SAS SSDs

• they all use MLC nand flash, and the newest models are in the leading wave of the enterprise adoption curve - using 19nm geometry

• they all use SMART's own SSD controller design - which can be characterized as adaptive R/W. SMART was among the first companies in the world to ship enterprise SSDs with that kind of technology.
  
  If you aren't familiar with it - Adaptive R/W is a market transitioning technology for managing flash. Every company's way of doing it is different - and it's the future for all flash in the enterprise. SMART explain the principles of how they do it in their white paper Guardian Technology Platform - Enterprise Endurance and Reliability with MLC Flash (pdf).
  
  Is Adaptive R/W risky?
  
  I prefer to say - it's difficult.
  
  There are currently high entry barriers facing SSD designers who want to get started in this type of technology - because they need a deep understanding of flash and SSDs which stretches over many flash memory generations.
  
  This technology intrinsically reduces the stress placed on flash cells and results in longer operating life. Other results are that you optimize the flash for the exact role for the SSD. In principle you can stretch the boundaries of speed, endurance, power consumption and reliability in a variety of different directions while using the same raw flash. If you're clever at marketing too - and understand the different segmented roles (sometimes called use cases) within a market (like SAS SSDs) you can use the technology to roll out a spectrum of optimally adapted products from a small proven core of components.
  
  Going back to - is it risky? - If you're planning to keep using flash in SSDs in the years to come - it's more risky to stick with using industry standard flash controllers - because those methods of non adaptive control won't be able to work with all future flash generations.
  
  But you don't just have to take my word for it. Big computer oems who have teams of technologists who evaluate SSDs look at this stuff too - and one of SMART's oem customers for various enterprise SAS SSDs is IBM. So I guess that's another way of answering the question.

• all SMART's SAS SSDs have very advanced designs which protect data in the event of power rail spikes and drop-outs. They've got a classic 2011 white paper called SSD Power Failure Protection (pdf) which describes the principles and some recent videos on related topics in their Guardian Technology page.
  
  SMART's power fail and data integrity technologies originally stemmed from the company's roots in the military and industrial markets and predates their leading position today in enterprise SSDs. SMART is currently on the 3rd generation of their award winning enterprise Guardian technology.