Data Backup Digest

SanDisk is one of the biggest names in data storage, offering consumers everything from hard drives to USB sticks to digital camera memory cards. However, as well as these mass-market products, the company is also dedicated to developing new technology that's more directly aimed at businesses.

Earlier this year, Sandisk unveiled a new product named InfiniFlash, which has the potential to change the way companies store their data. As opposed to traditional methods, InfiniFlash is an all-flash storage platform that reportedly offers up new industry standards in reliability, capacity and performance. The technology is so cutting-edge that industry analyst firm IDC saw fit to name it as the first product in an entirely new category of storage known as 'big data flash'.

InfiniFlash is the first product that makes flash-based storage tenable for large scale usage. Pricing and performance are the two most crucial factors in scaling up storage solutions from personal usage to suit the needs of a business. While this has proved to be a challenge for other manufacturers in the past, SanDisk's status as one of the leading figures in the flash storage industry has given them a distinct advantage over their competitors.

The key is a measured compromise on the components being used. CIO Today spoke to IDC research director Eric Burgener about SanDisk's strategy in this respect, and he stated that the decision to cut back on speed will help the product find its place on the marketplace. "InfiniFlash is not nearly as fast as conventional flash, but hyperscalers don't need it to be," said Burgener.

Businesses will welcome the option of a cheaper flash-based storage system, but the real benefit to using this type of storage comes later on. SanDisk estimates that InfiniFlash can offer a reduction of up to 80% compared to the power consumption of a comparable hard drive-based storage solution. Obviously, this could make the product a very compelling alternative for businesses looking to expand into cloud operations without incurring the overheads that can render such interests untenable.

With more and more companies looking to take advantage of the business opportunities made available by the Internet, the timing is definitely right for SanDisk to begin offering their InfiniFlash product as an alternative to traditional means of big data storage. Businesses that would have once written off this sort of technology as outside of their budget now have an alternative that could offer a path to the expanded marketplace companies operating in the online sphere have access to.

SanDisk are set to offer InfiniFlash at prices starting below $2/GB ahead of compression and de-duplication, and that might be enough to really shake up the industry as it stands at present. If nothing else, the product seems to be in a prime position to kickstart big data flash in a very promising direction. More details on InfiniFlash, as well as detailed specifications pertaining to the individual tiers of the product that are available for purchase, can be found on its product page on the official SanDisk website.