FORTASA BLOG

Unprecedented Olympics Security a Boon for SSD and Flash Storage Business

This week the world has turned it's attention to the sports greatest spectacle to come every four years - 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Winter sports fans from all over the world are tuning in to follow and support over 2800 athletes from the record 88 nations. As this spectacular sports extravaganza is destined to entertain and awe millions, the security concerns to keep the games safe and uninterrupted were of gigantic proportions. By rough estimates over 37,000 security personnel were deployed around Sochi to protect the venues from any threat of terrorist attack or other unwanted disruption. Additionally the 2014 Olympic Games will be in the undisputed gold medal category for the amount of surveillance, computing, drone and other top end electronic equipment to secure the venues, athletes, organizers and fans. The on site reporter explains the formidable security challenge in the hands of event organizers.

As the data feed is collected from every video and audio source, it is then quickly and efficiently analyzed by thousands of file servers equipped with the latest face and voice recognition software, extensive data bases, sorting algorithms, etc. All of this high tech computing might is a boon to the Flash memory industry. The external security cameras that are now ubiquitous on every street corner utilize and Flash card or module for file code storage. The pilot-less drones embed Flash SSDs to store critical code to drive and monitor drone operation. Huge servers include multiple racks of Enterprise SSDs for fast data access and processing.

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Wear Leveling - Simplest Way to Increase SSD Life

The most concerning question lingering with most SSD customer is how long with the Flash drive last. Even Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) which have been used in ubiquitous computing applications for over 50 years and went through many generations of technical improvements are well known for frequent errors and even catastrophic failures. SSDs which are appreciated by the Industrial Application market segment for it's superior environmental and temperature specifications are also expected to offer greater reliability and useful life expectancy.

The major drawback that all Flash based storage solutions inherently possess is a limited number of write cycles that can be performed on any specific memory sector. This limit is uniquely specified in the data sheet for each memory component. Ranging from 3Kcycles for an MLC NAND Flash to 100Kcycles for an SLC NAND Flash, this finite threshold is a stated limit of the component's ability to perform as expected.

To overcome the component technical limitation, the Flash Controller developers have devised various system level solutions to improve the overall usage and life expectancy of the whole drive. A major part of this improvement solution is a Wear Leveling algorithm that spreads the uneven usage of specific memory block across the full memory address space.

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Flash Card and SSD Endurance Measurement - Lifecycle Calculation and Estimate - Part 1

Every customer looking to integrate SSD or Flash Memory based storage system is keen on knowing the useful life he can expect from the chosen storage product. The worst thing that could happen is that the Flash drive reaches the functional end of life and stops working frustrating the user and mandating an expensive service call.

SSD Reached Its Endurance Limit

Endurance, or how many program/erase cycles the Flash device can handle over the product lifetime, is a key metric that determines the effective service life of a Flash device and defines the amount of written data that it can can sustain before reaching the end of its rated life. In SSDs or Flash cards there is NOT a one-to-one relationship between the number of host writes and the actual physical program/erase cycles performed to the NAND Flash media. Due to the nature of Flash Controller data management algorithm, not all NAND blocks  reach their end of life simultaneously.

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MLC NAND Flash Supports Industrial Temperature Range - -40oC - +85oC

Many end applications for Industrial Storage Products such as SSDs and Flash cards require full Industrial temperature range operation. That means the the storage device needs to be fully functional and operate reliably even under the most extreme temperature conditions. An industry convention proliferated to differentiate between a typical consumer operation of 0oC to +70oC (Standard Temperature) and Industrial requirement of -40oC to +85oC (Industrial Temperature).

Upto a few years ago the only Storage Products capable of full Industrial Temperature compliance were the ones manufactured using the Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash. The SLC Flash offered not only full Industrial Temperature compliance, but also a very high endurance rating of 60K to 100K cycles. The only drawback to using SLC NAND based SSDs was the high cost of the solution.

At the same time, the Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND Flash was being aggressively driven into a multitude of high volume consumer applications such as Digital Cameras, MP3 players, Cellular Phones and Tablet PCs. MLC Flash made most sense in these consumer "disposable" application as while the endurance rating of typically 3K cycles and temperature support were minimal, the component price was almost four times cheaper than the equivalent capacity SLC component.

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