What is an SSD Trim Command?

TrimmerAlthough the Trim command has been defined for nearly a decade, for some reason I have never written a post to explain it.  It’s time for that to change.

Trim is something that was never required for HDDs, so it was a new command that was defined once SSDs became prevalent.  The command is required because of one of those awkward encumbrances that NAND users must accommodate: Erase before write.

NAND flash bits cannot be altered the same way as an HDD.  In an HDD a bit that’s currently set to a “1” can be re-written to a “0” and vice versa.  Writing a bit either way takes the same amount of time.  In NAND flash a 1 can be written to a zero, but the opposite is not the case.  Instead, the entire block (4-16k bytes) must be erased at once, after which all bits are set to a 1.  Once that has been done then zeros can be written into that block to store data.  An erase is an excruciatingly slow operation, taking up to a half second to perform.  Writes are faster, but they’re still slow.

Let’s say that a program needs to Continue reading “What is an SSD Trim Command?”

New Study Forecasts Huge Enterprise SSD Growth

Enterprise SSD Revenues will Cycle with NAND Flash PricesObjective Analysis has published a new study, Enterprise SSDs: Technologies & Markets.

This study breaks the market into 23 application types, and provides an explanation of each along with forecasts by major application category.

Virtualized systems will drive the greatest 5-year average unit shipment growth, at 85%, although the data center will retain its leadership in enterprise SSD consumption.  Overall enterprise SSD unit shipments will grow at an annual average of 32% through 2018.

Since SSD prices are cost-based, with roughly 80% of the cost coming from flash chips, NAND flash price swings will cause Continue reading “New Study Forecasts Huge Enterprise SSD Growth”

SanDisk to Acquire SMART Storage

The following is excerpted from an Objective Analysis Alert e-mailed to our clients on 2 July, 2013:

SanDisk to Acquire SMART Storage SystemsSanDisk Corporation announced on 2 July 2013 an agreement to acquire SMART Storage Systems, the SSD arm of SMART Modular Technologies, for $307 million in cash and equity. The transaction is expected to close in August, 2013.

SMART has strong SSD technology that allows the company to ship MLC-based SSDs with endurance specifications superior to those of some SLC SSDs.  The SSD maker had shipments of about $25M in its most recent quarter.

The SMART acquisition will be the fourth Continue reading “SanDisk to Acquire SMART Storage”

Seagate’s Big Intro: Four New SSD Families in One Day

Seagate's Four New SSD FamiliesSeagate this week updated its SSD portfolio with four new product families and now claims to have the broadest portfolio of storage products in the industry.  This announcement squarely places the company in all the key SSD markets: SATA, SAS, and PCIe.

Here’s Seagate’s new lineup:

Webinar: How Many IOPS Do You Really Need?

How Many IOPS Webinar Cover SlideEarlier today Tom Coughlin and I presented a BrightTalk webinar in league with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) to discuss our joint report: How Many IOPS is Enough?

The report is based upon a survey that asked IT managers about their enterprise IOPS requirements.  The webinar gives a taste of the report’s contents, and explains the survey methodology.  During the course of the webinar and at the end Tom and I answered a number of listener questions relating to the content.

The presentation also includes a little plug for SNIA’s client IOPS survey which is being run by downloading a program called the Workload I/O Capture Program, or “WIOCP.”

A replay of this webinar is available on the BrightTalk website.

The presentation was well received by our audience.  Have a listen.

WDC’s HGST Intros 12G SAS MLC SSDs

Latencey Histogram of HGST's MLC SSDIn case you didn’t have enough abbreviations in your life, The SSD Guy brings you the headline above, with the promise that the news below is really interesting: HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technology, but now a division of WDC – Western Digital Corp.) has brought out a new line of 12Gb/s SAS SSDs based on MLC flash.  These are a part of the UltraStar line.

Whereas HGST’s first-generation UltraStar SAS SSDs used SLC flash, the new SSDs are based on 25nm MLC flash but offer the same warranties as HGST’s prior generation.  Even so, performance for the new SSDs is significantly faster than that of their SLC-based predecessors, with no reduction in wear or lifetime specifications.

These SSDs are the first to support Continue reading “WDC’s HGST Intros 12G SAS MLC SSDs”

Intel Jumps Into the PCIe SSD Market

Intel's 910 PCIe SSDIntel has gotten into the fast-growing and lucrative market for PCIe SSDs.  The company has announced a PCIe SSD, the 910, that provides the high performance you would expect of a PCIe drive with the quality guarantees that customers expect of Intel.

Who could blame them?  Fusion-io has become a Wall Street darling for creating the PCIe SSD market, and still rides it to continually growing revenues.  LSI is fascinated by the growth of its Warp Drive.  Micron attained a significant design win at EMC, Texas Memory Systems (TMS) has had success in its own narrow markets, and Virident, OCZ, and STEC have also participated in the PCIe SSD’s market growth.

Intel’s 910 consists of four Hitachi SAS SSD Continue reading “Intel Jumps Into the PCIe SSD Market”