3U VPX Solid-State Drive Boasts Ruggedness And High Capacity

The VPX3-FSM (Flash Storage Module) is a rugged, high-capacity solid-state SATA storage 3U VPX card that includes NIST-certified, 256-bit AES data encryption capability. Rated at 160 MB/s memory read/writes when configured as RAID0, and 75 MB/s per port in a JBOD configuration, the conduction-cooled VPX3-FSM speeds and simplifies the addition of high reliability encrypted mass storage to VPX-based embedded systems in deployed applications. The VPX3-FSM provides 256 Gbytes of SLC NAND flash storage in a 3U VPX (VITA 46) or VPX-REDI (VITA 48.2) form factor with a 1.0” pitch. The on-board flash memory is arranged as four 64-GB banks, and can be configured to appear to the host single-board computer (SBC) as four separate SATA drives or as a single SATA drive with hardware RAID0 support. The card’s flash components have an MTBF rating of 2 Mhours, and the memory cells are rated for over 100,000 write cycles. Industry-standard wear leveling and bad-block management is provided. The VPX3-FSM’s on-board microcontroller monitors temperature, power, and error conditions and provides BIT status to the host SBC over either RS-232 or the I2C bus. Three LEDs are also provided for external indication of power, encryption enabled, and fault condition. Volume pricing for the VPX3-FSM starts at $12,000 with availability starting in the fourth quarter of 2009. CURTISS-WRIGHT CONTROLS EMBEDDED COMPUTING, Dayton, OH. (937) 252-5601.