SANTA ANA, Calif., Jan. 28, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- STEC, Inc. (Nasdaq:STEC), a leading global provider of solid-state drive (SSD) solutions, today introduced a pair of two-Terabyte (2TB) Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) and Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) SSD drives – each with select versions supporting unlimited writes – becoming the first supplier to offer 2TB SSDs with both interfaces. Additionally, the company has released a significant update to its EnhanceIO™ SSD Cache Software. The new STEC 2TB s840 SAS SSD and 2TB s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD, along with the updated EnhanceIO software, deliver on STEC's mission of providing innovative solid-state storage solutions that solve many of the performance and optimization challenges in the enterprise storage market.
As STEC continues to align with the needs of enterprise customers, the company has chosen to focus more acutely on a specific range of SSD solutions. These advancements in SAS- and PCIe-based SSDs are key to this alignment, as these two interfaces represent the largest segments of the enterprise-storage market opportunity. The increased capacity, coupled with an array of proprietary STEC features, make the 2TB s840 and s1120 SSDs a clearly differentiated offering. The company has built high reliability, significant performance improvements and enhanced data protection into each drive, while utilizing unique, STEC-developed ASIC designs that provide low power and unmatched longevity. In addition, STEC's EnhanceIO software substantially improves the performance, manageability and usability of all drives – the software is drive-agnostic -- while optimizing virtualization applications across Windows and Linux environments.
"Our storage system requires flexibility to meet the demanding workloads and provide high data throughput across a variety of applications," said Daniel Iniguez, IT manager, NYX Cosmetics. "We required a storage solution that could not only meet our hardware demands, but that also combined several SSD formats with caching software that improved performance and manageability. STEC's SSD drives have exceeded our expectations and, working in tandem with EnhanceIO, address high storage loads and caching without fail. In an environment that demands quick execution and measurable productivity, we have seen clear results."
"Working together with architects from STEC, DataON Storage evaluated an all-flash storage solution that yielded an unprecedented 16GB/s sustained throughput featuring 48 2TB STEC s840 enterprise SAS SSDs within two DataON DNS-1640 external storage JBODs," said William Huang, vice president of sales, DataON Storage. "These high-throughput results show the true performance advantage of the STEC s840 drives and are especially valuable for accelerating I/O-intensive applications in industries such as the oil and gas, financial-services and government markets."
"As the solid-state drive market continues to evolve and expand, it's imperative that businesses find the right combination of performance, capacity, reliability, and endurance," said Jeff Janukowicz, research director for solid-state storage at IDC. "A full breadth of SSD solutions that fit multiple use cases and applications are a strong addition to the market, particularly in combination with caching software that can fully utilize the SSDs high capacity and performance."
The newest member of STEC's s800 Series SAS SSDs, the versatile 2TB s840 drive works seamlessly with existing enterprise storage infrastructures. The s840 appears to any system or RAID controller as a standard drive that can be managed by existing storage management tools, delivering true plug-and-play architecture. The 2TB s840's proprietary controller allows the product to support 12 to 25 percent greater capacity than other SAS SSD on the market. The drive's PowerSafe™ Technology protects against unscheduled power outages, a critical requirement for rapidly growing, data-intensive market segments, including cloud computing, data centers and large scale Internet properties.
The 2TB s1120, which establishes a new level in capacity for the STEC s1100 Series PCIe Accelerators, improves data access without expanding hardware footprints and operational costs, uses extremely low power, and provides high performance and endurance. Its low power consumption --- less than 25W – is essential to hyper-scale data centers, in which every Watt is critical. The s1120 PCIe Accelerator enables multiple SSDs to be deployed on a single server and features data-protection functions such as PowerSafe technology that ensure that data is not lost in the event of power failure. The 2TB s1120 card is ideal for accelerating applications such as big data, data analytics, statistical analysis and modeling, and video imaging, editing and sharing.
Both the s840 and s1120 SSDs are available in versions that support unlimited writes, features maximum longevity and reliability in write-intensive applications and optimizes users' return on enterprise SSD investments.
EnhanceIO Cache Software is designed to help users easily create, configure and analyze existing storage environments with cost-effective scalability. The new version has taken a major step forward with the addition of non-disruptive, fast, consistent and reliable write-back caching that greatly improves performance while reducing latency with improved data integrity. The software upgrade also includes usability improvements and a graphic user interface that compiles additional statistics and analytics to deliver increased productivity. EnhanceIO is ideal for database, big data and virtualization applications, where the drive-agnostic caching software provides non-intrusive performance enhancement by seamlessly integrating into existing storage infrastructures and increasing input/output (I/O) levels.
Availability, Pricing
The STEC 2TB s840 SAS SSD and 2TB s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD will be available in February with volume pricing starting at $7,995 and $9,425, respectively. EnhanceIO Cache Software is priced at $295 for Linux and $495 for Windows, and is available now for download from STEC's EnhanceIO page.
About STEC, Inc.
STEC, Inc. is a leading global provider of enterprise-class solid-state drive (SSD) technologies and solutions tailored to meet the high-performance, high-reliability, and high-endurance needs of today's data-intensive server and storage platforms. With headquarters in Santa Ana, California, and locations worldwide, STEC leverages two decades of solid-state knowledge and experience to design, manufacture and deliver the most comprehensive line of PCIe, SAS, SATA, and embedded SSDs on the market today. In addition, STEC's EnhanceIO SSD Cache Software enables IT managers to cost-effectively scale server application performance. For more information, please visit www.stec-inc.com.
STEC, the STEC logo, EnhanceIO and PowerSafe are either registered trademarks or trademarks of STEC, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks or brand names referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.
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Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including those statements concerning customer adoption and utilization of STEC's technologies and solutions; the size and growth of market demands for SAS and PCIe SSD solutions; the benefits, capabilities, performance, and cost savings of STEC's 2TB s840 SAS SSD, 2TB s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD, and EnhanceIO Cache Software; the applicability and usefulness of these solutions to certain applications and industries; and the evolving enterprise storage and server markets. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements are detailed in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, made from time to time by STEC, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and its subsequent Current Reports on Form 8-K, which are available on the Investor Relations section of STEC's website at www.stec-inc.com. The information contained in this press release is a statement of STEC's present intentions, beliefs or expectations. STEC may change its intentions, beliefs or expectations, at any time and without notice, based upon any changes in such factors, from STEC's assumptions and otherwise. Except as required by law, STEC undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date thereof, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.