It's not a SandForce controller, because they don't have anything that speaks Serial Attached SCSI (or anything that supports 4TB, from the looks of it).
Being able to use both channels for performance is nice, especially in the context of older SAS controllers that are limited to 6 Gbit. I do wonder how many controllers support the bond for performance like this instead of redundancy. Even in a redundant dual path setup, these older controllers were a bottleneck as they originally designs for hard drives that were in capable of saturating a single channel, much less two simultaneously.
Can you point me to any specific drives? When I looked I didn't find anything advertising speeds above the 1200MB/s of a single channel. Today the only other drives I'm finding are from a suspiciously similar Toshiba announcement that was just posted.
I would say there has never been an old school AnandTech team, besides Anand himself of course. Usually editors have been around for 3-5 years before being poached by an industry company. Brian, Vivek, Dustin, Raja, Gary, Christopher etc. are all former AnandTech editors that now work at the companies we deal with, so I'm really no exception to the rule. Anand's retirement and the Purch acquisition aren't related to my departure and as a matter of fact in was in discussions with Samsung before the acquisition even happened (we didn't get a heads up about that, so we knew when you knew).
Don't get me wrong, AnandTech is an excellent place to work for and I enjoyed every second of it, but the career options are very limited compared to what a major corporation can offer. I couldn't imagine a better place to work for as a student because working from home as a freelancer is so flexible and the money is also decent, but at as one gets closer to graduation one must consider the long-term plan.
Frankly, I was already at the highest level I could reach by being a Senior Editor responsible for SSD coverage. At 21, that's no doubt a nice title and responsibility, but it's not something I saw myself doing for the next 50 years. I'm graduating next year and I know that once I'm out of uni I want to be in a more 9-to-5-like job with the possibility of moving up the corporate ladder, and now I was given an opportunity to secure my future employment along with a pretty good part-time remote gig to keep me fed while I finish my degree. As much as I liked working for AnandTech and interacting with the readers, it ultimately boiled down to making a rational decision of what is the best for me and my future.
This doesn't mean that the site is changing, not at all. I've trained Billy and will continue the process in the background to make the transition as seamless as possible. That's no different from when Anand put me in the driver's seat for SSD reviews, although unfortunately this transition is a bit faster than we hoped for. Given how huge impact AnandTech has had in my life, it will always have a special place in my heart and I will make my best effort to support the site and keep it as the amazing resource it is today.
I don't think they properly understand the concept of second-sourcing. This is just a single line of drives with two separate labels. If something happens at the manufacturing plant, both labels will be affected.
They readily admit that their supply chain isn't entirely dual-sourced, but I think (not sure) that drives are being assembled in more than one place and they definitely said they've got stockpiles in more than one place for the components that aren't second-sourced. Seagate and Micron obviously both have their own facilities for manufacturing the drives that predate this partnership.
The main point that they want to get across seems to be that these products aren't as vulnerable to what happened with the 2011 Thailand flooding, and Seagate is confident that the measures they've taken to ensure the supply will count for something with their enterprise customers.
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Dahak - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
The source link points back to the articleNo word on the pricing? I am guessing that may be released next week at the flash memory summit?
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
At this point we don't have any information on pricing, but more being revealed at FMS is a safe bet.sergiu - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Any word on the controller? is this by chance the highly awaited third generation Sandforce?Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
It's not a SandForce controller, because they don't have anything that speaks Serial Attached SCSI (or anything that supports 4TB, from the looks of it).Kevin G - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Being able to use both channels for performance is nice, especially in the context of older SAS controllers that are limited to 6 Gbit. I do wonder how many controllers support the bond for performance like this instead of redundancy. Even in a redundant dual path setup, these older controllers were a bottleneck as they originally designs for hard drives that were in capable of saturating a single channel, much less two simultaneously.JellyRoll - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
This is not the first 12Gb/s SAS SSD to offer increased performance from dual port. This is a fairly standard feature of dual-port SAS SSDs. Google.Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Can you point me to any specific drives? When I looked I didn't find anything advertising speeds above the 1200MB/s of a single channel. Today the only other drives I'm finding are from a suspiciously similar Toshiba announcement that was just posted.JellyRoll - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Look no further than Toshiba's previous-gen 12Gb/s SSDs, of which there are several.ThortonBe - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Nice to see SSD coverage continuing. Looking forward to more articles from Billy Tallis.creed3020 - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
I too just noticed the new editor name at the top. Nice to have an additional body to cover this ever growing and interesting space!neo_1221 - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Not really an additional body - Kristian Vatto just left AT, so I'm assuming Billy is his replacement for SSD coverage.Agent Smith - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
All the old school Anandtech team are disappearing one by one. I smell a site change coming...Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
I would say there has never been an old school AnandTech team, besides Anand himself of course. Usually editors have been around for 3-5 years before being poached by an industry company. Brian, Vivek, Dustin, Raja, Gary, Christopher etc. are all former AnandTech editors that now work at the companies we deal with, so I'm really no exception to the rule. Anand's retirement and the Purch acquisition aren't related to my departure and as a matter of fact in was in discussions with Samsung before the acquisition even happened (we didn't get a heads up about that, so we knew when you knew).Don't get me wrong, AnandTech is an excellent place to work for and I enjoyed every second of it, but the career options are very limited compared to what a major corporation can offer. I couldn't imagine a better place to work for as a student because working from home as a freelancer is so flexible and the money is also decent, but at as one gets closer to graduation one must consider the long-term plan.
Frankly, I was already at the highest level I could reach by being a Senior Editor responsible for SSD coverage. At 21, that's no doubt a nice title and responsibility, but it's not something I saw myself doing for the next 50 years. I'm graduating next year and I know that once I'm out of uni I want to be in a more 9-to-5-like job with the possibility of moving up the corporate ladder, and now I was given an opportunity to secure my future employment along with a pretty good part-time remote gig to keep me fed while I finish my degree. As much as I liked working for AnandTech and interacting with the readers, it ultimately boiled down to making a rational decision of what is the best for me and my future.
This doesn't mean that the site is changing, not at all. I've trained Billy and will continue the process in the background to make the transition as seamless as possible. That's no different from when Anand put me in the driver's seat for SSD reviews, although unfortunately this transition is a bit faster than we hoped for. Given how huge impact AnandTech has had in my life, it will always have a special place in my heart and I will make my best effort to support the site and keep it as the amazing resource it is today.
Gigaplex - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
I don't think they properly understand the concept of second-sourcing. This is just a single line of drives with two separate labels. If something happens at the manufacturing plant, both labels will be affected.Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
They readily admit that their supply chain isn't entirely dual-sourced, but I think (not sure) that drives are being assembled in more than one place and they definitely said they've got stockpiles in more than one place for the components that aren't second-sourced. Seagate and Micron obviously both have their own facilities for manufacturing the drives that predate this partnership.The main point that they want to get across seems to be that these products aren't as vulnerable to what happened with the 2011 Thailand flooding, and Seagate is confident that the measures they've taken to ensure the supply will count for something with their enterprise customers.