The IBM DeepFlash 150 is an all-flash storage array designed for petabyte-scale storage of unstructured data for cloud and big data workloads. It provides ultra-dense storage capacity of up to 512 terabytes per rack and breakthrough cost efficiency of under $2 per gigabyte of storage. The DeepFlash 150 leverages flash memory rather than solid state drives for low latency and high performance to accelerate analytics and other workloads.

1. IBM Systems
Data Sheet
IBM DeepFlash 150
Petabyte-scale all-flash array designed for cloud and
big-data workloads­
­ ­ ­ ­
Highlights
●● ● ●
Achieve breakthrough economics with an
all-flash array at a disk-like acquisition
price for petabyte-scale unstructured data
●● ● ●
Boost IT efficiency with ultra-dense, all-
flash arrays delivering up to 512 terabytes
in 3U rack space and 450 W average per
enclosure
●● ● ●
Maximize business uptime with enterprise
reliability, availability and serviceability
when combined with the IBM® Spectrum
Scale™ software-defined storage (SDS)
solution
●● ● ●
Unleash the power of insights by acceler-
ating analytics through the low latency,
high bandwidth and seamless scaling of
an all-flash array
The volume, velocity and value of data continue to increase at exponen-
tial rates. The cloud, mobile and social systems of engagement, big-data
analytics, and the Internet of Things are poised to accelerate data
volumes and velocities ever faster.
Your business cannot be competitive if you simply react; you want to lead
and thrive in this rapidly changing 21st century business environment
IBM calls the “Cognitive Era.” But to innovate at the speed of cognitive
business, you need data storage that transforms massive data challenges
into manageable, cost-effective business opportunities.
Historically, enterprise-grade storage arrays were expensive, inflexible
and difficult to share among multiple systems and applications. These
systems are quickly being replaced by SDS systems that use lower-cost
components in a flexible, reconfigurable architecture that enables
organizations to easily expand and re-target storage across many diverse
systems and workloads.
IBM DeepFlash™ 150 provides an essential big-data building block for
petabyte-scale, cost-constrained, high-density and high-performance
storage environments. It delivers the response times of an all-flash array
with extraordinarily competitive cost benefits. DeepFlash 150 is an ideal
choice to accelerate systems of engagement, unstructured data, big data
and other workloads requiring very low latency, high performance and
sustained throughput.

2. 2
Data Sheet
IBM Systems
Petabyte-scale storage without
compromise
The DeepFlash 150 all-flash storage array is a building
block for SDS infrastructures. It is a key element of a storage
solution—along with a compute platform and flash storage—
that is primarily targeted at big data, media and entertainment
streaming, virtual desktop, high-speed database, and hyper-scale
environments. DeepFlash 150 provides highly scalable capacity
and performance plus highly competitive economics—in both
capital expenditures and operational expenditures—surpassing
that of conventional enterprise-grade storage systems.
DeepFlash 150 introduces breakthrough economics for active
data sets. The basic DeepFlash 150 hardware platform breaks
the USD1 per GB barrier—and even with storage stack soft-
ware, its cost still remains less than USD2 per GB. Additionally,
DeepFlash 150 has been designed to optimize reliability, avail-
ability and serviceability. Compared to the spinning disk-based
systems used in many large-scale storage environments,
flash requires less redundancy, has a significantly lower failure
rate and consumes much lower power—with the additional
benefit of requiring fewer flash devices to meet data capacity
requirements. For serviceability, DeepFlash 150 components
are hot-swappable, making the entire system an easy-to-service,
field-replaceable unit.
Flash innovation for new workloads
Industry analysts invented a new term—“Big Data Flash”—
specifically to describe this high-density flash.1 Enterprises
grappling with constrained IT budgets, massive data sets and
escalating storage performance requirements typically will be
among the users of this new storage solution because it delivers
price-competitive, high-performance storage that also offers
extremely high storage density of up to 170 TB per rack unit,
or six petabytes (PB) per full rack. For these reasons, industries
deploying DeepFlash 150 storage solutions likely will include
high-performance computing, life sciences/genomics, financial
services, healthcare, e-commerce, telecommunications,
media and entertainment, and cloud service providers.
DeepFlash 150 will be an effective solution for all types of
SAP, SAS analytics and “oceans of data” workloads.
DeepFlash 150 does not use conventional solid-state drives
(SSD). Instead, this innovative new storage system relies on a
larger, systems-level approach that enables organizations to
manage much larger data sets without having to manage
individual storage modules. The DeepFlash 150 system comes
complete with the hardware necessary for enterprise and
hyper-scale storage, including up to 64 purpose-engineered
flash cards in a 3U chassis and 12-Gbps SAS connectors for
up to 8 servers. The wide range of IBM Spectrum Storage™
and other SDS solutions available for DeepFlash 150 provides
flash-optimized scale out and management along with large
capacity block, file and object storage interfaces designed to
help ease administration and save time.
­
IBM DeepFlash 150

3. 3
Data Sheet
IBM Systems
DeepFlash 150 also includes development libraries for direct
application integration, enabling advanced functions such as
triggers, message passing and in-situ data transformations.
Although the system can be used off the shelf with block or
object-based applications, an included software development
kit enables users to optimize applications for use with
DeepFlash 150 to obtain even better performance, efficiency
and total cost of ownership benefits in an organization’s unique
environment.
DeepFlash 150 at a glance
DeepFlash 150 is a 3U, 19-inch rack-mount storage enclosure
consisting of the following major components:
●● ●
Drive plane board (DPB) that supports up to 64 board flash
modules
●● ●
Four drive SAS expanders (DSE)
●● ●
Two host SAS expanders (HSE)
●● ●
Four fan modules (two fans in each module) with a fan
interface board (FIB)
The DeepFlash 150 storage system mounts in a rack using full
extension rack slides. Each system supports two HSEs. Each
HSE includes four mini-SAS (SFF-8088) connectors. Each
mini-SAS connector supports four SAS lanes. Each SAS lane
operates at up to 12 Gb/s.
HSEs with mini-SAS connectors interface to one or more
external servers through SAS 12 Gb/s cables up to three meters
in length.
The flash modules have a capacity of 8 TB each. DeepFlash
150 comes preloaded with 16, 32 or 64 BSSDs.
The system includes two PSUs that operate in a redundant
fashion. If one PSU fails, the other takes up the full load of
the system. The total power draw of the system is a maximum
of 1,200 W.

4. ­ ­
Please Recycle
­ ­
Why IBM?
IBM provides industry-leading flash and SDS solutions that
address the full spectrum of application workloads, business use
cases and budgetary requirements. IBM DeepFlash 150 adds
yet another option to the IBM storage portfolio specifically
targeting hyper-scale, high-density, price-competitive enterprise
requirements. IBM flash storage solutions can provide
these enterprises with the massive scalability, flexibility and
application performance the organization needs to compete,
innovate and grow.
For more information
To learn more about IBM DeepFlash 150, please contact
your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit:
ibm.com/systems/storage/flash/deepflash150/­ ­ ­ ­ ­
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2016
IBM Systems
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Produced in the United States of America
July 2016
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, DeepFlash, IBM Spectrum Scale, and
IBM Spectrum Storage are trademarks of International Business Machines
Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and
service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current
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information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may
be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every
country in which IBM operates.
The performance data discussed herein is presented as derived under
specific operating conditions. Actual results may vary.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED
“AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF
NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the
terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.
Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject
to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and
objectives only.
Actual available storage capacity may be reported for both uncompressed
and compressed data and will vary and may be less than stated.
1 Eric Burgener, “SanDisk Establishes the Big Data Flash Category with Its
InfiniFlash Introduction,” IDC, March 2015.
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