OCZ and Marvell Climb the Storage Mountain with “Kilimanjaro”

The “Kilimanjaro” native PCIe to NAND flash controller platform, co-developed by OCZ Technology and Marvell, underpins a new PCIe-based storage solution called the Z-Drive R5, an upgrade to OCZ's Z-Drive R4. Kilimanjaro is designed to enable improved scalable performance and redundancy as well as lowered costs for data centers while obviating any other controllers, and the Z-Drive R5 is its foil.

The Z-Drive R5 features high bandwidth capabilities, capacities of up to 12TB, OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture 3.0 software, and broad compatibility with other systems and servers. Available in MLC, eMLC, and SLC NAND flash options, the Z-Drive 45 comes in full- and half-height sizes to accommodate space-needy systems.



Pictured: Z-Drive R5’s Predecessor, R4


OCZ Technology and Marvell to Debut Next Generation PCI Express Z-Drive R5 Solid State Solution at Storage Visions 2012

Enterprise PCIe SSD Utilizes OCZ and Marvell Jointly-Developed Kilimanjaro Platform to Deliver Unparalleled Performance and Versatility for Server and Enterprise Storage Clients

SAN JOSE, CA - Jan. 6, 2012 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, and Marvell (Nasdaq:MRVL), a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, today unveiled the industry's fastest and most versatile PCI Express (PCIe) storage system, the Z-Drive R5. The increased performance, reliability, and endurance of the Z-Drive R5 is designed to take PCIe-based solid state storage to the next level for enterprise environments.

The Z-Drive R5 features a jointly developed "Kilimanjaro" OCZ and Marvell native PCIe to NAND flash controller platform, allowing for completely scalable performance and redundancy while eliminating the need for a separate storage controller, thus reducing the cost to deploy high performance solid state storage systems in the data center.

The native PCIe Z-Drive R5 offers an intelligent, hardware-meets-software managed solution designed to dramatically accelerate database, enterprise, and virtualization applications. Combining high-performance architecture with OCZ managed software, the Z-Drive R5 provides second-to-none performance, flexibility, durability, and enhanced reliability features, allowing datacenters to rely on a PCIe-based SSD as their primary Tier 0/1 storage solution and a viable end-to-end SAN replacement.

The Z-Drive R5 is ideal for demanding computing environments and features:

- Incredible bandwidth capabilities and maximum transactional performance
- High capacities up to 12TB
- Ideal for all enterprise data types with both compressible and non-compressible files as well as large data sets
- Complete storage subsystem management with OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture™ 3.0 software functions
- Compatible with VMware ESXi and ESX, Linux, Windows Server 2008, and OS X to support a wide range of systems and servers
- Complete power fail protection option for maximum data integrity
- Full height and half height sizes, ideal for space constrained 1U servers and multi-node rackmount servers
- MLC, eMLC, and SLC NAND Flash options

"We are continually pushing the envelope to deliver innovative PCIe SSDs to address challenges that our clients face when processing and managing ever growing amounts of complex data sets," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "The Z-Drive R5, leverages the powerful Kilimanjaro platform to deliver superior performance, greater capacity, and an enhanced hardware and software feature-set that is unmatched in the industry. This best-of-breed next generation native solution enables clients to eliminate I/O bottlenecks for even the most data intensive server and enterprise storage applications."

"Marvell is excited to work with OCZ on this native PCIe to NAND flash controller platform, based on our 88NV9145 silicon," said Alan Armstrong, vice president of Marketing for the Storage Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "We believe the PCIe SSD market will rapidly shift to a native PCIe to NAND architecture, and the Kilimanjaro platform represents OCZ and Marvell's strong collaboration in bringing this highly scalable architecture to market."

The Z-Drive R5 will debut at Storage Visions 2012 in the OCZ booth (No. 13) and will also be showcased at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the Marvell booth (No. 30542) located in the South Hall 3 on the upper level.