IBM eXFlash for System x

Highlights

eXFlash consists of the backplane and your choice of the number of drives and capacities as well as your choice of controller. When ordering eXFlash, be sure to identify the system to select the correct cable configuration as well as the controller based on your needs.

• IBM eXFlash technology is a server-based high-performance internal storage solution that is based on solid state drives (SSDs) and performance-optimized drive controllers (both RAID and non-RAID).
• Significantly lower implementation cost than enterprise HDDs for high performance I/O-intensive storage systems with the best IOPS/$ performance ratio
• Significantly higher performance than enterprise HDDs (up to 30 times or more) for I/O-intensive applications like databases and business analytics with up to nine times less response time
• Significant savings in power and cooling (up to 90 percent) with a high performance per watt ratio
• Significant savings in floor space with extreme performance per rack U space ratio
• Simplified management and maintenance with internal server-based configurations (no external power and information infrastructure needed
• A single eXFlash unit accommodates up to eight hot-swap SSDs, and can be connected to up to two performance-optimized controllers

Today’s data center managers are challenged with improving performance and efficiency without expanding budgets or footprints. This includes deploying more virtual machines as virtualization becomes the rule, rather than the exception, as well as increased transaction processing performance from database applications. Virtualization demands maximum memory to run the most-efficient virtual environments, and database and transaction processing applications need maximum memory capacity and bandwidth. Customers need to deliver increased performance for their applications.