up to 12 FMD modules with a capacity of 1.6 TB and 3.2 TB. HUS VM systems are scaled to 96 FMD, which makes it possible to get more than 300 TB of flash capacity.

Disk Module Flash Module Drive successfully cope with the solution of complex, resource-demanding tasks: improving the performance of high-load databases, the efficient operation of analytical services, cloud computing.

More than just “flash”

When sharing the system HUS VM and FMD-modules, in addition to the internal functionality of each drive, the full range of features of full-fledged data storage systems is available. The HUS VM platform is a leading product in the Hitachi Data Systems storage line, combining the power of enterprise-class high-performance platforms, scalability, and unified data access to mid-level systems. Based on it, creating a universal storage system for all types of data allows unique platform features:

• Virtualization of external arrays. HUS VM can act as a virtualizer of storage systems of other manufacturers, while data migration occurs at the highest possible speed and with minimal risk. Virtualized volume is scaled to 64 PB.

• Multi-level storage system. For optimal use of resources in a system with different types of disks, Hitachi Dynamic Tiering (HDT) functionality is used to migrate data blocks between different storage levels. With it, it is possible to automatically or manually move the most heavily loaded logical volumes (LUN) to faster disks, and the least demanded volumes to capacious NL-SAS disks.

• Instant snapshots. The Hitachi Thin Image engine provides the creation of snapshots of logical volumes, is an evolution of the Copy-on-Write Snapshot functionality, and uses Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning functionality, allowing you to create up to 1024 snapshots per logical volume.

• Clone data. Local data protection and cloning of file resources is provided by JetClone's unique mechanism — the ability to create clones of objects with the most efficient storage mechanisms without actually copying the source data. Due to the lack of copying operations when creating clones, the creation process takes place almost instantly.

• Synchronous and asynchronous replication. On the HUS VM platform, a synchronous and asynchronous data replication mechanism is implemented. On the basis of the tasks to be solved, capacities and communication channels, one or another replication mechanism can be used to design disaster-resistant solutions and create geographically distributed data processing centers.

• File access. Using HNAS plug-ins, the platform is able to provide access to data via CIFS, NFS and FTP protocols, solving the whole range of tasks related to providing access and storage of both block and file data.

General characteristics of the solution

The full-fledged storage system of HUS VM data together with the FMD flash modules is a solution with wide capabilities in terms of functionality, scalability and reliability:
• Response time less than 1 millisecond;
• Wide scalability: more than 300 TB of flash capacity, 1 300 TB of SAS capacity and 4 600 TB of NL-SAS capacity;
• The presence of specialized controllers, its own cache memory and MLC memory modules on each FMD-drive for increased overall performance;
• Electricity consumption per TB is 40% less than when using SSDs;
• An error correction mechanism (ECC) and automatic updating of all recorded data every 30 days to ensure data integrity protection;
• Ability to connect via Fiber Channel and iSCSI;
• Firmware upgrade and non-disruptive hardware modification;
• Architecture of automatic failover to hot-swappable backup components;
• Non-volatile cache backup using battery and flash drives;
• Support hardware RAID 5, 6, 10;

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