FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7 Now Available for OEM and ODM Partners

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Release Date: January 20, 2026

FlexSDS today announced that FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7 is officially available to OEM and ODM partners, enabling storage vendors, system integrators, cloud providers, and hardware manufacturers to rapidly build and deliver differentiated storage solutions based on FlexSDS’s proven scale-out software-defined storage technology.

With nearly a decade of production deployment and continuous innovation, FlexSDS provides a mature, high-performance, and fully software-defined storage platform that can be seamlessly integrated, customized, and branded for OEM and ODM use cases.

Designed for OEM and ODM Integration

FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7 is architected from the ground up to support deep integration and customization at multiple levels:

  • Software-only architecture running on industry-standard x86 hardware
  • Flexible deployment models ranging from single-node and two-node HA to large-scale distributed clusters
  • Modular design that allows partners to adopt full solutions or individual components
  • OEM-ready SDK and APIs for custom control planes, management interfaces, and automation
  • White-label and branding support for commercial products and cloud services

OEM and ODM partners can leverage FlexSDS to shorten development cycles, reduce engineering costs, and accelerate time to market.

FlexSDS v7: A Unified Block and File Storage Platform

The latest FlexSDS v7 release extends the platform beyond block storage to deliver a full-featured distributed file system, making it ideal for a wide range of OEM and ODM offerings.

Distributed File System (DFS)

  • User-mode file system with concurrent access
  • Designed for shared data and enterprise workloads

Parallel Distributed File System (PDFS)

  • Parallel client architecture for maximum throughput
  • Optimized for AI training, analytics, and data-intensive applications

High Availability

  • Floating Virtual IPs (VIP) for seamless file service failover
  • High-availability web management platform

Access Interfaces

  • Network File System (NFS)
  • FUSE3 interface for flexible integration
  • Native high-performance API for latency-sensitive workloads

Proven Block Storage Foundation

FlexSDS v7 builds on the enterprise-grade block storage capabilities introduced in earlier releases, providing OEMs and ODMs with a reliable and scalable foundation:

  • Deployment architectures: single node, two-node HA with witness, and true scale-out clusters (3–1024 nodes)
  • Data protection: N-way replication and large-set erasure coding (EC)
  • High-performance backend engines:
    • Local storage: user-mode NVMe, block devices, file-based images
    • Shared storage: iSCSI, iSER, NVMe-oF SAN, JBOF, FBOF
  • Storage networking: iSCSI, iSER, NVMe over Fabrics, and vHost
  • Advanced features: unlimited zero-copy snapshots, asynchronous remote replication, and centralized management

Ideal for a Wide Range of OEM and ODM Solutions

FlexSDS enables partners to build and deliver:

  • Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) platforms
  • All-flash and hybrid storage appliances
  • AI and HPC storage systems
  • Cloud and edge storage services
  • Private and hybrid cloud storage offerings

By leveraging FlexSDS, partners can focus on product differentiation, hardware innovation, and customer experience—while relying on a proven, production-ready storage software stack.

Partnership Opportunities

FlexSDS offers flexible OEM, ODM, and SDK licensing models, including source-level and component-level cooperation for qualified partners. Whether building a complete storage product or integrating specific technologies such as distributed file systems, high-performance NVMe engines, or scale-out data protection, FlexSDS provides the expertise and software foundation to support your business.

For partnership inquiries, please contact [email protected] or visit www.flexsds.com.

FlexSDS—Powering OEM and ODM storage innovation at scale.

FlexSDS Announces FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7 with Distributed File System Released

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FlexSDS Announces FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7, Expanding from High-Performance Block Storage to a Full Distributed File System Platform

Release Date: January 20, 2026

FlexSDS today announced the release of FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7, the latest and most comprehensive version of its software-defined, scale-out storage platform. Building on nearly a decade of continuous development, FlexSDS v7 extends the platform beyond high-performance block storage to deliver a fully integrated Distributed File System (DFS) designed for modern AI, analytics, and cloud-native workloads.

With FlexSDS v7, organizations can now deploy a unified storage platform that combines proven block storage performance, true scale-out architecture, and a highly available distributed file system—all running on industry-standard hardware.

What’s New in FlexSDS v7

FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7 introduces comprehensive DFS capabilities while preserving and enhancing all features delivered in previous releases.

Distributed File System (DFS)

  • User-mode file system supporting concurrent file sharing
  • Designed for scalable, multi-node environments

Parallel Distributed File System (PDFS)

  • High-performance, parallel client architecture
  • Optimized for AI training, analytics, and data-intensive workloads

High Availability for File Services

  • Floating Virtual IPs (VIP) for continuous file system access
  • High-availability web management platform

File System Access Interfaces

  • Network File System (NFS)
  • FUSE3 interface for flexible integration
  • Native high-performance API for latency-sensitive applications

FlexSDS v7 transforms FlexSDS into a complete data platform, delivering both block and file services with enterprise-grade reliability and performance.

Proven Foundation: FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v4 (2022)

FlexSDS v7 builds on the robust block storage capabilities introduced in FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v4, released on January 20, 2022. That release established FlexSDS as a high-performance, scale-out block storage solution optimized for all-flash and hybrid environments.

Deployment Architectures

  • Single-node deployment with local redundancy
  • Two-node high availability with witness
  • Three or more nodes for true scale-out storage

Reliability and Data Protection

  • Automatic fault detection and recovery
  • Flexible data protection with:
    • N-way replication
    • Large-set erasure coding (EC)

Backend Storage Engines

  • Local storage: user-mode NVMe, block devices, and file-based images
  • Shared storage: iSCSI, iSER, NVMe-oF SAN, JBOF, FBOF, and similar architectures

Storage Networking

  • iSCSI, iSER, NVMe over Fabrics, and vHost

Core Platform Capabilities

  • Server Pool with true user-mode polling
  • Software-defined Storage Pool
  • Unlimited, zero-copy snapshots
  • Asynchronous remote replication over iSCSI and NVMe-oF
  • Centralized web management for multi-server environments

A Decade of Innovation: FlexSDS ServerSAN 2016 V1

The FlexSDS journey began with FlexSDS ServerSAN 2016 V1, released on December 3, 2016. This initial release laid the architectural foundation that continues to power FlexSDS today.

Key Capabilities Introduced in 2016

  • Two-node high availability architecture
  • High-performance block storage optimized for all-flash appliances
  • Storage networking via iSCSI, iSER, and NVMe over Fabrics
  • Server Pool with polling mode
  • Software-defined Storage Pool
  • Unlimited, zero-copy snapshots
  • High availability and replication over RDMA or TCP
  • Centralized web management across multiple servers

A Unified Scale-Out Storage Platform

With the release of FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7, FlexSDS now delivers a unified, software-defined storage platform that supports:

  • High-performance block storage
  • Distributed and parallel file systems
  • True scale-out architecture from small HA clusters to large deployments
  • Advanced data protection and high availability
  • Flexible access via SAN, NFS, FUSE, and native APIs

FlexSDS v7 is designed for enterprises, cloud providers, AI platforms, and OEM partners seeking maximum performance, scalability, and flexibility—without proprietary hardware.

For more information about FlexSDS Scale-out Storage v7, please visit www.flexsds.com or contact [email protected].

FlexSDS released high performance optimized SDS storage software stack for hybrid and all flash servers

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Oct 01, 2020, FlexSDS, the global recognized in high performance software defined storage period, has announced a new release of it’s distributed scale-out storage software stack 2020 V4 for hybrid and all flash servers, FlexSDS software defined storage is now available for End-Users and OEM partners in all around of the world.

FlexSDS brings its own developed core service which is a high performance optimized, lock-free scheduler (like a OS) to manage all resources in the server includes: CPU, memory, storage, PCI devices and numa, which is working in polling mode and make full usage of hardware resource to perform maximum performance for storage service.

FlexSDS brings user mode NVMe driver (Kernel-by-pass) to support directly attached, RAID pool and SDS Pool, SDS Pool allows to create multiple volumes to be exposed as high availability, snapshot enabled iSCSI target, iSER target or NVMe-oF target, FlexSDS brings the ability to run any application at any scale, fast time-to-value, and non-disruptive scale-up or scale-out.

FlexSDS is a software-only solution that runs on industry-standard hardware (any x86 based machines). It supports unlimited capacity per node and up to 2 PB of each storage pools. It could be external storage or HCI storage for private and hybrid cloud, by providing thin provisioning volume, log structured volume or RAW volumes and exporting them over SAN protocol.

Performance

  • Polling mode server pool, listening to multiple NICs and ports.
  • Delivers full performance of NVMes over the network.
  • Linearly scale performance and capacity
  • Providing high IOPS and high bandwidth.
  • Designed for next generation hardware, kernel-bypass, lock-free model, zero-mem-copy, high CPU cache optimize to provide extreme low latency.
  • Parallel and high concurrent I/O technology and high utilization of storage and network resources.

Efficiency

  • Supports current and future media workflows
    Using standard server, storage and network devices
  • Single-pane management, providing easy-to-use, all-in-on and centralized WEB management platform.
  • Low total cost of ownership (TCO)

Flexibility

  • 100% SDS Pool which can manage all disks and make them as pooled with the ability to create arbitrary, dynamic block volumes with unlimited zero-copies snapshot enabled.
  • The block interface facilitates easy integration with other legacy file systems.
  • Mix different storage devices (NVMe / SSD / HDD) to optimize for cost, scale or performance
    Scale out storage and compute as needed.
  • Fast deployment and scaling of storage resources, and dynamic workload scaling and balancing.
  • Supports up to 1024 server nodes and can offer block service to Windows Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Citrix XenServer or KVM-qemu hypervisor.
  • Multiple node and data copies, high availability and auto-recovery.
  • Efficient asynchronous replication
  • Protocol supports: iSCSI (TCP), iSER (iSCSI Extension for RDMA) and NVMe-oF (NVMe over Fabric).
  • Unlimited space-optimized snapshots and clones, periodic or continuous asynchronous long-distance replication.
  • High Availability and Remote mirror: All interfaces (iSCSI, iSER, and NVMe-oF) support HA.
  • Legacy device support, support for SATA/SAS HDD and SSD.

FlexSDS Release Notes

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Release Version: FlexSDS 2020 V4, Release Date: 06/03/2020

Release Feature:

  • Storage Network: iSCSI, iSER and NVMe over Fabric
  • Server Pool: Polling Mode
  • Storage Pool: True Scale-out Software Defined Storage Pool
  • Snapshots: Unlimited and Zero-Copies Snapshots
  • Performance: User mode NVMe end-to-end stack, kernel-bypass, zero copy and zero context switch.
  • Replication: High Availability and Replication over RDMA or TCP
  • Web Management: Manage whole storage cluster in one platform

FlexSDS released high performance optimized SDS stack for hybrid or all flash arrays

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FlexSDS, the global recognized in high performance software defined storage period, has announced a new release of it’s software stack 2018 for Flash Arrays.

FlexSDS brings its own developed core service which is a high performance optimized, lock-less scheduler (like a OS) to manage all resources in the server includes:
CPU, memory, storage, PCI devices and numa, which is working in polling mode and make full usage of hardware resource to perform maximum performance for storage service.

FlexSDS brings user mode NVMe driver (Kernel-by-pass) to support directly attached, RAID pool and SDS Pool, SDS Pool allows to create multiple volumes to be exposed as high availability, snapshot enabled iSCSI target, iSER target or NVMe-oF target.

 

Key features:

100% SDS Pool which can manage all disks and make them as pooled with the ability to create arbitrary, dynamic block volumes with unlimited zero-copies snapshot enabled.
Polling mode server pool, listening to multiple NICs and ports.
Protocol Support: iSCSI (TCP), iSER (iSCSI Extension for RDMA) and NVMe-oF (NVMe over Fabric).
High Availability and Remote mirror: All interfaces (iSCSI, iSER, and NVMe-oF) support HA.
Kernel-by-pass, completely kernel-by-pass and zero data copy in I/O path (except latency disk support).
Non-SDS Pool, providing directly attached, RAID (0, 1, 5) mode storage pool.
Legacy device support, support for SATA/SAS HDD and SSD.
Data safety, strong consistency I/Os return back after safely placed in Disks.
Easy Management, providing easy-to-use, all-in-on and centralized WEB management platform.

Almost no limitation to use FlexSDS, FlexSDS can be working on All Flash Array, and as well as working on traditional SATA/SAS arrays, user can use even 1-2 NVMe to get the benefits of the kernel-by-pass performance.

FlexSDS software defined storage is now available for End-Users and OEM partners in all around of the world.

How to install FlexSDS

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Install FlexSDS Scale-out Software Software is very easy, please refer to the FlexSDS user’s manual for setting up and deployment.

Using command line iSER DEMO to test iSER target performance

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From the package of us, there are few demo utils to create a single pooled storage to demonstrate storage features and performance. Through the way, you can quick preview the favorite features in minutes.

For iSER target, you may run the following command to start：

/opt/flexsds/bin/flexsds -d iser spool 2 nvme://0000:04:00.0 nvme://0000:05:00.0
outputs are:
found 1 ib devices
device0: mlx5_0, uverbs0, /sys/class/infiniband_verbs/uverbs0, /sys/class/infiniband/mlx5_0
copies: 2
create name space: iqn.2016-12.com.flexsds:testpool.volume0…done.
iSCSI over RDMA service is started.

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Using command line NVMe-oF DEMO to test off-load NVMe-oF target performance

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From the package of us, there are few demo utils to create a single pooled storage to demonstrate storage features and performance. Through the way, you can quick preview your favorite features in minutes.

For NVMe-oF target, you may run the following command to start：

/opt/flexsds/bin/flexsds -d nvmf spool 3 nvme://0000:04:00.0 nvme://0000:05:00.0 nvme://0000:05:00.0
outputs are:
found 1 ib devices
device0: mlx5_0, uverbs0, /sys/class/infiniband_verbs/uverbs0, /sys/class/infiniband/mlx5_0
copies: 2
create name space: nqn.2016-12.com.flexsds:all-flash-pool.volume0…done.
NVMe over Fabric service is started.

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