Micron has been moving very quickly for the past couple of years, and that has led to the company’s undisputed leadership in NAND flash layers and DRAM process nodes. The first to ship 176-layer NAND flash chips a year ago, and now 176-layer QLC NAND, Micron packs a huge amount of storage into a single chip. Since it uses a CUA (CMOS Under Array) architecture, the die size is perhaps Continue reading “Micron’s Tiny Little 2TB SSD”
Using AI to Manage Internal SSD Parameters
For a long time The SSD Guy has meant to write something about the budding use of AI in SSDs. It’s an interesting approach whose time has come.
If you’re not conversant with AI, and maybe find the whole subject to be daunting, don’t worry. AI comes in many forms, and some are very simple. When major Internet firms like Google and Facebook use AI to Continue reading “Using AI to Manage Internal SSD Parameters”
Solidigm, SK hynix’ New SSD/Flash Subsidiary
While many of us, The SSD Guy included, were preparing for our New Year’s celebration, SK hynix, on December 30, closed the first phase of the company’s takeover of Intel’s NAND flash and SSD business, and created a new subsidiary that has been named Solidigm.
This is the first of two phases of the acquisition, which the companies agreed to in October 2020. With this move, SK hynix has Continue reading “Solidigm, SK hynix’ New SSD/Flash Subsidiary”
Micron’s Big Product Launch: The 7400 Series
Micron announced last week (6 Oct., ’21) a family of datacenter SSDs, the NVMe 7400 series, in a roll-out that includes more product versions than The SSD Guy ever has seen in a single announcement.
Micron calls this product series: “the broadest selection of Continue reading “Micron’s Big Product Launch: The 7400 Series”
WDC Rearchitects the HDD
Western Digital today announced a change to the architecture of HDDs that the company showed can increase an HDD’s capacity and performance without changes to the heads, media, or mechanics. Since the design, called OptiNAND, involves a good bit of NAND flash, The SSD Guy decided that it warranted discussion here.
That, and the fact that the company said Continue reading “WDC Rearchitects the HDD”
New SSDs Dedicated to Chia
PNY sent The SSD Guy an interesting press release about a new SSD designed for use in Chia plotting operations.
For those unfamiliar with Chia, it’s not the silly Chia Pets (like the Joe Biden Bust in this post’s graphic) that use vegetation to replicate hair, but is instead a new cryptocurrency somewhat similar to Bitcoin. We are told that Chia uses “Proof of Space and Time” models for mining rather than the “Proof of Work” models that Bitcoin employs. While that means that Bitcoin’s approach is compute intensive, Chia’s takes advantage of unused Continue reading “New SSDs Dedicated to Chia”
Computational Storage Hits the Mainstream
There’s an idea that has been kicking around for a number of years, and it seems now to be gaining traction. The idea is to use the inherent smarts and high available bandwidth within an SSD to perform functions that would normally be done by a server’s processor thereby reducing the load on the processor while minimizing the amount of data that needed to make a round trip from the SSD to the processor and back for some trivial function.
Such data movement is said to consume a very Continue reading “Computational Storage Hits the Mainstream”
Failures Plague SSDs
Over the past year there has been a rash of SSD failures unmatched by any prior year. This came to a head a month ago when Apple’s M1 Mac started to show undue SSD wear. It seems that people trapped at home and working remotely have taken up new habits on their notebook PCs (most of which now use SSDs) and these habits are causing their SSDs to wear out faster than they have in other, more normal years.
The “Work from Home” phenomenon has not only caused Continue reading “Failures Plague SSDs”
Intel Discontinues Optane Consumer SSDs. Is This Important?
On Friday, January 15, Intel announced the discontinuation of certain of the company’s Optane SSDs for consumers PCs. Naturally this is making Optane users curious about the future of the entire product line. Is this a big move?
In a word: “No.” It’s a relatively small part of overall Optane shipments, and it is probably Continue reading “Intel Discontinues Optane Consumer SSDs. Is This Important?”
Why Did Intel Sell its SSD Business?
Intel recently sold its NAND flash business, which was mainly producing SSDs, to SK hynix, a Korean competitor. Some people have asked the SSD Guy why did Intel do this? The company had highly-regarded products that could command top prices. Since Intel’s NAND flash fab is in Dalian, China, one person even asked if the divestiture could have been in response to the US-China trade war.
A better question is: “Why did Intel Continue reading “Why Did Intel Sell its SSD Business?”
