Denali Memory Report:
The Denali Memory Report is produced by Cadence Design Systems, Inc. It delivers memory market news, discussions of market trends, products and product strategies of the memory vendors, plus information about alliances and industry consortia.
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Recent Posts
- Some great analysis on SSD wear leveling and power consumption
- The Economist covers PCM – must be something real
- Add OCZ to the growing list of SSD vendors differentiating their drives with a proprietary controller
- IDT announces DDR4 register chip for DDR4 registered DIMMs and 3D die stacks
- Western Digital sampling 5mm, 2.5-inch, 500Gbyte hybrid HDD with NAND Flash
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Tag Archives: SSD
Using SSD controller technology as a differentiator: Kingston adds another data point with SSDNow Enterprise-class drives
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 … … Continue reading
Posted in SSD, Storage
Tagged Kingston Technology, RAID, SandForce, Serial ATA, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
The top 21 things you probably didn’t know about Flash memory, from the Flash Memory Summit
Last week’s Flash Memory Summit ended with a session titled “The top 10 things you need to know about Flash memory today. Richard Goering summarized the panel in his blog titled “Flash Memory Panelists Challenge Conventional Thinking About NAND and … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Floyd, NAND Flash, Scaling limit, Solid-state drive, SSD, Western Digital
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Need yet another argument for designing your own SSD controller?
A Web site called legitreviews.com recently reviewed the ADATA XPG SX900 128Gbyte SSD and this review contains additional justification for seriously considering developing your own SSD controller for new storage products. The review starts off this way: “ADATA is long … Continue reading
Posted in SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Hitachi Data Systems, LSI, SandForce, Serial ATA, Solid-state drive, SSD
2 Comments
Tweaktown review of 1.6Tbyte SMART Storage Optimus SSD reveals a few secrets. Wanna see them?
Tweaktown.com attended last week’s Flash Memory Summit and has published some great photos of the internals of the 2.5-inch SMART Storage 1.6Tbyte Optimus SSD. The drive has dual SAS ports with accompanying specs of 1Gbps sequential read and 500MGbps sequential … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, MLC, NAND, SAS, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, Skyera, SMART Storage, Solid-state drive, SSD
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Want to know Rado Danilak’s and Skyera’s plan for total enterprise-class SSD world domination?
This week, I reported on a new high-end, high-performance 44Tbyte SSD for data centers and server farms from Skyera. (See “44Tbyte Skyera Skyhawk SSD employs Everspin MRAM as write cache” and “How Skyera developed the 44Tbyte, enterprise-class Skyhawk SSD from … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, HDD, MLC, NAND, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, SandForce, Skyera, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
How Wired’s Mat Mohan got his personal data back from his SSD after his MacBook Air was hacked. Hint: $1690 in recovery fees.
Mat Mohan knows how to transform adversity into opportunity. He’s a senior writer for Wired’s Gadget Lab and his Apple account was ingeniously hacked through a scam perpetrated on Amazon to get the necessary information to hack into Apple’s system. … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, SSD, Storage
Tagged Apple, Data recovery, DriveSavers, Hard disk drive, Solid-state drive, SSD, Wired
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Marvell’s DragonFly NVRAM and NVCACHE provide high SSD IOPS for large storage apps
Marvell has just announced two new versions of its DragonFly PCIe board series: the DragonFly NVRAM and the DragonFly NVCACHE. Both boards contain a mixture of PCIe controller, SDRAM, SLC NAND Flash, supercapacitors, and software to create plug-in boards for … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, Marvell, SAS, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, IOPS, PCI Express, Servers, Solid-state drive, SSD, Storage
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Seen on the street: WD needs SSD Engineers
Drinking coffee with my friend Ira Feldman on Friday at the Starbucks behind Cadence, this advertising truck pulled up and parked for a while. Must be some sort of sign about the growing popularity of SSDs. I wonder how many … Continue reading
Plextor blog walks you through the design process for the PX-M5S SSD: better, faster, cheaper
Plextor has just published an extremely interesting blog post that walks you through some of the high-level design decisions behind the company’s new PX-M5S SSD. According to the design goals, the prioritized objectives are: 1) speed 2) reliability 3) price … Continue reading
Posted in NAND, ONFI, SSD, Toggle
Tagged Flash memory, Hynix, Plextor, SandForce, Solid-state drive, SSD, Toshiba
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Are Enterprise SSDs a “bad” idea? Four tips and counter-tips for your consideration.
I ran across a commentary on the Kaminerio Web site, “Is SSD Really a Bad Idea? BE CAREFUL WHOSE ADVICE YOU TAKE” by Eyal Markovich, which is a reaction to a blog posting by Phil Goodwin on the SearchSolidStateStorage.com Web … Continue reading
Posted in SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, IOPS, MLC, Multi-level cell, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
Flash Memory Summit: Great Program on Non-Volatile memory.
The Flash Memory Summit rolls into Silicon Valley – August 21-23. Here’s a summary of topics covered in the program: Flash Memory-Based Architectures Next-Generation Flash and SSD Controllers Solid-State Drive (SSD) Technology Enterprise SSDs Testing/Performance/Endurance NVMe LDPC Coding Enterprise Storage … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, mSATA, NAND, NOR, NVM Express, NVMe, SSD, Storage, Toggle
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Solid-state drive, SSD
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Cool case instantly transforms 2.5-inch HDD or SSD into WiFi-connected network storage
Patriot Memory is now selling the Gauntlet Node, a cool name for a cool disk-drive case that transforms a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD into a WiFi-connected network storage device. The enclosure has an internal SATA port and can accommodate drive … Continue reading
Posted in HDD, SATA, SSD, Storage
Tagged Hard disk drive, HDD, Patriot Memory, SATA, Solid-state drive, SSD, Wi-Fi
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MOSAID and NOVACHIPS announce plans for an HLNAND-based SSD controller chip. Release set for 2013.
A couple of weeks ago, MOSAID and NOVACHIPS announced plans to jointly develop an SSD controller based on the MOSAID high-speed HLNAND interface specification. If you’re not familiar with the MOSAID HLNAND high-speed serial interface, join the club. Most NAND … Continue reading
Posted in 3D, Flash, Hybrid Memory Cube, NAND
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, HyperLink, MOSAID, NAND Flash, NOVACHIPS, PCI Express, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
Jim Handy, The Memory Guy, writes that Flash memory is dead…but perhaps not just yet
My good friend Jim Handy—who writes several blogs including The Memory Guy and The SSD Guy—recently published a blog titled “The End of Flash Scaling.” He writes: “Everyone knows that flash memory is about to hit its scaling limit – … Continue reading
Posted in 3D, Flash, Memristor, MRAM, ReRAM, SSD
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Hynix, NAND Flash, SSD
1 Comment
SSD prices: More affordable? Steady, substantial decline? In free fall? Just what is going on here?
Senior Writer Vincent Chang over at CNET writes that “SSDs are more affordable than ever” and has the charted data to prove it. Clayton Vallabhan at ITPnet.com goes even further, writing “SSD prices in freefall.” For an even more extensive … Continue reading
Will cache SSDs rule the world in notebook storage? IHS iSuppli’s Magic 8 Ball says “Signs point to Yes”
An excellent article by Hot Hardware’s Joel Hruska (see “Analysts Predict Skyrocketing SSD, Cache Drive Sales, But What Happened To Hybrid Hard Drives?”) contains several tasty bits of data and a quote from Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, HDD, SSD, Storage
Tagged cache SSD, Flash memory, HDD, Hybrid drive, IHS iSuppli, Seagate, SSD
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Violin Memory’s Narayan Venkat writes about why Flash-based storage is doing well in data centers: time and money
Narayan Venkat, VP of product management at Violin Memory, recently published a guest blog post titled “6 Reasons Solid State Memory Is The Biggest Story In Computing” over at Forbes.com. The rhetoric in the article should be familiar stuff to … Continue reading
Will SSDs be the first big market for 3D NAND Flash memories?
I’ve been meaning to write about a comment regarding NAND Flash memory and SSDs written by Thomas McCormick in LinkedIn’s Solid State Storage Group and this seems like the perfect time. McCormick is an Integrated Hardware/Software Product Development Leader at … Continue reading
Posted in 3D, DDR, DRAM, Flash, Memristor, MRAM, NAND, SSD, Storage
Tagged DRAM, Flash, Flash memory, memristor, MRAM, NAND Flash, Solid-state drive, SSD
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DRAMeXchange tests this year’s crop of 120Gbyte SSDs. Guess which one wins…
Yesterday, DRAMeXchange published some performance tests on five 120Gbyte SSDs. The results may surprise you. Click here: DRAMeXchange’s 2012 SSD Ranking – 120 GB SSD (SATA 2)
This SSD will self destruct…immediately. On Command (See the video)
In case you need an SSD that can be wiped quickly, RunCore has introduced the InVincible SSD with two modes of erasure: non-destructive and destructive. Two buttons—one red, one green—activate the erasure. The two buttons apparently connect to the SSD’s … Continue reading
NVM Express (NVMe) controller subsystem points the way to an SSD future
Cadence introduced an NVM Express (NVMe) controller subsystem this week. The Denali Memory Report and the EDA360 Insider have covered NVMe developments several times already (see below for the links) and it’s clear that one way to maximize SSD performance … Continue reading
SSD Review: Intel 910 PCIe SSD a “game changer”
It’s always great fun to see a company hit one out of the ballpark with a new product and that’s exactly what Intel has done with its new 910 PCIe SSD, if you believe this recent article by Paul Alcorn … Continue reading
Posted in NVM Express, PCIe, SSD, Storage
Tagged Intel, NVMe, PCI Express, PCIe, SAS, Solid-state drive, SSD
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WD’s HGST to demo 12Gbps SAS SSD at SCSI Trade Association Technology Showcase next week in California
HGST, the Western Digital subsidiary formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, has announced a new 12Gbps SAS SSD and will be demonstrating it at the SCSI Trade Association Technology Showcase next week on May 9 at the Hyatt Hotel … Continue reading
Posted in SAS, SSD, Storage
Tagged Cadence, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, NVM Express, PMC-Sierra, SAS, SCSI, Serial attached SCSI, Solid-state drive, SSD, Western Digital
1 Comment
Do you know the advantages and disadvantages of the six different use cases for SSDs?
Marc Staimer, founder and senior analyst at Dragon Slayer Consulting, has just published an excellent primer on locating SSD storage within a server and storage network. With the advent of PCIe-based SSD storage based on NAND Flash memory, the number … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, HDD, SSD
Tagged Cache, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Hard disk drive, NAS, Network Attached Storage, PCI Express, SAN, Solid-state drive, SSD, Storage area network
1 Comment
BIWIN America introduces 12x20mm e-MMC SSDs with on-chip controller, power-on boot, explicit sleep mode
BIWIN America has just announced a “single-chip” SSD device employing the e-MMC interface. The device is available in capacities from 2 to 64Gbytes, all packed into a 169-ball BGA package measuring 12x20x1mm. An integral SSD controller provides built-in BCH error … Continue reading
Posted in eMMC, Flash, NAND, SSD
Tagged e-MMC, Flash memory, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, Solid-state drive, SSD, Wear leveling
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A detailed look at the IP components of an SSD controller chip by Dr. Eric Esteve
IPNEST blogger and analyst Dr. Eric Esteve has just published a detailed look at many of the IP components needed to design a high-performance SSD controller chip including a NAND Flash controller and high-speed PHY interface for NAND Flash devices. … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, NAND, NVMe, ONFI
Tagged Eric Esteve, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, NAND Flash, ONFI, PHY, Solid-state drive, SSD
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Intel jumps on the PCIe SSD bandwagon with the fast, new 910 Series
Intel has just announced an SSD family based on the PCIe expansion-card form factor and interface. The SSD family is called the 910 Series and it’s based on Intel High Endurance Technology and MLC (multi-level cell) 25nm NAND flash memory … Continue reading
Micron’s mSATA RealSSD C400 and RealSSD C400v drives get huge performance from their SATA 6Gbps interfaces and 25nm MLC NAND
Micron’s new RealSSD C400v and RealSSD C400 mSATA SSDs can operate as SSDs in ultralight, ultrathin notebooks and can also be used as a Flash caches in SSD/HDD hybrid systems. The drive fits the 3×5 cm, 3.75mm-thick mSATA form factor … Continue reading
Want to tour the Kingston SSD factory with TweakTown?
Kingston Technology manufactures SSDs in Taiwan’s Hsin Chu Science Park and TweakTown’s Cameron Wilmot recently went for a visit. With his camera. Although Wilmot wasn’t allowed to shoot video, he did shoot a lot of photos that are included in … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, NAND, SSD
Tagged Flash memory, Kingston, Kingston Technology, Solid-state drive, SSD, Taiwan, TweakTown
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Interview with Whiptail’s CTO James Candelaria demonstrates how SSD controllers can greatly improve NAND Flash endurance by managing write amplification
As NAND Flash geometries continue to shrink, device endurance specs have suffered, which is a significant challenge when using these devices in SSDs. This interview with Whiptail’s CTO James Candelaria discusses how his company’s approach to buffering writes in SSD … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, NAND, SSD
Tagged Flash, Flash memory controller, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, RAID, Solid-state drive, SSD, Whiptail, Write Amplification
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Forbes.com publishes article on growth areas for SSDs and NAND Flash devices: mobile and cloud
Tom Coughlin, the President and founder of Coughlin Associates, has just published a good background piece on growth paths for SSDs and Flash memory. I commend it to your attention and I particularly want to call your attention to several … Continue reading
Micron releases video on using PCIe for fast, enterprise-class SSDs like its P320h SSD
As yet another example of how new, fast interfaces are changing the way SSDs fit into the enterprise storage arena, here’s a new video showing Gary Gentry, General Manager of Micron’s Enterprise SSD Division, explaining how and why Micron has … Continue reading
Posted in HDD, NAND, NVMe, PCIe, SAS, SATA, SSD
Tagged Enterprise storage, Flash memory controller, Hard disk drive, Micron, PCI Express, Solid-state drive, SSD
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NVMe storage-optimized PCIe interface gets an Interoperability Lab at University of New Hampshire
The drive to adopt NVMe (a storage-optimized variant of the PCIe interface standard for SSDs) led by the NVMe Work Group now has an interoperability lab at the University of New Hampshire. The UNH-IOL—a “neutral, third-party laboratory dedicated to testing … Continue reading
Micron introduces Enterprise-class, 2.5-inch SSD with PCIe interface
This week, Micron announced a hot-swappable, 2.5-inch SSD that employs a PCIe interface instead of the more widely used SATA or SAS disk interfaces. Dell announced that it has selected this drive for its 12th generation PowerEdge server line. Both … Continue reading
Posted in NAND, SLC, SSD, Storage
Tagged Dell, Dell PowerEdge, Flash memory, Micron, PCI Express, Serial ATA, SSD
5 Comments
Is Flash memory nearing end of life and if so what solid-state storage is waiting in the wings? Will that be the salmon or the rosemary chicken?
On Thursday, May 17, the inaugural Storage Valley Supper Club sits down for its first dinner in Milpitas, California to discuss the state of the storage industry (“Because it’s all about storage!”). Anyone with present or past affiliations in the … Continue reading
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Paper predicts the bleak future of SSDs and NAND Flash memory
An interesting and disturbing paper titled “The Bleak Future of NAND Flash Memory” written by two researchers at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one Microsoft employee uses current trends with … Continue reading
Flash Memory Summit 2012: Call for presentations
Planning is now underway for the Flash Memory Summit 2012, which will be held in Santa Clara, CA in August. There’s no better show devoted exclusively to NAND Flash semiconductor memory and applications of NAND Flash—particularly SSDs. The organizers have … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, NAND, SSD
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, Semiconductor memory, Solid-state drive, SSD
2 Comments
Do you know the new lessons that SSDs are teaching us?
IT Web recently ran a thoughtful article titled “Storage trends for 2012.” What struck me about this article is that it incorporates some pretty important lessons for anyone designing with SSDs or other forms of NAND Flash storage. Here are … Continue reading
Watch out SSDs, here comes the NVM Express!
I was reading an article on the Information Week Web site about using SSDs for accelerating enterprise storage and came across this statement: “For the most part, the type of SSD that you use in the storage system does not … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, NVM Express, NVMe, SSD
Tagged Flash memory, Hard disk drive, NVM Express, PCI Express, SAS, SATA, Serial ATA, SSD
3 Comments
Unbelievable but true: bad embedded SSD controller firmware can crash a PC. Next stop—Blue Screen of Death!
According to this article by Anand Lal Shimpi on the eponymous Anandtech.com, several SSD vendors including Intel have recently discovered that it’s possible for an SSD to crash a Microsoft Windows system and invoke the dreaded Blue Screen of Death … Continue reading
Posted in SSD
Tagged Anand Lal Shimpi, Blue Screen of Death, BSOD, Firmware, Intel, Microsoft Windows, SSD, Windows
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Free half-day SSD seminars across North America and the UK
Demartek, a research and analysis firm, will be holding seven free half-day seminars on SSD basics across North America (and one in the UK) during 2012. These seminars look to be pretty basic, so they’re an introduction for people who … Continue reading
Can MLC NAND Flash work in enterprise SSDs? Yes, with the right storage algorithms says Seagate
MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memories provide 2x or 3x the storage for slightly more than the cost of SLC (single-level cell) NAND Flash memories. Consequently, there’s a big economic case to be made for MLC NAND Flash devices in … Continue reading
Posted in eMMC, Flash, NAND, SLC, SSD
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, MLC, MLC NAND Flash, Multi-level cell, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
Tom’s Hardware: Even a low-end SSD beats the pants off of a high-end HDD.
Andrew Ku at Tom’s Hardware published a little gem of an article that discusses SSD performance relative to HDD performance in a very interesting and very sane way. Ku writes: “As a point of comparison, a file operation completes 85% … Continue reading
Will this be a good year for SSDs? Take the poll!
Earlier in the week, Western Digital’s CEO John Coyne was quoted in the SSD Review as saying that he did not believe that SSDs would play a large role in Ultrabooks. Specifically, he reportedly said: “I expect ultrabooks to have … Continue reading
SSDs as HDD caches to grow like topsy say Intel and IHS iSuppli
Intel has made a significant change in the way its chipsets handle SSDs and the result, according to analyst firm IHS iSuppli, will be a 100x increase in the annual number of drives sold in the PC space between now … Continue reading
Ever get the thrill of seeing a Tesla coil torture an SSD? ioSafe wants to be sure you get the opportunity
One reason for the success of the Robot Wars and Battlebots TV shows among engineers is because they love to see engineered products get destroyed, usually as long as they didn’t have a hand in designing and building them. They … Continue reading
Need an objective way to evaluate SSD performance? SNIA has one
SNIA, the Storage Networking Industry Association, has just published a White Paper titled “Understanding SSD Performance Using the SNIA SSS Performance Test Specification” as a companion piece to the association’s SSD Performance Test Specification (PTS). As the White Paper’s introduction … Continue reading
Marvell brews ARM-based native PCIe SSD Controller IC: 88NV9145 handles direct PCIe to NAND Flash I/O for high-performance, low-overhead SSD designs
It looks like 2012 is the year for native PCIe (PCI Express) interfaces to NAND Flash devices. Hot on the heels of the PCIe-based XQD memory card specification from the Compact Flash Alliance (see “Nikon D4 camera and Sony H … Continue reading
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