SSDs, virtualization saturate storage systems with data traffic PMC-Sierra today announced a new serial-attached SCSI (SAS) controller that doubles the throughput between storage devices and their disk arrays, compared with its previous products, offering up to 750,000 I/Os per second (IOPS). PMC’s Tachyon SPCv SAS controllers use a PCIe 3.0 interconnect interface and come with either eight or 16 lanes for a total throughput of 6.5GB/sec throughput, according to Andrew Dieckmann, product marketing manager for PMCs Enterprise Storage Division.PMC is targeting equipment manufacturers, such as EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, Hewlett Packard and NetApp, with their product, which resides in the back end of a primary disk storage system, such as EMC’s Symmetrix VMAX array or NetApps Fabric Attached Storage products. The controller sits in front of the many shelves of disk drives inside those products. Dieckmann said the product can also be used in the front end of a lower-end array, as a back-end storage array connected to application servers by the SAS protocol. “So it can be used as target in front end as well as initiator in back end when talking to the disks,” he said.Controllers, or the internal traffic directors in hardware, are becoming a bottleneck in storage arrays because equipment manufacturers are moving to denser 2.5 in.-drive trays, offering use of solid state drives (SSDs) in their products. In addition, server virtualization is increasing data traffic to backend storage systems. For example, SSDs can increase IOPS by 100 times compared with traditional hard disk drives, so there is a need for increased performance with enterprise storage systems, he said.“It is an internal bottleneck with SSD deployments that exists even now,” Dieckmann said. “All the I/Os in a storage system have to funnel through a controller at the end of the day.”The PM8008 Tachyon SPCv 8x6G and PM8018 Tachyon SPCv 16x6G controllers are available now to select equipment manufacturers. Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com. Related content news Meta opens its mixed-reality Horizon OS to other headset makers Lenovo and Asus are among the companies building headsets that run Horizon software. The move expands Meta’s reach in the AR/VR market, while enabling headset vendors to focus on hardware development rather than software. By Matthew Finnegan Apr 24, 2024 6 mins Augmented Reality Google Virtual Reality tip A crafty new Android notification power-up This simple enhancement will make your Android notifications more useful and less annoying — with about 60 seconds of one-time setup. By JR Raphael Apr 24, 2024 7 mins Google Mobile Apps Android opinion Microsoft uses its genAI leverage against China — prelude to a tech Cold War? A century or more ago, nations often used ‘gunboat diplomacy’ to push smaller countries around; in the 21st century, technology can be used the same way. By Preston Gralla Apr 24, 2024 6 mins Regulation Government Technology Industry how-to How to fix iCloud sync in seconds Here's what to do when your contacts or calendar events don't sync between devices. By Jonny Evans Apr 23, 2024 7 mins iCloud Apple Cloud Storage Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe