NEWARK, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/20/13 -- SMART Storage Systems, an innovative enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) technology provider, today announced the industry's first 1.8" Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD with an extension to its Optimus product line. The new Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD is designed for applications that need industry-leading performance, capacity, endurance, and reliability where space constraints are a concern.

Designed for blade servers, caching and other high-density computing environments which typically have physical space constraints, the Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD delivers random read/write performance of 100K/45K IOPS and sustained read/write speeds of 500/500MB/s using the test methodology defined by the Storage Networking Industry Alliance's (SNIA) Solid State Storage Enterprise Test Specification with consistent performance throughout the five year warranty. The Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD is available in useable capacities of 200GB and 400GB. To operate reliably under mixed and write intensive workloads, the new Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD achieves 10 full drive writes per day for a period of five years while leveraging cost-effective consumer-grade MLC NAND Flash. Extending from the 2.5" to add a 1.8" form factor, the Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD provides enterprise organizations and OEMs with a single SSD platform that spans multiple enterprise applications that require different form factors while meeting their performance, capacity and endurance requirements at an affordable cost.

The new Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD leverages the Guardian™ Technology Platform to provide the endurance and feature set required for enterprise environments. A comprehensive suite of proprietary features, the Guardian Technology Platform is comprised of FlashGuard™, EverGuard™, and DataGuard™ technologies. FlashGuard, an innovative combination of Aggregated Flash Management and Advanced Signal Processing technologies, enables commercial MLC Flash to achieve higher endurance levels, making it suitable for the enterprise environment. DataGuard and EverGuard technologies ensure that data integrity and drive reliability are never compromised, satisfying the demanding reliability requirements of Tier-1 enterprise storage applications. Additionally, Optimus features full T10 DIF support and TCG enterprise encryption, resulting in an optimal blend of endurance, performance, reliability and value.

"Prior to the introduction of our Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD, enterprise organizations and OEMs that were dealing with confined physical spaces in storage appliances were forced to sacrifice performance, capacity or endurance when selecting an 1.8" SSD. They were also limited to only leveraging the SATA interface, which denies users the dual-port and T10-DIF support which is necessary in enterprise environments," said John Scaramuzzo, president at SMART Storage Systems. "The Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD puts an end to this compromise. With the 1.8" SAS form factor, dual port operation and T10 Data Integrity Feature (DIF) are now available to enterprises. Enterprise organizations and OEMs can now select a single SSD platform that meets their storage needs no matter what form factor their application requires."

The Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD will begin sampling to select customers in Q2 of 2013. For more information about Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD or SMART Storage Systems, please visit the company's website at http://www.smartstoragesys.com, the company's blog at http://www.smartstorageblog.com, find us on Twitter under the handle (http://www.twitter.com/SMARTSSD), or connect with us on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/company/smart-storage-systems).

About SMART Storage Systems

SMART Storage Systems is a technology leader in the design, development and deployment of current and next-generation enterprise solid-state storage products. Combining leading-edge, enterprise-class design and proven world-class support, SMART Storage Systems leverages its deep expertise in Flash and enterprise storage technology. SMART Storage Systems delivers high-quality, high-reliability solutions to a broad customer base including tier one storage and server OEMs. In support of these designs, SMART Storage Systems provides award-winning innovations in solid-state storage technology, such as NAND high-endurance Guardian™ technology, to a variety of customers in the enterprise storage, enterprise server, data center, defense and industrial markets. SMART Storage Systems is part of the SMART family of global companies. See www.smartstoragesys.com for more information.

About SMART Worldwide Holdings

The SMART family of global companies are leading designers, manufacturers and suppliers of electronic subsystems for the most demanding OEMs around the world. The SMART companies have led the way over the past 23 years providing standard and custom products to today's leading global OEMs crossing all major electronic industries. These industries include PC, enterprise and industrial servers, networking, telecom, defense, aerospace, gaming and embedded application markets. Taking innovations from the design stage through manufacturing and delivery, SMART Modular Technologies has developed a comprehensive memory product line that includes DRAM, SRAM and Flash memory in various form factors. SMART Storage Systems offers high-performance, high-capacity SSDs for enterprise storage, enterprise server, data center, defense, aerospace, industrial automation, medical and transportation markets. SMART's presence in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America enables it to provide its customers with proven expertise in international logistics, asset management and supply-chain management worldwide. See www.smartm.com for more information.