SoftLayer(R) Selects SMART Modular Technologies' Solid State Drives to Expand Storage Portfolio

ORLANDO, FL--(Marketwire - Oct 11, 2011) - Today at SNW 2011, SMART Modular Technologies, a leading independent manufacturer of solid-state storage products and memory modules, announced that SoftLayer Technologies® has selected SMART's XceedIOPS SATA 2.5" solid state drives (SSDs) in 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB capacities for use in its dedicated hosting centers. By offering SSD capabilities to its customers, SoftLayer is introducing a new level of storage performance, reliability and endurance capable of handling the toughest application workloads.

These field-proven SSDs combine enterprise-grade multi-level cell (E-MLC) NAND flash and innovative flash management technologies which makes them an ideal fit for write-intensive applications in SoftLayer's data centers. As a leading provider of cloud, dedicated, and managed hosting solutions, SoftLayer will offer the new SSD capabilities in its servers to customers who are interested in optimizing application performance in addition to exceptional throughput and response times. One of the key selection criteria for SoftLayer was SMART's outstanding reputation for world-class logistics and customer support.

"We are once again pushing the envelope by making the latest technology accessible to our customers without having them pay a premium price for it," said George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer for SoftLayer Technologies. "We partnered with SMART because they provide great worldwide logistical support, customer service, and on-time shipping, which will allow us to rapidly equip and add this option to our data center services around the world."

SMART's XceedIOPS SATA SSD delivers up to 250 MB/s sequential read/write speeds and up to 30,000 random input/output operations per second (IOPS). The XceedIOPS integrates E-MLC technology, which provides significantly more endurance than SSDs based on commercial MLC NAND flash. Endurance is further enhanced in the XceedIOPS SATA SSD by the use of a highly efficient flash-management algorithm that includes bad-block management wear leveling, and minimal write amplification. A combination of powerful error correction and detection, multi-level data path and code protection, temperature monitoring and throttling and data fail and power fail recovery features ensures high reliability throughout the life of the drive.

"SMART's storage design teams continually work to optimize performance, reliability, cost, endurance, and capacity, delivering superior SSDs to data centers," said Mike Lakowicz, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for SMART. "We are very pleased that SoftLayer has chosen to implement our products, and we expect SoftLayer's customers to gain competitive advantages by using our XceedIOPS SATA SSDs."

SMART is showcasing its Enterprise SSD product lines, which include the XceedIOPS SSDs, in booth #216 at Storage Networking World 2011, October 10-13, 2011 in Orlando, FL.

SoftLayer and SoftLayer Technologies are registered trademarks of SoftLayer Technologies.

About SoftLayer Technologies
Headquartered in Dallas, SoftLayer is the innovation leader in cloud, dedicated, and managed hosting, and the largest private hosting company in the world. SoftLayer provides cloud, dedicated, and seamlessly integrated computing environments, with world-class data centers in Dallas, Houston, San Jose, Seattle, Washington D.C., and Singapore, and network Points of Presence worldwide. The company integrates and automates all elements of its platform, empowering enterprises of any size with complete control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management via a leading Customer Portal and Open API. For more information, please visit www.softlayer.com or call 866.398.7638.

About SMART
SMART is a leading independent designer, manufacturer and supplier of electronic subsystems to original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs. SMART offers more than 500 standard and custom products to OEMs engaged in the computer, enterprise, industrial, networking, gaming, telecommunications, defense, aerospace and embedded application markets. Taking innovations from the design stage through manufacturing and delivery, SMART has developed a comprehensive memory product line that includes DRAM, SRAM, and Flash memory in various form factors. SMART also offers high performance, high capacity solid state drives, or SSDs, for enterprise, defense, aerospace, industrial automation, medical, and transportation markets. SMART's presence in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America enables it to provide its customers with proven expertise in international logistics, asset management, and supply-chain management worldwide. See www.smartm.com for more information.