The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has released the first edition of a new set of standards designed to pave the way for a new generation of storage products: CSxes.
CSx, short for computer storage devices, differ from regular SSDs or hard drives in that they handle integrated data processing, minimizing bottlenecks created by the need to pass data between storage and the CPU, the GPU and RAM.
The new standards issued by the SNIA were created to promote interoperability between the different CSDs under development, as well as to support the work of software architects and other programmers.
Computer Storage: The Next Big Thing?
Computing storage has been touted by market players as one of the next big IT projects for several years.
There are basically two types of CSDs: those that embed processors in the storage device itself, and those that offload computing operations to a nearby storage accelerator.
While compute storage is not suitable for all use cases, it has the potential to drastically speed up applications that are limited by I/O performance rather than compute.
"Clearly, there is a broad class of applications that benefit from offloading computational functions from a main processor to a more efficient processing engine better suited to the specific problem of interest," said Richard New, Western Digital's vice president of research. , in a conversation. . with Tech Radar Pro.
“In the context of storage, we can think of applications like video transcoding, compression, and database acceleration that fall into this category. A tightly coupled video transcoding device with a storage device can enable a video server to more efficiently deliver content at many different quality levels while minimizing unnecessary I/O and system-wide data transfers.
In addition to providing vendors with guidance for developing new CSx, the advent of the SNIA standards establishes a set of common definitions that can be used to properly categorize products coming to market.
"Model 1.0 has a good foundation of definitions: before there weren't any, but now we have computer storage devices (CSxes), computer storage processors (CSPs), computer storage disks (CSDs), and storage arrays. (CSA), and more,” said David McIntyre, who chairs the Computer Storage Special Interest Group at SNIA.
Vendors from Samsung to sk Hynix are already beginning to demonstrate and launch storage devices for computers. But by bringing standardization to market, the new SNIA specification could lay the foundation for widespread adoption.
Via The Register (Opens in a new tab)