Texas Memory's RamSan-5000 is the first flash memory-based solid state disk system that can process 1 million IOPS, the vendor said.

boasted in August that it cracked the 1 million IOPS barrier in research known as , but IBM did not say when its 1 million IOPS technology would be available for sale. (Compare .)

Texas Memory's flash, already on the market, can scale up to several million IOPS, either by installing a Turbo feature that costs extra or by simply increasing capacity, says Woody Hutsell, executive vice president of the company. But last month was the first time a customer deployed a flash system delivering 1 million IOPS, Hutsell said.

The 5000 deployment combines 10 RamSan-500 arrays, each of which delivers 100,000 IOPS. A customer could combine 20 such arrays for 2 million IOPS, Hutsell notes.

Texas Memory has been selling solid-state disks for about 30 years, specializing in RAM-based drives. Texas Memory began selling flash-based storage this year in response to market trends driven by adoption of flash by consumers and EMC's decision to sell flash to corporate IT departments.