SMART Storage Systems today announced ULLtraDIMM, the first commercially available SSD that fits in a RAM slot (DIMM). By connecting NAND flash memory directly to the memory channel the company claims DRAM-like performance and latency. SMART Storage specifies the write latency of the ULLtraDIMM 5 microseconds and the read latency at 150 microseconds. Regular consumer drives usually have a write latency that's 10x higher.
For some enterprise applications the latency is more important than the read and write speed of the drive, these include real-time (big) data analytics and high-frequency trading. By using NAND through the memory channel the latency is much lower than connections trough SATA or PCI Express. And due to the nature of the memory bus the latency remains at the same low level whether you use 1, 2 or 50 ULLtraDIMM SSDs.
The drive's random read and write speeds are 150K/60K IOPS respectively and sustained read and write is specified at 1GB/s and 760MB/s and it will be available in capacities of 200 and 400 GB. The NAND is 19 nm MLC and the drive has power failure protection and several data protection features.
SMART Storage developed the ULLtraDIMM SSD together with Diablo Technologies. We reported about this company last week as they announced their Memory Channel Storage technology.
