OCZ Storage Solutions has introduced the enterprise-class Z-Drive 4500 PCI Express (PCIe) SSD Series. The Z-Drive 4500 Series features a higher performance in comparison to OCZ’s Z-Drive R4 Series and leverages 19 nanometer (nm) MLC NAND flash. Designed in a Full-Height/Half-Length (FHHL) format, the available MLC models include 800GB, 1.6TB, and 3.2TB capacities.
Each model within the Z-Drive 4500 Series is integrated with OCZ’s new Windows Accelerator (WXL) Software. WXL Software enables IT managers to deliver low-latency flash deployable as a local flash volume, a flash cache for HDD volumes, or as a combination of both.
When deployed for caching, WXL Software performs statistical “out-of-band” processing to cache the most frequently accessed data on Z-Drive 4500 flash. A cache warm-up and analysis mechanism is also featured enabling important and demanding analytical jobs to be loaded onto the Z-Drive 4500’s flash cache in advance.
The Z-Drive 4500 Series are driven by OCZ’s proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture (VCA) and LSI SandForce SF-2582 processors. Based on SNIA test methodologies, the series delivers sustained performance for MLC-based PCIe edge cards including maximum read bandwidth of up to 2,900 MB/s, maximum write bandwidth of up to 2,200 MB/s, random 4K block read throughput of up to 252,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS), and random 4K block write throughput of up to 76,000 IOPS.
For flash-based virtualization, the Z-Drive 4500 Series works in conjunction with OCZ’s VXL Virtualization Software distributing flash cache resources on-demand across virtual machines (VMs) to accelerate application performance. It distributes the flash between VMs based on need making sure that no VM inefficiently occupies flash when it could be better used elsewhere in the environment. As a result, the Z-Drive 4500’s flash cache is optimally utilized at all times regardless of how many VMs are running concurrently, data traffic to and from the SAN is reduced, and critical data is locally available in the Z-Drive 4500 card for immediate use by VMs.
Additional features of the Z-Drive 4500 Series include:
- Power loss data protection that protects in-flight write operations in the event of a sudden power failure
- End-to-end data path protection that performs data integrity checks at every data juncture
- 128-bit AES encryption that complies with industry standard data security
- TRIM Command support that enables data pages to be overwritten and re-used
- A complete rebuild of the Linux and Windows kernel device drivers from the Z-Drive R4 platform
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