SandForce today announced the SF-2481 SSD Processor - the first SSD Processor optimized for cloud computing environments.

This booming storage segment demands the performance and reliability of enterprise SSDs balanced with volume Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash in order to meet the solid state storage demands of cloud services providers.

SandForce claims that its new SF-2481 SSD Processor is increasing the endurance of SSDs built with standard MLC flash by incorporating nearly twice the normal error correction strength. In addition, it adds Predictive Failure Analysis capabilities including a new Media Health Test to ensure reliability over the life of the storage solution. These are combined with the many other features of the current second generation SandForce SATA 6 Gigabit/sec SSD Processors with DuraClass technology.

The processor also supports the DuraWrite technology to enable balanced performance, low write amplification, and most efficient garbage collection. Performance figures include balanced sequential read and write speeds of up to 500 Megabytes/sec and balanced random read and write speeds of up to 60,000 I/Os per second.

In addition, the RAISE technology is provided to protect user data from entirely lost sectors, pages and blocks. Automatic double AES encryption equal to 300-bit protection with Secure Crypto-Erase control and SMART attributes (with the Media Health Test) enable predictive failure analysis.

SandForce is now sampling the SF-2481 SSD Processor to OEMs now and will ship it in mass production in January 2012.