June 5, 2012, Seoul - SanDisk, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today introduced the Lightning® PCI Express Solid State Accelerator (Lightning® PCI Express SSA) card, designed to improve the performance of workstations and servers used in data centers, server farms, and cloud computing environments.

The SanDisk® Lightning PCIe SSA announced today is a product that can be additionally installed in workstations and servers, providing an optimal combination of speed, reliability, and cost savings, thereby delivering stable and predictable performance for enterprise applications. The Lightning PCIe SSA card product family efficiently manages heavy workloads by enabling rapid access to the most frequently used data and applications. This product line is part of SanDisk's rapidly growing enterprise SSD solution portfolio.

SanDisk's newly launched PCIe product is utilized across a wide range of applications, from financial institutions that continuously analyze and process massive volumes of data, to social media and website service providers that must respond immediately to customer clicks, to media content production companies that edit HD video.

Greg Goelz, Vice President and General Manager of SanDisk's Enterprise Storage Solutions division, stated, "SanDisk PCIe SSA delivers stable performance and enables rapid access to critical data in a simple and cost-efficient manner. Enterprise businesses can now leverage PCIe acceleration solutions that combine SanDisk's excellent NAND flash memory technology and innovative controller design to provide enterprise-grade reliability and scalability that customers can trust."

The Lightning PCIe SSA delivers SanDisk's proven enterprise SSD technology and incorporates an advanced controller that uses parallel processing architecture to manage essential data protection and I/O (input/output) functions. As a result, it delivers stable performance when data is accessed with minimal impact on CPU load and without the need for expensive additional DRAM memory.

In addition to enterprise-grade reliability, the Lightning PCIe SSA features low power requirements and includes industry-standard drivers, requiring no additional software or system modifications. This card can be easily added to virtually any computing system, serving as a simple and fast performance acceleration solution.

Many innovative companies are already sampling SanDisk's PCIe cards and experiencing their benefits. Ramy Katrib, Founder and CEO of DigitalFilm Tree, stated, "SanDisk's new Lightning Enterprise PCIe SSA provides the application acceleration necessary to develop more efficient workflows at a fraction of the cost of some previously adopted solutions." DigitalFilm Tree is an industry leader in defining emerging 'data-centric' technologies and applying them to creative workflows.

With the separately purchasable SanDisk FlashSoft™ SE 2.0 data caching software, caching options can be applied to Windows operating systems. In data centers, combining the Lightning PCIe SSA with SanDisk FlashSoft data caching software as an additional storage tier can support large server workloads.

Based on the next-generation PCIe 2.0 interface, the Lightning PCIe SSA is easily installed in any 4x or higher PCI slot and delivers enterprise-grade performance and reliability for demanding data center and cloud computing applications. It features an advanced SanDisk controller and low power requirements, offering a 2 million hour MTBF (mean time between failures) rating and an industry-leading 5-year warranty.

The SanDisk Lightning PCIe SSA is available in 200 gigabyte (GB)1 and 400GB capacities. Up to 5 cards can be installed in a single system, providing a maximum capacity of 2 terabyte (TB)1.

Additional Details and Features

• Fast Response Time: The SanDisk Lightning PCIe SSA features an average response time of 245 microseconds, with a maximum response time of less than 30 milliseconds, delivering substantial performance improvements in real applications running heavy workloads.
• Low Latency: SanDisk's newly launched PCI card achieves sustained read and write latency of as low as 50 microseconds.
• Industry-Standard Drivers: Industry-standard drivers are included for use in Microsoft Windows®, Linux, and VMWare® ESX environments. No additional system reconfiguration or software is required.
• Low Power: The power requirement of the SanDisk PCIe SSA is merely 15 watts, and no special cooling requirements are necessary, providing additional power savings.
• Bootable OS Drive Option: The Lightning Enterprise PCIe SSA supports multiple LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) as a bootable device.
• Enterprise-Grade Reliability: The Lightning PCIe SSA features "background patrol read" functionality that verifies data blocks on the storage device, CBC (capacitor backed cache) that prevents data loss without battery backup or supercapacitors, and an industry-leading 5-year limited warranty.

Pricing and Availability
The SanDisk Lightning PCIe Enterprise SSA is available in 200GB (LP 206M) and 400GB (LP 406M) capacities, with suggested retail prices of $1,350 and $2,350 USD, respectively, and will be sold in North America through authorized distributors such as Avnet, CDW, Newegg.com, and TigerDirect.com. For more information, visit www.sandisk.com/enterprise-storage-solutions