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Can you trust your flash SSD specs? |
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SSD news storage reliability the SSD Buyers Guide Storage Testers & Analyzers Are MLC SSDs Safe in Enterprise Apps? Increasing Flash Solid State Disk Reliability Z's Laws - Predicting Future Flash SSD Performance Calling for an End to Unrealistic SSD vs HDD IOPS Comparisons Understanding Data Failure Modes in Large SSD Arrays - call for papers | ||||
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If you're a systems integrator
/ oem who has designed flash SSDs into a particular application - then it's
unlikely that you chose your favored models at random. It's much more likely
that you carefully evaluated products against a wish list of characteristics
which include:-
How can you be sure that the products which are going into your production systems are the same (or similar enough) to what you tested? It's possible that after you did all your qualification testing that the original SSD oem did some "improvements" which they may not necessarily tell you about - because they make the product "better". But what if the new controller chip does work faster - but puts more stress on your limited battery budget? Or what if the SSD oem has switched suppliers of memory or power management chips and the overall product fails to operate reliably over the full range of temperature you need? Worse still - maybe you can't get the original product at all. To keep your production line going you have to stuff slots with products that your distributor suggests from companies you've never heard of before. Many of these problems have been around in the electrinics industry in past decades. But in 2008, 2009 and maybe 2010, the unique characteristics of the flash SSD market mean that the risks are a lot worse. Many SSD oems haven't been in the market very long. But because they make attractive products you can't afford to ignore them. Although some oems have been in the industrial or military markets for years - and do test their products and do inform you when those specs change - when their demand surges and products go on allocation - you still face the risks of switching suppliers to guarantee your own product's continuity. And here's another thing to worry about. Can you be sure - for example that the flash SSDs your buyer has bought at such a good price from an alternate source really are SLC? - and not MLC or SLC/hybrids. This is such a new market that you can't be sure that the supplier's SSD product manager (who may have been in the flash SSD business for less than 2 months) understands the intricate concerns you have - or what your questions mean. One solution to protect yourself - may be to do much more sample testing of incoming product. Or if your volumes aren't high enough to justify the capital expense - another option might be to ask your distributor to do the testing for you. The flash SSD market opens up tremendous opportunities for new products and systems which leverage that technology. But due to the diversity of products in the market and lack of industry standards - it's got tremendous risks as well. Paying proper attention to compliance testing and quality assurance will make the difference between the market success or failure of many new SSD based products. |
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