With more and more introductions of Netbooks and high-end laptops such as Lenovo X13, the evaluated advantages of solid-state drive (SSD) are getting well-known that also drives more users to chose SSD. However, SSD is not only used in notebook and netbook but also a good choice for system partition of desktop or server, the editor noted.
The advantages of SDD (solid-state drive) comparing with HDD (hard disk drive)
-
non-volatility and less power consumption
-
along with the lower power consumption, much lesser heat dissipation for systems
-
to withstand extreme shock and vibration with data integrity and without any danger of data loss
-
randomly accessed data without relying on a read/write interface head, short response time
In reality, the room occupancy, power consumption, software fee and upgrade/maintenance and reliability are major indexes on purchasing decision of server hardware. The above mentioned point 1, 2 and 4 are major elements to purchase a server in terms of cost effectiveness. The power consumption can reflect on lower electricity bill and the anti-shock feature at the 3rd point fits for the development of embedded market. The advantages of SSD are apparent.
On the contrary, couple disadvantages of SSD are as followed:
-
high cost per megabyte of storage
-
low popularity
-
lifespan has been questioned and criticized. (More explanations in the following paragraph
When I first time saw the dissembled SSD, the impression of SSD was like a RAM-DISK with a great amount of Flash Rom on the circuit board or like a big piece of flash drive. This is also the reason why SSD shares greater physical resilience to physical vibration, shock and extreme temperature fluctuations and the response time is almost 0 second.
Source: http://www.geckoandfly.com/tag/32gb-ssd
The differences among SLC, MLC and SLC+MLC
hen the traditional electromechanical hard drive is categorized by spinning speed, capacity and memory buffer, SSD is specified by the use of chip. The advance spec is SLC standing for single-level cell with highest speed and longest lifespan but higher cost per megabyte of storage due to difficult manufacturing process. Comparatively, the lower priced MLC for multi-level cell was slower than SLC in terms of speed and lifespan. As the gap between SLC and MLC is still great, several companies start to introduce the SDD employed with SLC+MLC for consumer to chose. The editor has arranged a comparison chart among SLC, MLC and SLC+MLC.
The write/erase endurance does not mean the SSD lifespan will be over when the endurance hits 10,000. The endurance does not count one time when each time to write/erase a file, either. It is counted as a page which is about 2KB. Each time to write data in SSD, the previous data need to be erased so that the speed of SSD is slower than other drives. As erasing the data, it is counted by 128KB which equals 64 pages. The write/erase endurance means the frequency of writing and erasing in each block. SSD wear-leveling technology enables the data to be written evenly in each block.
SSD provides faster system speed.
SSD’s pricing is still high but the high efficiency is what users want. Here is the mix of SSD and traditional electromechanical hard drive for the system to be installed. The advantage of SSD’s high speed and the big capacity and durability of traditional hard drive ensures the processing speed and data storage reliability that can decrease the waiting time and increase the working efficiency. The following video clip is shown in dual screens representing SSD and HDD respectively. The testing comparison is made by a Japanese engineer. The testing will help readers to understand how SSD improves working efficiency.
Afterword
After viewing the video, it is obvious to tell the high speed of SSD applied in running system. Taiwanese makers including A-Data, Apacer, Transcend and PQI have introduced different SSDs on the market. It is noteworthy that IBM and HP have SSDs available for blade servers in order to elevate processing speed and efficiency when HDS employs SSD in enterprise storage market. EMC Corp. announced an upgrade to its entire line of Celerra network-attached storage systems, saying it offers solid-state disks and file-level data de-duplication on the arrays and its gateway device as China-based Dexin Corp. also introduces SSD servers for ready shipment. It is estimated that SSD’s maturity and popularity and lower price can become mainstream of storage device of servers and desktops.
The editor believes the factors make SLC SSD a good fit in server/embedded systems, while MLC SSD makes it possible to create affordable mobile/netbook devices with large amounts of data storage when the cost of SLC SSD is three times more than MLC SSD’s. Therefore, to lower the cost of SSD will majorly depend on NAND Flash’s pricing. Also, if Taiwanese makers want to decrease the entire cost, the cost of SSD other components should be concerned. Here is the analysis of SSD components versus Taiwanese suppliers.
-
Controller can be divided into Flash controller, Sata controller, RAID.Suppliers include
Phison Electronics,
Silicon Motion,
JMicron, InCOMM Technologies and
Skymedi Corp. The supplier of EeePC controller should be Silicon Motion. Besides, to integrate Flash controller and SATA bridge in one chip is the future trend. If Raid controller can be integrated in the same chip, SSD will be more available for server related products.
-
NAND Flash: it is the primary use in SSD. The current suppliers are overseas makers. However, the 12-inch DRAM plants are gathered in Taiwan that will be the strength of Taiwanese makers. Makers include
Powerchip Semiconductor, Transcend and A-Data.
-
PCB, Passive component, Case: tons of Taiwanese manufactures are beyond description. For these are not the key components of SSD, the article is not going to specify in further details.