Conduant Update

StreamStor® Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board

ken — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:11:05 +0000

We have upgraded and refined one of Conduant’s I/O offerings. We named it the StreamStor^® Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board. It can be used with compatible StreamStor® controllers to provide direct data input utilizing Serial Front Panel Data Port (sFPDP) and other protocols including bonded and multi-channel versions of SeriaLite II. When combined with the StreamStor® Amazon Express controller, the interface can support recording and playback performance up to 750 megabytes per second for applications in defense, scientific research and commercial markets.

The StreamStor^® Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board supports independent multi-port recording and playback for up to four data streams. Some protocols support the bonding of all 4 channels to aggregate the performance for a single channel at higher speed. The board demonstrates flexibility by supporting widely used cabling and data protocols to ensure maximum data transfer rates with minimum overhead. An on-board Altera field programmable gate array (FPGA) allows for configuring multiple input/output (IO) protocols and other parameters.

Our Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board can be upgraded and customized in the field as requirements demand and allows for recording from multiple devices simultaneously in any environment. With our StreamStor technology, all packet formation and management is performed by the hardware so there is no latency or other delays to affect data transmission performance. When combined with StreamStor storage controllers our new Optical Serial Mezzanine Board provides a reliable and sustainable high speed data recording and playback solution.

The StreamStor^® Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board can be ordered with support for data rates from 1.06 to 3.125 gigabytes per second and wavelengths of 850 nm or 1300 nm to support cable lengths up to 25 kilometers. The board uses standard LC optical connector style for easy connection to compatible data sources.

Pricing for The StreamStor^® Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board starts at $3,500. The mezzanine board is currently available. For specifications and more details click on: Data Sheet

StreamStor Tip – Playback Looping

ken — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:33:11 +0000

I wanted to remind you of the playback looping feature available on several of our recorders. Available since SDK 7.6, playback looping allows the specification of a starting and ending address within the recorded data set to allow continuous playback to an external data port such as FPDP, Serial FPDP or LVDS. This feature will repeatedly output the specified data set for simulation or as required in required in many diverse applications. One example of the way this feature is being used is in optimization of RF receivers.By capturing live data from field experiments, the playback can be continuously looped on playback to allow optimization of RF receiver hardware or software.

StreamStor Tip – Partitioning

ken — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:33:03 +0000

Many of our recorders support partitioning. This feature can be used to divide the available storage capacity into as many as 256 partitions of varying sizes. When a partition is in use all the normal StreamStor functions are available at full speed performance but with reduced capacity. Partitions can be used to record in wrap mode (circular buffer) without using the full capacity of the system. Partitions can be overwritten and reused without affecting the data in any other partition. An example of partition usage is to record sensor data continuously in wrap mode for very ling periods of time until an event occurs that triggers the recording to stop thereby preserving the data relative to the event. The recording can then be immediately restarted in a new partition to avoid missing new events without overwriting the initial event.

Predicting Disk Drive Reliability

ken — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:41:07 +0000

One of the things we are consistently asked about is how can the failure of a disk drive be predicted. While disk drive reliability has improved dramatically over the last 20 years, it would obviously be desirable to predict a failure before it occurs. Disk drive manufacturers (especially IBM) have created a system called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis, and Reporting Technology) that was intended to provide just such a mechanism. Unfortunately it has never quite achieved the intended result and failure prediction remains an elusive goal. There are also many myths about disk drive reliability that may or may not be true such as temperature sensitivity and usage patterns effecting drive reliability. If you are interested in reading more about this subject, Google published a paper describing their research into disk drive failure prediction. You can find that paper here: http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf