Flash memory storage provider SanDisk Corp. has forged a strategic partnership Super Micro Computer Inc. that will see the two push software-defined, all-flash storage solutions in the data center.

SanDisk’s InfiniFlash System and Super Micro’s high-performance servers are at the core of the new storage solution, which will be made available along with Nexenta Systems Inc.’s Open SDS unified file and block storage platform, and the NexentaStor platform. The new solution is aimed at bringing some unity to the growing numbers of disaggregated data centers that are a result of the rising popularity of Big Data and cloud environments, the companies said in a statement

SanDisk’s Infiniflash storage platform offers up to five times more density, four times the reliability and 50 times the performance of traditional hard disk drive (HDD) arrays, the company claims. In addition, SanDisk’s platform consumes up to 80 percent less power than traditional HDD, the company claims.

The companies said that the combination of Infiniflash with SuperMicro’s servers will lead to a substantial reduction in the cost of private cloud storage in petabyte-scale OpenStack environments. They added that scaling out adds compute and storage capacity to existing configurations, resulting in a massive capacity, high-density, all-flash storage system that delivers scalable performance and breakthrough economics for enterprises with large storage requirements.

“Our partnership with SuperMicro and Nexenta brings the best of both worlds to data centers: breakthrough economics compared to traditional all-flash array deployments, and dramatically higher performance, improved reliability and lower power consumption compared to HDD drive-based arrays,” said Ravi Swaminathan, VP and GM, system and software solutions, SanDisk. “These offerings will enable customers to economically deploy flash at PB-scale, which will drive business growth through new services and offerings for their end-customers.”

By throwing in Nexenta’s storage software on top, the new solution can scale up to four petabyte configurations, with more than 8 million flash IOPS in a rack. It also adds all-important legacy storage functionality for enterprise and cloud customers, allowing for workloads like file, print, cloud backend and general shared virtual infrastructure, the companies said.

“The combination of NexentaStor OpenSDS solution, SanDisk’s InfiniFlash solution and SuperMicro systems delivers key differentiators around functionality and performance,” said Tarkan Maner, CEO, Nexenta. “These solutions literally break new ground and make all-flash storage economically practical for a wide range of use cases, from high-performance databases to virtualized environments, big data lakes and extra dense active archive repositories.”

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