Curtiss-Wright adds high-reliability, field-removable storage to SFF rugged mission computers

ASHBURN, Va. Engineers at Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division in Ashburn, Virginia, have enhanced the company’s Parvus DuraCOR 80-41 and DuraCOR 80-42 rugged, small form factor (SFF), Intel Core i7-based modular mission computers with support for high-cycle insertion removable SATA disk storage rated for up to 100,000 cycles.

Deployed missions increasingly require frequent insertion and extraction of Flash data storage in the field to meet critical information assurance and operational needs – driving the demand for reliable, high-capacity digital data storage. To that end, Curtiss-Wright engineers have enhanced the capabilities for 2.5-inch SATA solid-state disks (SSDs) in the company’s most popular size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C)-optimized SFF mission computers. System integrators can now use industry-standard SSDs via a rugged SATA connector transition interface rated for 100K cycles, officials say.

F-18 military aircraft take advantage of Parvus DuraCOR devices from
Curtiss-Wright's Defense Solutions division.

The DuraCOR 80-41 and DuraCOR 80-42 are designed for use in rugged mission processing applications, including tactical ground vehicle, helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft, and other demanding embedded computing platforms seeking to deploy multicore Intel architectures with ultra-reliable removable data storage requirements in demanding temperature, shock, vibration, altitude, dust, water environmental, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) conditions.

“With the addition of support for high cycle insertion/extraction of 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, our small form factor mission computers now have the level of removable data storage traditionally found only in select rugged storage appliances or custom systems,” says Lynn Bamford, senior vice president and general manager, Defense Solutions division. “Alternative industry designs support a fraction of the 100,000 cycles we now support, and often require the use of vendor-specific SSDs. By using industry standard SSDs, our customers benefit from the continuous improvements in SATA SSD densities, cost reductions, and reliability, without being tied to specific storage suppliers.”

Powered by quad-core 4th and 5 th generation Intel Core i7 (“Haswell”/“Broadwell”) processors, the rugged fanless DuraCOR 80-41 and 80-42 systems combine powerful graphics and multicore processing with MIL-grade mechanical robustness and modular I/O expansion capabilities in a lightweight “shoebox”-sized rugged enclosure ready for demanding civil and military platforms, officials describe.

Avionics on the F-18, which uses Parvus DuraCOR mission processing devices
from Curtiss-Wright's Defense Solutions division.

For high-capacity (multi-terabyte) removable storage, single/dual-slot 2.5-inch SATA SSD segments can be added to the chassis with traditional or high-mating cycle SATA interfaces (rated up to 100,000 insertions) to meet demanding information assurance or mission requirements. Curtiss-Wright also offers no/low-NRE application engineering services to pre-integrate Mini-PCIe modules and PCIe104 I/O modules for these modular systems. The use of quick-turn MCOTS variants can reduce cost, schedule, and risk for system integrators.

Curtiss-Wright Corp. is a global company that delivers highly engineered, critical function products and services to the commercial, industrial, defense, and energy markets. Building on the heritage of Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, Curtiss-Wright has a long tradition of providing reliable solutions through trusted customer relationships. The company employs approximately 8,400 people worldwide.

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