The acquisition of M-Systems by SanDisk for one billion US dollars is now complete and approved by the SEC. This has extended our product range and further reduced the price of the military grade solid state disks used to replace vulnerable rotating hard disks in rugged and mission-critical computing systems.

The new 5000 series low cost ‘commercial’ SSD products also easily exceed hard disk performance, reliability, longevity and environmental tolerance, and only lack the the full military-standard 810°F temperature range and security erase features found in the well proven ‘classic’ range.

Please note the new, low cost SSD5000 UATA (PATA) and SATA product range for rugged laptops, as offered by DELL and approved by Microsoft WHQL for Vista (£375 typical pricing for 32GB, the 64GB variant has just been announced) and the new CF5000 industrial grade fast compact flash device.

Also note our new Reactive SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 hard disk emulator (bridge to flash), for upgrading critical legacy defence systems that depend on unreliable and often obsolete tape and rotating magnetic disk drives.

We believe it is important that the IPTs and primary contractors are aware of the operational advantages this technology can now offer at a reduced cost when compared to rotating hard disk or tape.

M-Systems was already the largest supplier of solid state flash disk, and the clear technology leader with the TrueFSS embedded flash management system. It was also always a customer option to have the M-Systems FFD/mSSD product assembled in the USA (and now UK), and we believe it to be advantageous to our UK defence and security customers that M-Systems first class IP and mSSD/FFD technology is now owned by SanDisk, an international company with a huge combined flash production capability in California and internationally.

REACTIVE DATA SOLUTIONS

Reactive provide dedicated high performance data storage solutions to primary contractors and government agencies with unique applications. These solutions range from the most advanced solid state disk products and subsystems for both airborne and rugged, reliable portable computing use, to the support of critical legacy defence systems with enhanced tape and disk drive hardware emulators.

ADVANCED PRODUCTS

Our high performance, low cost, solid state (mSSD) products replace 1.8, 2.5 and 3.5 inch conventional Ultra 320 SCSI, IDE+, UATA, SATA, USB and CF disk drives on a form, fit and function basis. No special software drivers are required and the products provide tolerance to harsh environments, together with lower weight and reduced power. The products offer totally silent operation, very high reliability and a five year warranty.

The ‘classic’ mSSD/FFD products also feature built-in security erase, and selectable sanitisation (declassification) protocols approved by the NSA, DOD, IRIG and other bodies.

The embedded, patented, TFFS protocol on the ‘classic’ products provides a 30 year product life not possible with conventional flash wear leveling protocols. High sustained W/R transfer rates make our SCSI 320, UATA and SATA products the fastest SSDs available.

Selected by BAE, AMS, SAAB, Thales, Ultra, SELEX, DRS, EDS and many others, our products have become widely used for airborne reconnaissance and mission memory, and may be adapted to emulate magnetic tape units or earlier conventional SCSI-1, SCSI-2 disks.

DEDICATED SYSTEMS SUPPORT

Our standard legacy disk and tape drive hardware emulators are based on hard disk, hybrid and full solid state technologies and replace more archaic data storage devices that are now difficult to repair or source, or are found unsuitable for the targeted application.

We also supply the associated consultancy, dedicated design, and system integration services, to help in those cases where the best solution involves the matching of existing legacy system interfaces to the more future-proof and advanced interfaces common to modern data storage products.

We have completed numerous bespoke projects for various UK defence primes, most recently the airborne Nimrod Program Load Unit, or NPLU, for BAE, together with a range of modified tape and disk emulators and other mission data loaders in ground support. Customers again include several divisions of BAE, Selex, Thales, Telent (Marconi), Qinetiq, NATO, MoD, DRS, EDS and BAE.

To support customers that rely on the obsolete SASI/SCSI-1 interfaces we have developed a SCSI/SCSI bridge product with programmable interface characteristics that allows our high performance FFDs to be interfaced to legacy host systems without software change.

For low capacities, up to 16GB, the Reactive SCSI bridge product is available to accept our low-cost, industrial grade, compact flash devices and fits within the original 3.5 inch disk footprint.

At the extreme high performance end, our fibre connected ‘TMS’, solid state disk products allow data rates as high as 350MBytes/second over multiple 4Gb/s host channels. This product provides these high transfer rates and unbeatable IOPS irrespective of record length, as a cost efficient alternative to RAID, where bandwidth is more critical than capacity.

SOFTWARE, SUPPORT AND REPAIR SERVICES

Reactive offer powerful software tools for data management, analysis and protection. Our pedigree hardware and software products facilitate the rapid implementation of secure servers, surveillance and other systems unique to the defence and security market.

Fast turnaround approved digital tape drive repair is also offered for most major types and manufacturers.