Chapter 1 – Introduction
1.1Overview
The RamSan-210 is a solid-state disk. The system uses SDRAM (memory) as primary storage. The system is non-volatile because all writes are mirrored to two internal hard disk drives and stored in memory. All reads occur from memory. This architecture provides uncompromised performance and security.
The RamSan-210 is designed to be highly available and fault tolerant. The system is more highly available than RAID or JBOD systems because the primary storage media is SDRAM. There are no moving parts required to store data on SDRAM. Additionally, SDRAM has a very high mean time between failures (as high as several hundred years) according to some studies. The mechanical components in the RamSan-210 are redundant and hot swappable.
The RamSan-210 is a complement to existing disk drives, JBOD or RAID in performance sensitive applications. The RamSan-210 appears as another SCSI disk drive that has been attached to the server. For some applications, the RamSan-210 is the only storage system that will be required. For applications that store terabytes of data, the RamSan- 210 will be added to a system that includes RAID or JBOD.
The RamSan-210 can be connected via Fibre Channel to host servers, NAS filers or to storage network switches and hubs. If you have specific questions about compatibility, please see or contact Texas Memory Systems directly.
The RamSan-210 can be used in a variety of applications. If your application is slowed down by hard disk drives, there is a good chance that the RamSan-210 can speed it up.
1.2System Components
The system components for the RamSan-210 include:
∙Main system memory ranging from four gigabytes to thirty-two gigabytes
∙Either two or four one gigabit Fibre Channel ports
∙Dual, redundant hot-swappable power supplies
∙Dual, redundant hot-swappable 10,000 RPM hard drives
∙Dual, redundant batteries
∙Dual, redundant hot-swappable fans
∙Ethernet monitoring port
∙Serial monitoring port
∙Front panel display for monitoring and configuration
∙SNMP based monitoring
- 2 -