Cloud Storage Shut-down while Viking SATADIMMs, ATTO 10GbE, and OCZ Vertex 3 all Ship

Here is a quick roundup of interesting news this week:

Iron Mountain Shutters Public Cloud Storage and Nirvanix Reaches Out to Stranded Customers

Perhaps one of the scariest things for anyone storing data in the cloud is what happens if that cloud provider ceases operations. Unlike an internal IT department shutting down a system, there is less control over third parties. This week, in response to Iron Mountain’s decision to shutter their public cloud storage, Nirvanix offered stranded Iron Mountain customers 30 days of free, unlimited storage. As storage moves increasingly to the cloud, these types of occurrences will be all the more common.

Viking Modular Solutions Introduces new DDR3 Compatible Flash Modules

Viking Modular Solutions, a well-known memory module manufacturer has been creating SSDs that fit in memory slots for a while now. This week Viking Modular Solutions introduced new DDR3 “SATADIMM” SSDs. The SSDs physically fit into DDR3 slots and get their power from the motherboard through the DIMM slot. The new SATADIMMs come in eMLC and SLC varieties and can sustain over 500MB/s transfers and deliver up to 60K IOPS. These are very cool bits of technology for high density servers. Two compelling reasons are that they are smaller than standard 2.5″ SSDs and they do not require a backplane or SATA power cabling.

ATTO Technologies FastFrame 10GbE NICs

ATTO Technologies announced this week new FastFrame 10GbE Network Interface Cards. 10GbE interfaces are becoming all the more necessary as storage speeds are increasing dramatically with the rapid introduction of flash-based caching. One can read more about caching technologies at the ServeTheHome storage caching primer. ATTO has long had a reputation for producing quality products, so this is an overall welcome development.

OCZ Shipping Vertex 3’s Through the Channel

OCZ Announced this week that it is shipping Vertex 3 drives through resellers after taking extra time to work on firmware tweaks. This has followed much followed announcements and delays. The Sandforce SF-2200 series controllers are highly anticipated sequels to the SF-1200 series controllers in the “Generation 2” SSD era. If OCZ and Sandforce got the formula right, and OCZ focuses on customer care, the Vertex 3 could be the killer product of 2011. It is also an interesting release insofar as OCZ is now a direct competitor of Sandforce as OCZ recently acquired Indilinx and its associated controller technology.

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