StorONE had enabled indirect NVMe-oF access to disk drives through an NVMe flash tier with its latest array software update.
This development has come in advance of native NMVe access to disk drives. NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a parallel access protocol for flash (non-volatile) storage, whereas hard disk drives (HDD) have traditionally been accessed by serial protocols such as SAS and SATA, which are much slower. The NVM Express organisation released the NVMe v2.0 spec in June 2021, extending NVMe’s scope to cover removable cards, compute accelerators and HDDs as well as the existing enterprise and client SSDs. Seagate could ship demo NVMe disks by mid-2024. There’s no need to wait – StorONE is delivering indirect NVMe HDD access now.
CEO Gal Naor said: “To date, vendors have used NVMe-oF solely to advance their all-flash agendas, which only accelerates the cost of storage. We now give customers the best way to leverage NVMe-oF and continue to drive down the cost of storage.”
StorONE’s Enterprise Storage Platform array can connect to the network via NVMe-oF and manage NVMe SSDs as the primary tier while automatically moving less active data to the secondary HDD tier for longer term retention. It says users benefit from a single array that can deliver millions of IOPS from flash and also decades of affordable retention from disk. They also, we could say, reduce the cost of NVMe storage by up to 10x.
Neor said “Our platform approach to storage not only means supporting a wide variety of use cases but also new protocols, like NVMe-oF. At the same time, we make sure our customers can continue to leverage their existing investment, eliminating the need for costly storage migrations.” StorONE’s product supports multiple protocols simultaneously, enabling customers adopt NVMe-oF at their own pace. They can carry on using existing protocols like iSCSI, Fiber Channel, NFS, SMB, or S3, while making investments in NVMe-oF the same time, without migrating data.
Companies that are already using NVMe-oF and are looking to archive to more affordable HDD technology can start using StorONE as an NVMe-attached HDD archive target. They can then add performance-sensitive workloads to the platform, using its flash tier as needs demand.
Existing StorONE customers can add the HDD over NVMe-oF capability through a software update at no additional charge. To find out more you can register for a StorONE “The NVMe-oF Readiness Workshop” webinar on June 28.