Company Demonstrates IO Determinism (IOD), Improving Latency Performance by 40 to 100 Times

IRVINE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — August 9, 2017 — Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, is pleased to announce it has won the Flash Memory Summit “Best of Show” award for Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology in the Data Center category. Toshiba exceeded Facebook’s ambitious IO Determinism (IOD) performance target with their NVM Express® (NVMe™)¹ based drives modified with “sets” architecture, showing improvements of up to two orders of magnitude at 99.999% Quality of Service (QoS) level.

“This Flash Memory Summit, we were proud to demonstrate IO Determinism and deliver on Facebook’s direction, while developing the NVMe industry standard and working on the interface and benchmarking. Prior industry SSD implementations created read tail latencies greater than most network latencies and were preventing further data center-level optimizations. IOD technology offers a 40X to 100X reduction in these read tail latencies as well as faster read and write bandwidth in mixed workloads,” said Steven Wells, engineering fellow for data center architecture at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. “In my 25 plus years of designing SSDs, this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of dramatic improvement in any performance parameter with a single architecture change.”

“Quality of Service is of paramount importance to meet the latency and IOPS performance requirements of mission critical applications,” said Jay Kramer, Chairman of the Awards Program and President of Network Storage Advisors Inc. “We are proud to recognize Toshiba and Facebook for IO Determinism by demonstrating the capability to solve the noisy neighbor latency outlier problem with modest changes to the classical NVMe protocol.”

Toshiba’s IOD demo shows the QoS difference by comparing two Facebook Lightning systems. One system showcases Toshiba solid state drives (SSDs) with IOD firmware and the other is equipped with standard Toshiba drives.

Toshiba is the inventor of flash and a leading supplier of flash memory and SSDs with one of the broadest portfolios of SSDs in the industry. For more information, please visit: http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/product/storage-products.html. To learn more about Toshiba’s storage solutions, follow @ToshibaStorage on Twitter.

^*About Toshiba and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC)

Through proven commitment, lasting relationships and advanced, reliable electronic components, Toshiba enables its customers to create market-leading designs. Toshiba is the heartbeat within product breakthroughs from OEMs, ODMs, CMs, VARs, distributors and fabless chip companies worldwide. A committed electronic components leader, Toshiba designs and manufactures high-quality flash memory-based storage solutions, solid state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), discrete devices, custom SoCs/ASICs, imaging products, microcontrollers, wireless components, mobile peripheral devices, advanced materials and medical tubes that make possible today’s leading smartphones, tablets, cameras, medical devices, automotive electronics, industrial applications, enterprise solutions and more.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc. For over 140 years, Toshiba Corporation has contributed to a sustainable future by applying innovative technologies to value creation. Today, our business domains are centered on the essential infrastructure that supports modern life and society. Guided by the principles of The Basic Commitment of the Toshiba Group, “Committed to People, Committed to the Future,” Toshiba promotes global operations that contribute to realization of a world where generations to come can live better lives.

To find out more about Toshiba, visit www.toshiba.co.jp/worldwide/about/index.html

©2017 Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. All rights reserved. Information in this press release, including product pricing and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current and believed to be accurate on the date of the announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice. Technical and application information contained here is subject to the most recent applicable Toshiba product specifications.

¹ NVM Express and the NVM Express logo are registered trademarks, and NVMe is a trademark of NVM Express, Inc.

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Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc.
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