SMART Modular announced NVDIMM-N DIMMs with a 32GB capacity. This doubles the capacity of the company’s previous top-end models. NVDIMMs have become a popular choice for those running applications such as in-memory databases where RAM storage is significantly faster than SSDs.
By utilizing capacitors and onboard flash to push main memory storage to onboard flash storage during an unplanned power outage event, NVDIMMs offer data protection not found in standard DIMMs. We tested NVDIMMs during power failure during the DDR3 generation. As performance and capacity needs increase, the demand for NVDIMMs has been strong. SMART Modular is one of the leaders in the NVDIMM space so it is great to see larger capacities come to market.
Here is an excerpt of details from the company’s press release:
SMART Modular Announces Industry’s First 32GB DDR4 NVDIMM-N
SMART Modular Technologies, Inc., a leader in specialty memory, storage and hybrid solutions including memory modules, Flash memory cards and other solid state storage products, today announced sample availability of its 32GB DDR4 NVDIMM-N, making it the highest density DDR4 NVDIMM-N module available in the industry. SMART will begin sampling at the end of August 2016. The new 32GB density significantly improves application performance making it ideal in server and storage environments.
NVDIMMs transform main DRAM memory into persistent memory, resulting in higher performing servers by allowing big data, transaction logs, and other latency and performance-sensitive data to be accessed at DRAM speeds without the risk of data loss. Rather than reading and writing data or transaction logs to traditional storage media such as SATA SSDs, PCIe NVMe SSDs, or HDDs, data can be written to and read from main memory without the risk of data loss due to any catastrophic power loss event. Server performance as measured by lower latency, higher IOPS, and greater endurance, all dramatically increase with the integration of NVDIMMs.
SMART’s DDR4 NVDIMMs are targeted to support a wide range of industry-standard and OEM server and storage platforms such as Dell, HP Enterprise, Intel®, Lenovo™, Supermicro®, and others. SMART is also supporting DDR4 NVDIMM standardization work at JEDEC and through SNIA’s NVDIMM SIG (Special Interest Group) as well.
SMART’s DDR4 NVDIMMs with proprietary SafeStor™ technology have a unique, feature-rich, JEDEC-compliant command and control register interface which has been developed through many years of detailed work with customers. These NVDIMM modules also have an integrated DRAM and Flash controller with end-to-end data integrity protection, including internal CRC-32 and parity protection for FPGA SRAM. Backup power is provided by the host system through a JEDEC-standard 12V power rail or by a tethered Backup Power Module (BPM). SMART provides a wide variety of intelligent tethered BPM options to support NVDIMM integration.
Applications where response time is critical will greatly benefit with the persistent tier of byte-addressable memory that SMART’s NVDIMMs provide. The new high-density 32GB module expands SMART’s current NVDIMM offering of 4GB, 8GB and 16GB densities giving customers a host of options.
