Earlier this week I received a new storage toy that'll take this to a whole new level - a Sun F5100 flash array. This beast packs 80 SLC flash modules (or FMods, in Sun speak) into a 1U box. Each module is essentially identical to the ones on the F20 card, which I already have used a lot for testing. It's 24GB in size, has a sequential throughput of approximately 200MB/sec reads and 150MB/sec writes, or 25K/15K IOPS. That's pretty fast by itself, multiply that by 80 and you are now burning holes in the fabric of time - 1.6 million IOPS, or well over 10GB/sec throughput.
Internally the modules are connected through SAS expanders, of which there are 4 on the back, each with 4 ports. Ideally you'd connect 16 controllers to reach the full potential of the box, setting up zoning to drive 5 modules per port. The box essentially has its own UPS with 4 energy modules at the front, so you never need to use barriers on this device. And it's running surprisingly quiet, which is always a big plus for things you have a few meters away from the desk :-)
Currently the box has 40 modules installed, 40 more are on the way. I have just a single SAS controller, more are on their way as well. Once the additional controllers arrive, I'll be putting it through the paces and posting some numbers. I have some soft multi-queue block IO support in progress that has been waiting for a potent device to be unleashed. This will be interesting...