Cenatek Launches With New Class of Storage Device That Achieves Fastest Available Access Speeds.Business Editors & High-Tech Writers MORGAN HILL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 16, 2001 New Company's Patented, Bus-Attached Design Makes High-Performance, Solid State Disk Technology Affordable for the First Time Cenatek(TM), of Morgan Hill, today announced its company launch as a provider of high-speed storage products that are thousands of times faster than conventional hard disk drives, harnessing all the performance advantages of solid state disk (SSD See solid state disk. ) technology at only a fraction of the cost. The company also announced plans to offer complete, turnkey services -- encompassing software, hardware and engineering -- for companies in need of high-speed, high-reliability data storage systems. Cenatek's premier product, the Rocket Drive(TM) SSD, will be available in September 2001, delivering performance of up to one million transactions per second In a very generic sense, the term Transactions Per Second refers to the number of atomic actions performed by certain entity per second. In a more restrictied view, the term is usually used by DBMS vendor and user community to refer to the number of database transactions performed to achieve the fastest data-access speeds of any storage device available. Like other SSDs, Rocket Drive functions as a hard drive but stores data using memory chips rather than magnetic media. However, the Cenatek product is vastly different from conventional SSDs that attach to the host computer via channel technologies such as SCSI SCSI in full Small Computer System Interface Once common standard for connecting peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, etc.) to small and medium-sized computers. SCSI has given way to faster standards, such as Firewire and USB. and high-speed fibre. Instead, Rocket Drive attaches directly to the system's PCI bus PCI bus - Peripheral Component Interconnect , utilizing standard Dynamic Random Access Memory Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. Since real capacitors leak charge, the information eventually fades unless the capacitor charge is refreshed periodically. (SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) A type of dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chip that has been widely used since the late 1990s. SDRAM chips eliminated wait states by dividing the chip into two cell blocks and interleaving data between them. ) to reduce costs and significantly improve data transfer rates. "Cenatek is entering the market at a time when the explosion in the volume of data has moved storage to the forefront of business strategy," said Jason Caulkins, founder and chief executive officer of Cenatek. "Companies are consequently searching for new ways to keep pace with both rising storage costs and more demanding user requirements for high-speed data-access. Cenatek is committed to overcoming this challenge with the Rocket Drive and other products and services that make high-performance SSD technology an affordable reality for the first time." Cenatek Company Overview Cenatek was founded in 1998 to address the shortcomings A shortcoming is a character flaw. Shortcomings may also be:
Cenatek Target Markets Rocket Drive is designed for use by Global 1000 businesses and small-to-medium-sized companies, including organizations that depend on the efficiency of critical software applications to process a high volume of network transactions. The board-level, plug-and-play design of the Rocket Drive is well-suited to the rapidly growing, multi-billion dollar server appliance A self-contained computer system specialized for network use. Its applications are pre-installed, and access to setup and configuration is via a Web browser. Server appliances may provide a single application or several applications; for example, a single device may provide file server, market segment, which consists of multi-purpose appliances, Web server appliances, cache server A dedicated network server or a service within a server that caches Web pages. Cache servers speed up access to information that has been retrieved previously by the same user or by someone else. See Web cache, origin server, ICP and CARP. appliances, network storage appliances and specialty appliances. Rocket Drive: Key Features and Benefits Rocket Drive is configured as a PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). board and installed into a slot directly on the bus of the computer's motherboard. This efficient design enables the device to operate at high-performance bus speeds, whereas conventional, channel-attached SSDs are limited to the speed or I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output transfer rate allowed by the channel connection. Key product features are: -- Affordable Pricing -- Cenatek's groundbreaking performance advantages are offered at list prices starting at less than $2,000 for a 512 MB configuration, which is approximately 50 percent less than the cost of most conventional SSD subsystems with similar capacity. -- High-Speed Data Transfer -- Data transfer rates on the Rocket Drive reach up to 132 MB per second (burst rate) and 80 to 100 MB per second (sustained rate), depending on system load. These rates represent speeds that are two-to-five times faster than conventional SSDs and thousands of times faster than standard hard disk drives. -- Wide Range of Configurations for Scalability, Customization -- The Rocket Drive is available in several configurations to meet the varying needs of Cenatek customers. With minimum memory configurations starting at 512 MB, Cenatek also offers one-, two-, three- and four-GB models. Rocket Drive Pricing and Availability With list prices significantly less than SSD subsystems currently available, Rocket Drive will be available in September 2001 through a network of strategic partners, original equipment manufacturers, value-added resellers A value-added reseller (VAR) is a company that adds some feature(s) to an existing product(s), then resells it (usually to end-users) as an integrated product or complete "turn-key" solution. , distributors and systems integrators. It will also be sold directly through the company Web site at http://www.cenatek.com. About Cenatek Cenatek, launched in July 2001, is revolutionizing the way data is stored and retrieved on computers, networks and other electronic devices. The company's high-speed storage and data-access products leverage patented solid state disk (SSD) technology to set new standards for price and performance. In addition to its premier product, the Rocket Drive, Cenatek also offers software products and storage consulting services for businesses of all sizes. Headquartered in Morgan Hill, Cenatek also maintains research and development offices in Redding. For more information, visit the Cenatek Web site at http://www.cenatek.com. Cenatek and Rocket Drive are trademarks of Cenatek Inc. |
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