LSI's first WarpDrive product featured 300GB of extreme SLC flash attached to several SandForce SF-1500 controllers. This product is designed for data center use and allows 42U racks of servers with traditional HDDs to be shrunk down to half rack sizes. The saving in power reduction alone is quite significant but once you factor in the reduction in overall footprint things really get interesting.

Announced just a few weeks ago at IDF, the second generation WarpDrive is just about ready to hit the market. WarpDrive 2 can now be scaled up to 1.6TB, a massive increase from the 300GB first edition. We're told that production is now ramping up and to expect some big announcements soon.

WarpDrive 2 will bring new capacity sizes thanks to MLC flash but the original WarpDrive is available today. Pictured above, it's easy to see why LSI was so eager to bring SandForce and their technology close to home base. We'll be seeing the transaction power of this product in house in just a few short weeks, stay tuned.