Oracle has once again raised the flash storage bar with its latest products, the ZS3-2 and ZS3-4 storage systems. Oracle is quick to point out that these new systems outperform comparable NetApp midrange platforms. Wikibon took a closer look at the storage appliances to see if they really measure up to those claims.

Wikibon determined that Oracle’s ZFS appliance is a true “flash-first” appliance. It demonstrates high continuous read and write rates, as well as low latency. The ZS3-2 and ZS3-4 also run Oracle’s “sweet spot” applications, which are optimized for ZFS hardware, making it more difficult for the competition to convince customers to use their own versions.

The ZS3 appliances perform higher than the Tier-1 hitachi VSP and IBM DS8870 and are also more cost effective. For example, the ZS3-4 boasts an impressive $23/megabyte, compared to the Hitachi VSP, which is 192% more expensive at $66/megabyte.

The flash-first system is good for loading, running, and completing complex analytics in less time than in-memory databases. It is a well designed hybrid unified storage system. Its high performance is due to both hardware changes, such as faster SAS-2 SSD drives, faster MLC read-flash, and faster SLC write-cache, and software changes, such as a full rewrite of the L1 and L2 adaptive replacement caches.

Wikibon notes that Oracle has a habit of using standard benchmarks to compare their latest and greatest technology with the previous generation’s technology from competitors. In this case, however, its SPEC-2 benchmark comparisons are fair since the IBM DS8870 and Hitachi VSP Tier-1 are still current.

Overall, Wikibon says Oracle’s customers are impressed with its proactive research and development, despite the traditional danger of lock-in with the “Red Stack”. The benefits offset the risk. While Oracle still trails in the storage market behind NetApp and EMC, the company is clearly motivated to change that. You can read Wikibon’s full analysis as well as its action recommendation for  CIOs in the full report.