OCZ Storage Solutions Announces Z-Drive 4500 PCIe SSDs With Windows Accelerator (WXL) Software

OCZ Storage Solutions, a Toshiba Group Company and leading producer of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for both client and enterprise markets, is announcing introduction of their enterprise-class Z-Drive 4500 PCI Express (PCIe) SSD series.  The newest Z-Drive 4500 Series achieves even stronger performance than OCZ’s renowned Z-Drive R4 series.  Utilizing Toshiba’s 19nm MLC NAND flash, the Z-Drive 4500 series features a more robust architecture that allows for usable capacities of 800GB, 1.6TB, and even 3.2TB!

Also being announced today is that OCZ will be integrating their new Windows Accelerator (WXL) Software into each Z-Drive 4500 Series model.  The WXL software is a flash management and caching solution compatible with Microsoft Windows Server applications that allows IT managers the ability to deliver low-latency flash, deployable as either a local flash volume, a flash caching solution, or both.

When utilized as a caching solution, WXL software executes statistical ‘out-of-band’ processing in order to intelligently cache the most frequently requested data contained in the Z-Drive 4500 flash.  Also featured is a cache warm-up and analysis routine, enabling important and/or demanding analysis jobs to be loaded onto the Z-Drive 4500’s cache ahead of time, assuring that this essential data is readily available at the exact moment it is needed.

According to Daryl Lang, SVP of Product Management for OCZ Storage Solutions, “Our new Z-Drive 4500 Series represents a consistency with our enterprise strategy as we continue to refine and introduce new products across key interfaces like PCIe using the latest NAND flash process geometry and architectural changes that enable a more efficient design.  By integrating our new WXL Software into the Z-Drive 4500 platform, we are delivering a complete acceleration, caching and flash management solution to the enterprise PCIe storage market with advanced capabilities and a robust architecture as well.”

In flash-based virtualization applications, the Z-Drive 4500 Series operates in conjunction with OCZ’s VXL Virtualization Software by allocating its flash cache resources instantly and on-demand across multiple virtual machines (VMs) to accelerate application performance.  Flash is allocated between various VMs based on current demand, thus making sure that no VM is ineffectively using flash resources when it could be better utilized somewhere else in the storage environment.  As a result, the Z-Drive 4500’s flash cache achieves optimal utilization at all times, regardless of how many VMs are running simultaneously.  Data traffic to and from the SAN is minimized, and ‘hot’ data is always locally available for instant access in the Z-Drive 4500 flash.

The Z-Drive 4500 Series offers datacenter managers an advanced suite of features and tools, with a focus on data reliability and enterprise-level endurance:

• 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 ensuring that corrupted data is detected and not propagated
• 128-bit AES encryption that complies with industry standard data security
• TRIM command support that enables data pages to be overwritten and re-used
• Temperature sensing and thermal throttling for maintaining consistent operating conditions so drives can continue to function through adverse temperature variances
• New SSD casings for providing a more stable and thermally efficient environment
• A complete rebuild of the Linux and Windows kernel device drivers from the Z-Drive R4 platform and optimized to improve SSD performance and stability
• Ease of deployment as installation drivers are packaged with RedHat Package Manager (RPM) and Debian (DEB) package files to automate the installation process

The new Z-Drive 4500 series represents OCZ’s most advanced PCIe SSD series to date.  Produced in Full-Height/Half-Length (FHHL) form factor, OCZ will be offering three versions:

• 800GB   Model ZD4RPFC8MT300-0800
• 1.6TB      Model ZD4RPFC8MT310-1600
• 3.2TB     Model ZD4RPFC8MT320-3200

All versions of the Z-Drive 4500 series are backed to the tune of a 5-year warranty.  The Z-Drive 4500 Series product page can be viewed here.