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FORTASA BLOG

Flash Storage Solutions for Embedded Designs
High Reliability Flash SSDs, Cards and Modules for Industrial Applications

OVERCOMiNG WRITE AMPLIFICATION IN SSDs

Posted by David Chen on Wednesday, 01 Mar 2023

Embedded computing systems are designed to be highly efficient and effective, allowing them to perform specific tasks such as rapidly writing data to storage media quickly and accurately. While hard disk drives (HDDs) remain a viable storage option, especially where large amounts of data need to be written, their mechanical components can be vulnerable to damage from environmental influences such as shock and vibration in industrial settings, resulting in higher error rates. Consequently, Solid State Drives (SSDs) are most often preferred in rugged industrial storage settings because they lack moving parts and can withstand environmental impact much better than HDDs.

However, the biggest drawback of using Flash Memory Based Storage Solutions or SSDs is that flash memory storage has a finite lifespan based on the number of program and erase cycles written to the media. And write amplification can significantly shorten this lifespan.

Write amplification is a phenomenon the occurs when flash memory and solid state drives (SSDs) store more data than was originally intended, leading to an more write/erase cycles that compromise the device's lifespan and performance. To measure write amplification, it is necessary to compare the amount of data written to the flash memory with the amount intended to be stored by the application's host system. When compared to HDDs, SSDs are more susceptible to write amplification, as they require data to be erased before new data can be written, whereas HDDs permit new data to be written over old data. To understand why and how write amplification occurs in SSDs, it is essential to understand how they store data.

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SSD OVERHEATING ISSUE REQUIRES THERMAL THROTTLING

Posted by Samuel Nakhimovsky on Tuesday, 07 Jul 2020

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are a type of data storage device that use a non-volatile semiconductor-based memory, such as a flash memory, to store data. As market demand for high capacity storage drives higher and higher SSD capacity, performance demands increase respectively. To achieve an increase in SSD performance, multiple storage components need to be addressed simultaneously, increasing the power usage by the SSD. At the same time, the physical size requirements of the SSD generally stay the same or become even smaller.

When SSDs are subjected to sustained workloads from peak performance sequential writes over a long period of time, the drives tend to internally heat up. If and when the SSD temperature exceeds that of the rated operating conditions, the NAND Flash components start to "leak" electrons and data errors are very likely to occur. In addition, to compound the problem, SSDs used in industrial applications must be able to tolerate higher ambient temperatures, which naturally hinders heat dissipation. This temperature increase can potentially put data stored on the SSD at the risk of being corrupted and hardware components in danger of being permanently damaged, both of which, naturally, lead to significant reduction in the life expectancy of the drive.

Here is a chart for SSD continuous operation without any cooling techniques.

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ATA Erase

Posted by David Chen on Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020

Oftentimes Industrial and Military equipment manufacturers are keenly focused on data protection and keeping stored information away from unauthorized users. They require a feature that can delete all the stored data on the SSD in the most quickest way. While conventional, off the shelf, HDDs only offer command set that is compliant with the ATA command standard, Industrial SSD have the flexibility to create any "vendor specific", unique command that can perform any custom task. 

There are multiple ways that this feature could be implemented.  The simplest approach is by using a standard ATA Secure Erase command. Executing the command causes an SSD to transparently erase all user data. When this command is executed, all user data and the data management table will be overwritten and could be permanently retrieved. The amount of time that it takes to carry out this function is dependent on the size of the drive. For example, to carry out this function on a 512GB drive will take approximately 20 seconds.

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FAST SSD DATA ERASE | QUICK ERASE COMMAND

Posted by Samuel Nakhimovsky on Monday, 23 Mar 2020

Oftentimes Industrial and Military equipment manufacturers are keenly focused on data protection and keeping stored information away from unauthorized users. They require a feature that can delete all the stored data on the SSD in the most quickest way. While conventional, off the shelf, HDDs only offer command set that is compliant with the ATA command standard, Industrial SSD have the flexibility to create any "vendor specific", unique command that can perform any custom task. 

There are multiple ways that this feature could be implemented.  One of the quickest SSD erase methods is by using a Quick Erase command. All physical memory blocks of the Flash Memory are categorized into either User Blocks, Spare Blocks or System Blocks. Most of the physical blocks are in the User Blocks category, where the host has read and write access and can store various types of files. Since it is extremely time-consuming to erase all the physical blocks, a Quick Erase function was developed for cases when there a quick drive erasure is required in a shortest amount of time. Fortasa Quick Erase command implementation overwrites the FAT table and the MBR (Master Boot Record). With the MBR and FAT table erased, the drive appears as uninitialized and mapping links between LBA and physical blocks are erased. In order to access the drive, full reinitialization and FAT table rebuild are necessary.

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