Kingston E100 SSD
Memory and SSD vendor Kingston Technology has just announced enterprise-class SSDs called the SSDNow E100 in capacities of 100, 200, and 400 Gbytes. What I find interesting about this announcement are the emphasis on endurance and reliability (“10x improvements … over client SSDs”) and the use of special names for endurance enhancements (DuraWrite) and reliability (RAISE). What’s notable about these two terms is that they are leveraged from LSI SandForce, which supplies the SSD controller chip for these drives.
According to SandForce, DuraWrite “optimizes the number of program cycles to the flash effectively extending flash rated endurance by 20x or more when compared to standard controllers” and RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) “deliver an orders-of-magnitude improvement in drive reliability versus today’s best enterprise HDDs and SSDs. The result is single-drive RAID-like protection and recovery from a potentially catastrophic flash block failures – all while avoiding the inefficiencies of traditional RAID.”
What I think is notable here is that Kingston, which has an excellent reputation in this industry already, is relying on SandForce controller technology and terminology to carry the water for the SSDNow drives’ endurance and reliability.
For more discussion of this topic, see:
“Need yet another argument for designing your own SSD controller?”
“Add Hitachi Data Systems to the growing list of companies developing their own SSD controllers”
“More on developing your own SSD controller chip. Is rolling your own right for you?”
“STEC’s MACH16 Slim 2.5-in SATA SSD requires small footprint, fits in small embedded spaces”
“Micron introduces Enterprise-class, 2.5-inch SSD with PCIe interface”
“Examining The SSD Industry – Researching The Controller or Processor”
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