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IBM has become the first major supplier to offer flash memory as an alternative to disk storage on blade servers, using a form of silicon memory that until now has not been long-lasting enough to suit many data center applications.

By Tim Stammers

At the time of going to press, IBM was unable to provide detailed comment. But in an announcement the company said that the 2.5in solid-state disk option for its BladeCenter servers comprise a single 16GB drive or a dual 32GB drive, with list prices starting at $399.

Until now static - or persistent without power - memory chips have only been able to undergo a relatively limited number of write operations before burn-out, and this has restricted their use to mostly consumer applications.

The memory in IBM’s SSD drives is coming from SanDisk. A spokesman for the company said: “Earlier in the history of flash memory there were issues with read-write cycles, but there has been development and IBM obviously considers the memory suitable now.”

In a press release, SanDisk said that its SSDs provide 2m hours MTBF, which it said is “approximately six times more hours than conventional hard disks.” Suppliers such as Seagate actually quote 1.2m hours MTBF for their SATA disk drives. In any case the the Devil is in the detail of the duty I/O cycle that manufacturers assume to calculate their MTBF numbers.

The advantage of flash memory over spinning disk is in its performance, and its lower power consumption and consequent heat generation, SanDisk said. These advantage are heightened in dense server racks where cooling can be an issue, SanDisk said. Blades are also more likely to be used in applications not need large amounts of memory, the chip maker said.