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winners, losers and maybes
July 1, 2008 - by Zsolt Kerekes editor of
storagesearch.com |
My immediate reaction
on seeing the first news about hybrid flash / hard drives back in
April 2005 was
skepticism.
I didn't think that a flash / magnetic platter hybrid would
be a good investment for users in either desktop systems or servers.
- in single flash hybrid drive installations such as desktops or notebooks -
the theoretical speedup benefit actually depended on how well Microsoft's Vista
supported this function and whether there was enough free
RAM.
The marginal
benefits delivered by first generation products are (in my view) so small that
if you don't carefully measure the speedup - with
storage analyzers - you
wouldn't notice any speedup at all.
- in multiple flash hybrid drive installations - such as a
RAID system - there is an
overwhelming cost, performance and reliability benefit in using vanilla
hard disks and / or
vanilla SSDs compared to
using hybrids.
Storage
analysts have published various reports which support a cautious view about
the market. (You can see summaries of these lower down in this article in the
sidebar on the right.)
You have to be cautious about placing too much
weight on storage soothsayers' reports. As in the story about the emperor's
clothes - many analysts are inhibited from saying that a new wardrobe (or
market segment) is a complete waste of space - or invisible. That's because
flattery works better in the courtier's business model.
I thought
that was the end of the hybrid storage drive matter and let it rest.
For
several years I didn't even create a separate page for this subject. Instead I
slotted news and vendor listings about hybrid disks in the
main hard disk page.
My reasoning was that - just as there isn't a need for a separate
listing of disks which have cache memory or buffers (they all do) - there
shouldn't be a need for a standalone flash-HDD hybrid page either. If successful
it would become part of the mainstream HDD market - if not - then I hadn't
wasted too much of my valuable time on it. It would
go away.
I
like to think that I'm quick and mostly right when it comes to recognising
storage trends that matter. And when I've made my mind up that something isn't
in that charmed category - I'm stubborn enough to persist in my prediction
that it's doomed. I was busy enough with other things that really mattered to
readers during
these years. Editing the storage
news page gives me good visibility of emerging themes (and a good safety net
- because I can see how popular stories are with readers).
In
January 2007
Dynamic Network Factory launched a RAM hybrid disk.
I still missed the
subtle difference (between a RAM-HDD hybrid and a flash-HDD) and it was nearly
a year later when I looked in detail at another RAM hybrid - the Platinum
HDD from DTS - that I realised the important differences. I was wrong to
lump all hybrid drives together. The fact that I hadn't lumped them anywhere in
the world wide web wasn't the point. They were marooned on a remote island in
my brain which even the sharks hardly ever swam by.
Forget
everything you know about flash hybrid drives!
They rely on
software from the OS to operate. No OS support (or poorly written software)
means that even the minimal benefit you might get from such a product takes a
powerful set of reading glassses to spot the difference.
The
Platinum HDD in contrast - is a self
contained drive which appears to the OS just like a hard drive. All the clever
caching stuff goes on inside. In fact architecturally it's identical to a
depopulated RAM SSD.
RAM SSDs (unlike flash SSDs) have symmetric read / write IOPS. That
means you get more predictable speedups in a wider range of applications than
with flash.
The Platinum HDD gives you the same kind of results you might see if
you coupled a small capacity RAM SSD to a traditional hard disk based
RAID system. You can buy
it with variable ratios of RAM to hard disk - and the performance is scalable if
you put the Platinum devices in a RAID.
If you're lucky enough to have
the right kind of application it should be easier to install and get results
with the Platinum HDD than either using a
flash SSD or RAM
SSD alongside a hard disk
RAID, and it should cost less too. But you'll need to test the device in your
environment to be sure.
As the ratio of RAM to magnetic storage in RAM
hybrids grows - they could become a very useful tool for systems integrators who
need more IOPS than is available from traditional solutions.
But
that's not the end of the story when it comes to hybrids.
If the RAM
HDD hybrids achieve enough market momentum I predict that will lead to an
entirely new class of hybdrid drive - the RAM-flash Hybrid.
The first
commercial product in that class was the
RamSan-500 launched by
Texas Memory Systems
in September 2007. Although that was a 4U
rackmount SSD - there's
no technical reason why that architectural concept couldn't be put to good use
in a 3.5" form factor
too.
We'll track the exciting developments in the flash-RAM-HDD hybrid
market as usual in our main storage
news page. |
| . |
the Fastest SSDs
the SSD Buyers Guide
the Top 10 SSD Companies
How Solid is Hard
Disk's Future?
Is the SSD Market
Recession-Proof?
Why Seagate will
Fail the SSD Challenge
Will Hard
Disks Get Faster? - (20k RPM)
30 Years of
SSDs - SSD Market History
SSD Myths and
Legends - "write endurance"
RAM SSDs versus Flash
SSDs - which is Best?
Flash vs DRAM
Price Projections - for SSD Buyers
Z's Laws - Predicting
Future Flash SSD Performance | |
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| Hybrid Drives Market - ORGs,
Reports, etc |
Silicon Motion Enables New
Type of Hybrid Flash SSD
TAIPEI, Taiwan - June
23, 2008 - Silicon Motion Technology Corp today announced the launch
of 3 new SSD controllers.
"We are already a market leader in the SSD controller market,
especially in the low cost notebook PC segment. We shipped almost 1 million
units of SSD controllers in 1Q'08, which is more than any other company in
the world" said Wallace Kou, CEO of Silicon Motion.
The new
controllers can support hybrid SSDs that use a combination of SLC and
MLC NAND flash to minimize device cost and maximize endurance. SM2240, for
example, can manage a 64GB SSD using 8GB of SLC and 56GB of MLC flash. Through
sophisticated and innovative algorithms, the controller is able to analyze the
incoming files from the host and intelligently move frequently accessed data to
SLC NAND and non-frequently accessed data to MLC NAND. With this hybrid
architecture, the SSD system cost is significantly reduced to a level comparable
to a pure MLC-based SSD, while endurance is significantly enhanced and
comparable to a pure SLC-based SSD. ...Silicon Motion
profile
Editor's comments:- this new class of hybrid SSDs is
one way to fix the endurance problem faced in cost conscious server apps that
are only viable with MLC type budgets. Another solution is
EasyCo's MFT - which
inherently reduces writes while increasing write IOPS through a host resident
driver. But some of the other risks revealed in my article
Are MLC SSDs Safe
in Enterprise Apps? haven't gone away.
Hybrid Hard Drives Market Report
Los
Gatos, CA - December 19, 2007 - The Hybrid Hard Drive will not make a big
splash in 2008, according to a new 36-page report by Objective Analysis.
PC users who are waiting for this technology to speed their boot
times are going to have to wait a little longer.
"Once all the kinks are ironed out, hybrid drives and their
counterparts should sweep the market," said Jim Handy, the report's author.
"Unfortunately, the hardware is ready but the software support is weak.
Hybrid drives will have to wait for better support to justify their small
additional cost."
Hybrid Hard Drives: How, Why, And When? - is an in-depth review of
the hybrid hard drive market, exploring the technology, implementation costs,
and expected benefits, as it explains why those benefits are not within reach
today. The report takes a special look at alternative technologies like SSDs,
Intel's Turbo Memory, the
SanDisk Vaulter Disk,
larger DRAM main memories
and DRAM HDD caches, and even small SSDs from
Samsung. The report
reviews members of the Hybrid Storage
Alliance members and details their product offerings.
Readers will learn how hybrid drives work and why they are receiving
so much attention today. They will also understand why hybrid drives will
threaten the SSD market, and why neither technology is likely to see much
acceptance until the second half of 2008 or later.
...Objective
Analysis profile
IDC Report Casts Doubt on Hybrid Hard Disk Market
FRAMINGHAM, Mass
- January 23, 2007 - IDC has published a new report called - "Outlook
for Adoption of Hybrid-HDD or NAND in PCs" It says that so far,
neither the hybrid hard disk drives nor embedded NAND flash technology
convincingly realizes the potential of caching in Vista PC and therefore,
neither can be considered the clear winner. Also the emergence of NAND
flash-based solid state disks
could disrupt the brewing NAND caching technology battle.
...IDC profile
Hybrid Storage Alliance Aims to Speed Up Notebooks
Storage Visions 2007 Conference - January
4, 2007 - Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Toshiba
have formed the Hybrid Storage Alliance.
The goals of the
industry group are to illustrate how flash memory/hard drive hybrid
technology can extend the capabilities of today's notebook computers and to
accelerate market adoption of the technology.
IDC predicts hybrid hard
disk drives will constitute 35% of all hard disk drives shipped with portable
PCs by 2010.
Hybrid hard drive technology is the industry's answer to growing
demand for notebook PCs that deliver the speed and durability of desktop PCs.
Hybrid technology, which can be deployed in other mobile devices and computing
systems, combines the unmatched capacity and cost-effectiveness of hard drives
with the responsiveness, power-efficiency and durability of flash memory.
...Hybrid Storage Alliance,
Storage Industry Trade
Associations |
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