Over provisioning is one of the most common ways that SSD designers can help assure that an SSD has a longer life than the flash’s endurance rating would support. If an SSD contains more flash than is presented at its interface, the controller can manage wear across a larger number of blocks while at the same time accelerating disk performance by moving slow operations like block erases out of the way of the SSD’s key functions.
Many people like to compare wear leveling to rotating a car’s tires. In this vein, think of over provisioning as having a bunch of spare Continue reading “How Controllers Maximize SSD Life – Over Provisioning”