DataDirect Networks is pushing ahead of the competition with two new high-performance storage systems that it pegs as the industry’s fastest Big Data appliances. The product family deliver “extreme performance” to help customers consolidate their IT infrastructure and keep up with the rapid growth in unstructured information.

The SFA12KX uses the latest generation Intel Ivy Bridge processors and a “hyper optimized” OS to provide up to 48GB/s of bandwidth and 1.4 million IOPS from a single system, allowing customers to achieve 1TB per second with as little as 21 arrays. When used with an SS8460 enclosure, the platform takes up less than half the space of other scale-out offerings and 40 less than “even the highest density” arrays, according to DDN.

Jean-Luc Chatelain, the firm’s head of strategy and technology, commented that “with features such as application-aware Flash caching, Real-Time I/O and in-storage processing, our SFX12KX appliances will perform at up to 48GB/s, making this technology the ideal solution for organizations looking to accelerate Big Data applications and consolidate infrastructure while dramatically lowering the overall cost of data storage ownership.”

Like the SFA12KX, the new SFA12KXE leverages DDN’s SFA architecture to increase storage density and accelerate resource-intensive use cases. The converged appliance also takes advantage of in-storage processing technology and flash cache to support Big Data workloads. The SFA112KX will start shipping this quarter, and the SFA12KXE is set to follow suit in early 2014.

DDN’s ultra-fast storage solutions are hugely popular among companies that require rapid access to their data. The vendor has more than 600 customers in the entertainment industry alone, including pay TV giant Starz Entertainment, which recently upgraded to GRIDScaler in a move to cut costs and improve its subscribers’ viewing experience.