High-capacity storage for battlefield use handles AI data sets and other military tasks
NewsDecember 22, 2023
RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. General Micro Systems (GMS) announced the launch of the rugged X9 Spider storage system intended for military-focused sensor data recorders, artificial intelligence (AI) data sets, networked storage, and data payload “sneaker net” portable data movement.
According to information from GMS, the new storage system is a key part of the company's X9 Spider Thunderbolt 4 technology-based open distributed computing architecture (DCA). The small-form-factor system -- which has up to 128 TB (max) removable storage capacity -- includes a 4- or 8-drive removable cartridge supporting secure, industry-standard 2.5-inch or M.2 solid-state storage. The storage system uses CSfC or FIPS-140-2 secure encrypted SSDs and handles up to 80 Gbits/sec of data I/O streaming.
The storage module has dual Thunderbolt 4 ports; Thunderbolt 4 is an industry-standard 40 Gbits/sec data “pipe” interface jointly designed by Apple Computer and Intel, that can carry multiple video streams, PCI Express data, 10 Gbits/sec networking, USB, and up to 100 W of power. GMS says that in the X9 storage setup, one Thunderbolt input port can be used for data read/write while the other can be used for daisy-chaining additional downstream X9 products (including one or more additional X9 storage systems). Such a configuration, says GMS, can expand a systems storage “array” of sorts into many removable canisters, provide for fault tolerance and redundancy, or enable larger RAID arrays.
