Performance: Caching

Allows RAM, NVMe, or SSDs to be configured as a caching layer, significantly improving storage performance.

Intro 

Modern-day applications are designed to handle large amounts of data processing causing them to generate larger I/O numbers. This results in VMs requiring more speed from the storage subsystem to handle all the I/O requests. Although the NVMe technology has already stepped into the storage market, it still requires significant expenses despite being more and more affordable from year to year. This creates a need for a system that can combine fast NVMe storage and already common SSDs into a single and cost-effective storage pool. 

Problem 

All-SSD storage can satisfy most of the workload types. However, popular nowadays SATA TLC flash may be not the best fit for the environments with high performance requirements. 

Surely, all NVMe storage can be a solution even for the applications with the highest I/O requirements, but in daily usage, its potential is mostly left unutilized. As a result, you get the highest-performing system that remains idle most of the time and consumes more power than SATA SSDs. 

Finally, implementing all NVMe configuration requires significant costs which simply might not be an option for businesses. 

Solution 

By combining fast NVMe drives and inexpensive TLC or even QLC flash, StarWind brings a high performance solution at a reasonable cost.  

A single, or dual (redundant) NVMe as a caching layer allows to boost the performance of existing SATA SSD array by the fact that incoming writes are handled by the NVMe layer. This allows smart utilization of your storage system, where its performance potential is never wasted but is always enough for the workloads. 

Also, thanks to the StarWind NVMe caching layer handling all the writes, SATA SSDs have a prolonged lifespan since they waste less erase cycles and can be used more effectively as the main storage capacity. 

Conclusion 

StarWind combines the fast-performing NVMe with affordable SSDs in a single storage pool to provide your applications with the higher performance and smart resources utilization without requiring high investments into the storage system.