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Colossus 3.5-in SSD Combines Quad Controllers

Posted by Soulskill on from the going-for-the-gusto dept.

Vigile writes "The new Colossus SSD comes in capacities starting at 256GB and going all the way up to 1TB in a standard 3.5-in hard drive form factor. This larger size was required because the drive actually integrates not one but four Indilinx SSD controllers and three total RAID controllers in a nested RAID-0 array. All of this goodness combines to create an incredibly fast drive that beats most other options in terms of write speeds and is competitive in read tests as well. Using some custom 'garbage collection' firmware, the drive works around the fact that TRIM commands aren't supported in RAID configurations to maintain high speeds through the life of the SSD."

52 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. You knew it was coming by SpudB0y · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. Doctor Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.

    1. Re:You knew it was coming by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Informative

      For those still wondering, it's a reference to Colossus: The Forbin Project, one of the best sci-fi classics involving computers-take-over-the-world scenario. Too bad Universal Studios botched the DVD release... not available in widescreen, the artwork on the DVD cover even gets the name of the movie wrong.

  2. On SATA? by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really, if you want to spend that kind of money, put it on a card. It would be much faster on the PCI buss that SATA for a negligible incremental cost.

    1. Re:On SATA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you put it on a card, then the chips will sit vertically, and the data will leak out of the bottom. They have to be put in a disk enclosure and mounted horizontally so that they bits stay inside the chip.

    2. Re:On SATA? by brxndxn · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't see why they don't put data chips in the original Heinz ketchup bottles.. Nothing ever comes out of those.

      --
      --- We need more Ron Paul!
    3. Re:On SATA? by Kjella · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ok, so I got no sense of humor but the by far most common configuration is for the motherboard to be vertical and all the expansion cards to be *drumroll* horizontal. But yeah, that must be limiting the potential throughput, the Z-drive is already faster than SATA3.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:On SATA? by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

      In those cases that's even worst because the bits are upside-down!

    5. Re:On SATA? by Quantumstate · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, this would only be suitable for desktops, if you give it a bit of a heavy knock like you might with a laptop then a huge mass of data comes shooting out all at once.

    6. Re:On SATA? by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 2, Funny

      Really, if you want to spend that kind of money, put it on a card. It would be much faster on the PCI buss that SATA for a negligible incremental cost.

      If you buy that SSD and put it on a regular PCI bus, I will personally go over there and strangle you.

      PCIe would be fine.

      --
      Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
    7. Re:On SATA? by mysidia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, but if it was a PCI card, we couldn't plug these into external JBOD arrays that combine 24 drives and allows volumes/LUNs to be carved out and served up to various servers... Actually, it'd be nice if they made it SAS instead of SATA.

      WTH is with high-end hardware using the low-performance ATA standard instead of SCSI nowadays, anyways?

    8. Re:On SATA? by Alamais · · Score: 2, Funny

      Er, a lot of the boards I've seen have the SATA controller connected internally to a PCIe bridge. Besides that, even with PCIe 1.0 you get 250MB/s per lane. A 4x card thus readily beats SATA. A 16x 2.0 card would 8GB/s. I want an SSD that can fill that.

      *cough*and for $100 plz*cough*

      ...might as well dream big.

    9. Re:On SATA? by houstonbofh · · Score: 2, Informative

      WTH is with high-end hardware using the low-performance ATA standard instead of SCSI nowadays, anyways?

      They are trying to turn the "I" in RAID back to inexpensive.

    10. Re:On SATA? by zippthorne · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or shake it vigorously before attempting to pour (frequency is more important than amplitude. The higher, the better). Ketchup, like much of California, is susceptible to vibration-induced liquefaction. You look ridiculous, though.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    11. Re:On SATA? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, but if it was a PCI card, we couldn't plug these into external JBOD arrays that combine 24 drives and allows volumes/LUNs to be carved out and served up to various servers... Actually, it'd be nice if they made it SAS instead of SATA.

      WTH is with high-end hardware using the low-performance ATA standard instead of SCSI nowadays, anyways?

      If you take a look, they aren't all that far apart.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    12. Re:On SATA? by gzunk · · Score: 3, Informative

      An SDD attached to a PCI express slot could indeed beat an on-board SATA contoller. On my motherboard, the PCI express slots are linked to the motherboard via a 6.4GT/s QPI link, whereas the onboard SATA controllers have to go through the ICH10R and then via a x4 PCIe link (ESI) link to get to the 6.4GT/s link.

      So, PCIe card could be up to 4 times faster than onboard...

  3. Still has a long way to go before its viable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    128 GB $549.99
    256 GB $1,014.99
    512 GB $1,599.99
    1024 GB $3,315.99

    1. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's not bad. The 512 gig SSD is only 30 times more expensive than the 512 gig HDD I bought at staple last week.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    2. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by Kjella · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I guess for small values of "only". I think the more important metric is this:

      Cheapest 2.5" SSD (40GB): 696,- NOK
      Cheapest 2.5" HDD (160GB): 285,- NOK

      That's now <2.5 times the difference. Sure it's 10x the difference if you price it per gigabyte, but only if you need 160GB. That's what'll trigger the SSD revolution, the bulk storage will come much later.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by mysidia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What about 4gb and 8gb SSDs? There are some you can get for under $200. You can find a 2 or 4gb SSD for under $100, if you look hard enough.

    4. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2, Informative

      What about 4gb and 8gb SSDs? There are some you can get for under $200. You can find a 2 or 4gb SSD for under $100, if you look hard enough.

      He quoted prices in Norwegian Kroner (1$US = 5.66NOK according to oanda.com). So he found a 40GB SSD for $123 (696NOK), presumably including the absurd Norwegian VAT, making a US equivalent price below $100.

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    5. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by bcmm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Everybody complaining that they cost more than HDDs is missing an important point: they're better than HDDs.

      Remember, backup tape still has a large bytes/cent advantage over HDDs. I take it your laptop keep everything on tape?

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    6. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by Unnamed+Chickenheart · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is 25% VAT absurd in your opinion?

      --
      urd
    7. Re:Still has a long way to go before its viable by Jesus_666 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      However, Blu-Ray is also technologically superior to DVD, yet I still know plenty people that will most likely not get a Blu-Ray player/drive in the next five years. Why? DVD is adequate, HDTVs are expensive and on the storage side BD-R is both much too expensive and much too slow.

      DVD and modern HDDs hit the sweet spot of "good enough". They're fast enough for most people, they're resilient enough for most people (granted, this is helped by the little long-term data we have on SSDs being inconsistent) and they're really cheap. SSDs are faster, lighter, quieter, possibly more resilient and take lesser power - but they're nowhere near the pricing sweet spot and that's enough to make people settle for HDDs.

      It's all about priority. Most people are happy with the performance of their 7200 RPM drive so speed doesn't factor in. Weight and power drain appeals to netbook users but few want their netbook to go outside the 100-200 USD range just because of a storage option. Resilience is great for notebooks but again the high USD/GB figure means that storage is either small or very expensive (which is fine with those who don't need much space and unacceptable with those who do).

      SSDs are getting there but like Blu-Ray they need to displace a technology that is already "good enough" for most users. SSDs' advantages are essentially "soft skills"; until they can become competitive in what many people are primarily looking after (cheap storage), they won't displace them.


      The mistake all those people complaining about SSD complainers make is that they assume everyone has lots of money to spend on equipment. People on a budget go for what gives them the most bang for the buck. So far, many people take only storage size to contribute to the bang, therefore SSDs are nowhere near competitive for the budget buyer.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  4. Fuck everything, we're doing five controllers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of storage in this country. The Intel X-25 was the SSD to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-controller drive. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the X-25E. That's three controllers and an extra port. For USB. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to four controllers. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three controllers and a cache. USB or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five controllers.

  5. Random write speed? by evanbd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought it was pretty clear that what matters for most desktop users is the random small write speed. See, for example, Anandtech's SSD anthology and later followups.

    So, where are the 4 KiB random write benchmarks? They are conspicuously absent from this review. We can see the effect, I think, in the IOMeter results -- the X-25M outperforms the OCZ drive across the board on those, despite the OCZ win in the throughput tests. But, personally, I'd like to see the raw numbers on 4 KiB random writes. Have this many reviewers really learned so little about benchmarking SSDs since they came out?

    1. Re:Random write speed? by maxume · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm really only interested in cost per gigabyte at this point, among the quality vendors, every single drive is faster than a spinning disk (and the trend is generally that the performance is getting better and better, not to mention that they probably won't reach prices I find attractive before trim support is widespread and working well).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    2. Re:Random write speed? by nedlohs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because a 1TB drive that costs $3300 is aimed at "most desktop users".

    3. Re:Random write speed? by thue · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The slow random write will also be a problem for some very common server workloads, such as databases.

    4. Re:Random write speed? by evanbd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This drive is a performance-oriented drive. If you only care about cost per GB, you won't be buying it. Anyone who is buying it, cares about performance; neglecting the aspect of performance that most desktop users will find most relevant is shoddy reviewing.

      FWIW, I mostly agree with you — I care more about cost per GB than raw performance. That said, I still care about performance. Fortunately, most of the good vendors have drives with good performance now.

    5. Re:Random write speed? by Sulphur · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just like old times. Sell your car and buy a hard disk.

    6. Re:Random write speed? by mysidia · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The drive outperforms the mechanical drive in IOPs and block reads/writes which is what matters.

      Databases actually tend to use larger block reads and writes, the drive would be perfect for most databases, that is, database load is just the type of load where this drive is better than other SSDs...

      With suitable amount of system memory and host controller with reasonable cache, this drive would be phenomenal in table scan performance.

      It's application loads that are heavy in small random reads and writes that the drive isn't that good for compared to some other high-end SSDs.

      Still 5000 random IOPs in 1 3.5" package is nothing to sneeze at.

      Most hard drives pull off a small fraction of that.

    7. Re:Random write speed? by petermgreen · · Score: 2, Informative

      Why not two drives....your performance drive, OS, shared libraries, commonly accessed software and files on super fast SSD.
      Ok for desktop users but most laptops either can't accomodate two drives full stop or require some other significant component (often the optical drive afaict) to be sacrificed to get a second drive.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    8. Re:Random write speed? by mysidia · · Score: 2, Informative

      The X-25M is an 160gb HDD, half the capacity. The IOPs of SSD drives are so large, that in fact, a 30 or 40% IOPs difference is basically irrelevent for DB apps; transfer throughputs for random reads/writes at various block sizes are the most telling factor.

      Being able to quote 30000 IOPS is useless, if that number cannot be sustained with at least a 256K blocksize, commonly used for filesystems and database apps. Small random reads/writes are rare in the most demanding real-world apps.

      And the Collossus showed to be quite superior to the X-25M in this regard.

      We can see quite plainly the OCZ drive outperformed the X-25M on the file copy tests by a massive margin. And in the average write transfer speed compared to the X-25M.

      The X-25M plain wasn't good at all with large writes.

      The OCZ Colossus' random write capabilities were just plain impressive as shown in YAPT Random writes test. 200 MB/s random writes, for 128Kb blocks/larger, VS 100 MB/s with the Intel X-25M

      And even at 64K blocks, it was no worse than the X-25M

    9. Re:Random write speed? by AllynM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think you're missing something about IOPS. With a 256K block size, you'd be lucky to crack 1000 IOPS over a SATA 3Gb/sec link. At such a large block size you hit the interface bandwidth limit way before you hit any IOPS limit.

      Multithreaded database applications do not hit a drive with sequential 256K block requests. Under load, there will be several of those requests occurring simultaneously. Given the timing, a non-NCQ drive may receive the parallel requests rapidly alternating among multiple 256K streams in differing locations. The now highly random stream will bring non-NCQ drives to their knees, while an X25 will just keep right on cruising at very close to 100 MB/sec.

      Allyn Malventano
      Storage Editor, PC Perspective

      --
      this sig was brought to you by the letter /.
    10. Re:Random write speed? by MojoStan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's my plan. I've got the cheap, big disk... I just have to buy the small, fast SSD.

      You have heard about Kingston's 40GB SSD that uses Intel's X25-M G2 controller, right?

      It's supposed to be $115 ($130 with 3.5" adapter kit), but it's hard to find in stock now.

      --
      TO START
      PRESS ANY KEY

      Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...

  6. Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by thomasdz · · Score: 5, Informative

    People think all SSDs are the same. They aren't. Consumer SSDs are typically MLC and have a failure rate far above "enterprise" SSDs which are SLC. I wish you could buy consumer SLC SSDs

    --
    Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
    1. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by lukas84 · · Score: 4, Informative

      OCZ sells some in their Vertex line. They're still expensive as fuck.

    2. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by royallthefourth · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can, but they're tiny and expensive even compared to other SSD's

      http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636+1749646482&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=636&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

    3. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

      SSD, MLC, SLC, OCZ... WTF?

    4. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by El+Capitaine · · Score: 5, Informative

      OCZ - OCZ Technology - Manufacturer of hardware - OCZ Technology

      SSD - Solid-State-Drive - Type of hard drive - Solid State Drive

      MLC - Multi-level cell - Technology used in making SSDs - Multi-level Cell

      SLC - Single-level cell - Technology used in making SSDs - Single-level Cell

      A little search can go a long way...

    5. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by maugle · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have you tried running BSD on an OCZ MLC SSD while on LSD? OMG.

    6. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by Falconhell · · Score: 2, Funny

      Can I buy a vowel?

    7. Re:Get the word out: SLC vs MLC by noidentity · · Score: 3, Funny

      A little search can go a long way...

      Yeah, but it's even easier to have someone else do the searching for us. Good work; keep it up!

  7. Useless by ShooterNeo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This kludgey design is a bad idea for several reasons :

    1. Despite throwing the kitchen sink at the problem, those indilinx chips are still much slower than Intel's controller at small, random reads and writes.

    2. Since the drive needs four indilinx controllers rather than 1, some complex packaging, AND 3 RAID controllers it's going to cost a lot more per gigabyte. It's probably also more failure prone. And the MSRPs bear that out : this is a lot more expensive than the MSRPs for the equivalent Intel product.

    3. Doesn't support native TRIM support

    4. Biggest problem of all : the drive is bandwidth starved because it's on the SATA bus rather than on the PCI express bus. Furthermore, those slow internal RAID chips don't help matters. So instead of supporting sequential reads at 600 megabytes/second, it's capped at about 240. Lame.

    1. Re:Useless by seanalltogether · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What I don't understand is that if they're going to make a RAID SSD in a 3.5 enclosure, why don't they give it 2 SATA links in so they can saturate 2 buses? In fact, how many SATA links could you support in a single 3.5 enclosure?

  8. There are plenty of options. by earls · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636&Subcategory=636&srchInDesc=slc

  9. And by DaMattster · · Score: 3, Informative

    It comes with a Collosus of a price tag :)

  10. Forget that by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm waiting for the Guardian model.

  11. SLC pricing is a scam by haruchai · · Score: 4, Interesting

    and the companies ( Hello, Samsung!) should be ashamed. It wasn't until a few years ago that MLC was commercially viable but it only increases
    by a factor of TWO. That's one of the lowest, most pointless tradeoffs ever in recent computing.

    So, I get merely TWICE the storage for a TEN TIMES reduction in average component life, a 40% reduction in write speed, without fancy controller
    redesign, and we get to enjoy all the ludicrous "benefits" of MLC for the price that SLC would have been anyway, through market forces and silicon die shrink

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    1. Re:SLC pricing is a scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      MLC echos a design philosophy in computer engineering these days. Build stuff to work until exactly one day after the warranty expires. Even with adding myraid ways of error correction, it is like substituting road apples for apples for Thanksgiving pie, and pouring on the spices and sugar to minimize the poo taste.

      MLC just needs to be shitcanned and the focus be on getting SLC technology better/faster/cheaper.

    2. Re:SLC pricing is a scam by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Are MLCs really that bad? I'm finding budget SSDs with MLCs, with warranties of several years. If the drive lasts several years, I'm a satisfied customer. I don't care if an SLC-based drive would have lasted longer, because by that time, I'll be replacing my drive with a larger one, anyway.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  12. Re:Speed by AllynM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would, but don't do it with that one or you'll fry either the board. They rewired the internal connectors so they could pass 2 channels over a single SATA connector. The SATA data lines passed via the power connector IIRC, so yeah, don't do it :).

    http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=821&type=expert

    Allyn Malventano
    Storage Editor, PC Perspective

    --
    this sig was brought to you by the letter /.