Pliant Technology Unveils Enterprise Flash Drive Family: Industry's Highest Performance...

Pliant Technology Unveils Enterprise Flash Drive Family: Industry's Highest
Performance and Most Reliable Flash Storage Devices
Pliant Lightning EFDs Deliver 2-4 Times Faster Performance and 10 Times Higher
Data Reliability than Existing SSDs; Provide Dramatic Data Center Cost and
Energy Savings

MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Pliant Technology, developer of
Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs), a new class of high-performance,
high-reliability storage drives, today announced the availability of its first
family of products. Pliant's Lightning(TM) EFDs integrate an advanced
software architecture and a proprietary ASIC controller design to dramatically
improve performance and reliability of storage and IT systems, while
significantly reducing cost, space requirements and energy consumption.

Pliant's Lightning EFDs enable enterprise data centers, financial services
organizations, high-performance computing (HPC) environments, and digital
media applications to 'do more for less,' by providing IT managers and system
architects with breakthrough levels of performance, reliability and
efficiency. Lightning EFDs deliver the industry's highest sustained
performance with the most predictable performance profile across a wide range
of read/write workloads, and have been specifically designed for demanding,
mission-critical 24x7 applications.

Lightning EFDs are the first flash-based storage devices to feature a
cache-less design to prevent data loss on power interruptions, and a number of
advanced data reliability features to deliver complete end-to-end data
protection. These performance and reliability features combine to make
Lightning EFDs an ideal solution for write-intensive enterprise applications,
unlike existing SSDs that require limiting the workload.

"Flash-based storage has the potential to impact data centers in very positive
ways, but cost and reliability concerns persist among enterprise IT managers
seeking to leverage SSD technology," said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager
for Solid State Drives at IDC. "SSD solutions, such as Pliant's Lightning
EFDs that can help address these concerns by delivering high reliability,
efficiency and predictable performance, will help fuel the mainstream
enterprise adoption of flash storage over the next few years."

The Lightning EFD Product Family
The Lightning EFD family includes the Lightning LB and Lightning LS models.
They are designed around the standard 2.5-inch (LB) and 3.5-inch (LS) form
factors to integrate seamlessly into existing Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
enterprise storage and server systems, without requiring modifications to
existing applications, operating systems or infrastructure. Pliant's
Lightning EFDs feature:
1. Highest sustained performance:
a. Input/Output Per Second (IOPs) of 160,000 (LS) and 120,000 (LB)
b. Predictable performance profile across enterprise workloads, with
read/write mix varying from 90 percent/10 percent to 60 percent/40
percent
c. Data throughput (read/write): >525/340 MB/sec (LS) and >420/220
MB/sec (LB)
2. User capacities: LS (3.5-inch) = 300GB and 150GB; LB (2.5-inch) = 150
GB
3. Full duplex, fully independent, dual-port SAS interface for high
performance and data reliability
4. Write cache-less design eliminates data loss on power interruptions and
delivers consistent performance across the widest range of workloads
5. Unlimited writes: No restrictions limiting the frequency of writing
over
the lifetime
6. Complete end-to-end data protection and reliability features:
including
background Patrol Read and Memory Reclaim, extended ECC,
triple-redundant
ECC protected metadata, and support for the T10 Data Integrity Field
(DIF) standard

7. Industry-standard SLC NAND flash memory technology

"The exceptional performance and reliability features of Lightning EFDs allow
IT managers to address the most significant challenges they're facing today,
namely, keeping up with continually increasing storage demands with fixed
budgets, limited data center floor space and the ever growing cost of power,"
said Amyl Ahola, CEO of Pliant Technology. "Our Lightning EFDs will
dramatically expand the capabilities of current and future enterprise
computing systems in new and innovative ways, enabling IT managers to do more
with less: deliver maximum performance with less power, lower cost and a
smaller footprint."

Lightning EFD Availability
The Pliant Lightning LS300, Lightning LS150 and Lightning LB150 are being
delivered for OEM evaluation and qualification, and will be available via
authorized channel partners in September 2009. Contact
sales@plianttechnology.com for more information.

About Pliant Technology
Pliant Technology's Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs) are a new class of solid
state storage devices that integrate seamlessly into enterprise information
systems and dramatically improve performance, reliability, energy efficiency,
and TCO. Pliant's Lightning EFD family delivers breakthrough improvements
over today's highest performing hard drive and SSD storage solutions for a
range of data I/O intensive enterprise applications. Pliant is based in
Milpitas, Calif. More information is available at www.plianttechnology.com,
and on its blog, Enterprise Storage Sense.

Contact:
George Millington
Walt & Company
408-369-7200 ext. 2974
gmillington@walt.com

SOURCE Pliant Technology

George Millington of Walt & Company, +1-408-369-7200, ext. 2974,
gmillington@walt.com, for Pliant Technology