Tailor-Made Enterprise SSDs
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
11M ago
An interesting advertisement appeared in The SSD Guy’s in-box, so I decided to ask more about it.  SSD maker Swissbit is offering to customize one of its enterprise SSD models to match their customers’ workloads. Matching an SSD to the workload has always been problematic for SSD makers and users alike.  Everyone’s workload is different, and an SSD must be designed with a certain workload in mind.  This means that the SSD will be a perfect fit in one application but may not perform well in another. This has a lot to do with a number of variables.  The biggest two are the ra ..read more
Visit website
Dealing with a Data Shortage
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
For the past several years presenters at data-oriented conferences have quoted forecasts for data growth that taxed their vocabularies.  Exabytes gave way to Zettabytes, and then Yottabytes, and these were often charted out on standard linear charts like the one below, with the inevitable result that the curve always starts out slow, and takes off like a rocket as it rises to the right. This approach to speaking got so overused that the SSD Guy blog stopped quoting these numbers because they became the preface of every keynote at every conference throughout the course of the year! But wh ..read more
Visit website
What is Write Amplification?
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
For a long time, The SSD Guy has been talking about Write Amplification without explaining what It is.  This post is intended to fix that. Write amplification is an internal issue for NAND flash SSDs that arises from the way that NAND chips work.  It doesn’t exist in standard HDDs, nor did it exist in DRAM SSDs before we had NAND ones.  In a nutshell it’s the number of times that a NAND chip within an SSD is written to after the host computer performs a single write. Since NAND flash wears out after too many writes the higher the write amplification, the shorter the SSD will las ..read more
Visit website
Optane’s Legacy, Part III: Memory Expansion and Security
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
A lot of folks believe that when Intel’s Optane is gone there will be nothing left but the story of its rise and fall.  That is far from the truth.  Optane has created a legacy of developments that will find use in computing for quite some time. In this three-part series The SSD Guy blog reviews Optane’s lasting legacy to reveal six changes that it has brought to computing architecture in its short lifetime. Each of the three parts covers two new developments: New programming paradigm & instructions New approach to 2-speed memory & latency handling New approach to memory ex ..read more
Visit website
Would WDC Really Merge with Kioxia?
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
Ever since Toshiba decided to spin out its memory business in 2017, leading to the creation of Kioxia, there have been rumors of Western Digital (WDC) acquiring it, or of Kioxia acquiring WDC’s flash memory business. There is a new spate of merger rumors in response to Elliott Management’s proposal last May that WDC should be split into two parts: a flash company and an HDD company. The SSD Guy blog doesn’t comment on rumors, but I can provide some insight into the challenges of merging Kioxia with WDC, and those insights indicate that such a merger is unlikely to actually happen. WDC’s Sweeth ..read more
Visit website
Optane’s Legacy, Part II: Two-Speed Memory and Latency Handling
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
A lot of folks believe that when Intel’s Optane is gone there will be nothing left but the story of its rise and fall.  That is far from the truth.  Optane has created a legacy of developments that will find use in computing for quite some time. In this three-part series The SSD Guy blog reviews Optane’s lasting legacy to reveal six changes that it has brought to computing architecture in its short lifetime. Each of the three parts covers two new developments: New programming paradigm & instructions New approach to 2-speed memory & latency handling New approach to memory ex ..read more
Visit website
Mardi Gras vs. SSD Garbage Collection
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
Mardi Gras is a good time for The SSD Guy to bend your mind.  It’s the day before Ash Wednesday kicks off Lent, which is the official start of the Easter season. And it never seems to happen on the same date. I will compare SSD garbage collection to the timing of the Easter season.  There are surprising similarities. Very few people understand why the exact date of Easter Sunday and the religious holidays that go around it seem to change dramatically from year to year.  The holidays I am talking about include Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter itse ..read more
Visit website
Optane’s Legacy, Part I: New Programming Paradigm and Instructions
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
A lot of folks believe that when Intel’s Optane is gone there will be nothing left but the story of its rise and fall.  That is far from the truth.  Optane has created a legacy of developments that will find use in computing for quite some time. In this three-part series The SSD Guy blog reviews Optane’s lasting legacy to reveal six changes that it has brought to computing architecture in its short lifetime. Each of the three parts covers two new developments: New programming paradigm & instructions New approach to 2-speed memory & latency handling New approach to memory exp ..read more
Visit website
Supporting a Dynamic SATA Market
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
Nobody seems to talk about SATA SSDs much anymore, even though there’s still a vibrant market.  NVMe is garnering all the attention.  Of course, that should come as no surprise.  While SATA is an extension of an interface designed around HDDs, NVMe was designed specifically for NAND flash. Still, lots of SATA sockets are being created, particularly in enterprise servers, so there’s a big need for SATA SSDs for the data center.  About 22 million SATA SSDs should be consumed this year in data center applications alone.  To that end, Micron Technology has introduced a new ..read more
Visit website
Another Perspective on a WDC Split
The SSD Guy
by Jim Handy
1y ago
In an earlier post I reacted to a letter that activist shareholder Elliott sent to Western Digital’s board asking for the company to be split into two parts, one for HDDs and the other for flash.  I wrote it before learning that the Elliott letter was posted on the web for public viewing. I found Elliott’s proposal hard to rationalize. Although the reasoning I shared in that post is solid, I learned when I read the Elliott letter that it also uses some very solid logic that approaches the split from a drastically different perspective, and from that perspective a split indeed makes sense ..read more
Visit website

Follow The SSD Guy on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR