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popular SSD articles - in February 2012

top 66 or so of the SSD articles here on StorageSearch.com
  1. SSD Myths - "write endurance" - In theory the problems are now well understood - but solving them presents a challenge for each new chip generation.
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  2. SSDs replacing HDDs? - that's not exactly the way it happened - This new article brings this old theme up to date.
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  3. the Top 20 SSD companies - updated quarterly.
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  4. the SSD Buyers Guide - summarizes key SSD market developments in the past quarter and has a top level directory of SSD content.
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  5. SSD news - (updated daily since 1998) gives you a real-time view of the whole SSD market from chips to cabinets.
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  6. PCIe SSDs - lists oems who market PCIe SSDs, and news and market commentary. We've reported on PCIe SSDs since the first products shipped in 2007.
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  7. the Fastest SSDs - in each form factor.
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  8. RAM v Flash SSDs - which is Best? - I asked experts from 10 leading SSD companies to write their views about the strengths and weaknesses of these 2 types of SSD technologies. The article is updated from time to time - and you may be surprised to learn that in some heavy duty server apps RAM SSDs are cheaper to buy than flash - (as well as being faster).
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  9. Flash v Hard Disks - Which Will Win? - this classic article published in June 2005 - introduced the concept of "flash SSD floor price".
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  10. Storage Architecture Guide - a classic article - not strictly speaking about SSDs - but more about the different types of storage networking.
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  11. HDD news - chronicles the last gasp years and historic anecodotes from the hard disk market - as it reluctantly retires in favor of SSDs.
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  12. SSD controllers & IP - this is a directory of merchant market SSD controller chip technology providers.
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  13. SSD market history (1976 to 2011) - If you're new to the market it provides a clue to how much things have changed - and how fast (or how slowly).
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  14. RAM SSDs - 20 or so companies still market RAM based SSDs. This directory page tells you who they are and explains why - as the market uses more flash SSDs - the need for RAM SSDs is growing (instead of shrinking).
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  15. auto tiering SSDs / SSD ASAPs - market guide to Auto-tuning SSD Accelerated Pools of storage.
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  16. flash wars in the enterprise SSD market- which so called "enterprise MLC" tastes the sweetest? How come there are so many different and contradictory reliability claims?
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  17. 2.5" SSDs - this is the most crowded part of the SSD market - as you'll see by the vendor listings.
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  18. Fast Purge SSDs - is an article which includes a directory of vendors who design SSDs which can self destruct or quickly and securely erase flash SSD contents (typically in a fraction of a second) to prevent data getting into unwanted hands.
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  19. SSD market analysts - StorageSearch.com is a trusted primary resource in the SSD market - but the more you learn about this market - the more questions you realize remain unanswered (or unanswerable). I compiled this filtered list as a recommended resource for all those people who need custom reports and detailed market help - which go way beyond my limited "content prioritized" time budget or would involve too many conflicts of interest for me to take on.
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  20. 2012 - Year of the Enterprise SSD Goldrush - the mood music will change to a different rhythm.
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  21. SSD jargon - because we've have been at the leading edge of reporting the SSD market - we've had to invent some of the jargon which is used to describe some SSD concepts. You can't have a meaningful discussion about the intricacies of SSD design without using these words. This article gives you simple explanations of these terms and tells you where they came from - and links you to more detailed info if needed.
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  22. SSD Data Recovery - this is the industry's first SSD recovery directory (a topic we started writing about in 2007). It includes articles and news related to recovering data from faulty or damaged SSDs.
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  23. SAS SSDs - our market research uncovered a strong demand for SAS SSDs years before any such products actually existed. Vendors were slow coming into this market for a number of reasons. This article includes a timeline of the SAS SSD market - and lists significant vendors.
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  24. the SSD Reliability Papers - links and abstracts of articles related to the subject of SSD reliability and data integrity.
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  25. 3.5" SSDs - this vendor directory gives you examples of popular 3.5" SSDs going back 10 years to the first such products in the market. Some of these had performance specs which sound impressive now! (As long as you don't mention the price.)
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  26. Surviving SSD sudden power loss - this article surveys SSD power down management across all the SSD architecture types in the market today. It explains why subtle design choices made to boost speed can have drastic conseqences in flexibility of system deployment. Power cycling induced faults kill more SSDs in real life than endurance ever did. But SSD PSU management topology is rarely mentioned in most SSD datasheets.
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  27. notebook SSDs - market overview.
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  28. SAN news - with SSD twist
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  29. this way to the Petabyte SSD - This article describes the future storage architecture of the datacenter, explains the economics of SSDs replacing HDDs for bulk storage, predicts the characteristics of these future products and suggests a roadmap for getting there.
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  30. what's an SSD? - just in case you still needed to ask that.
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  31. SATA SSDs - directory of companies who make SATA SSDs.
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  32. rackmount SSDs - news and articles with special relevance to the rackmount SSD market.
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  33. the problem with Write IOPS in flash SSDs - this classic article helps you understand why a once well regarded performance modelling metric (IOPS) got abused - and why all SSD benchmarks incorrectly suggest you're going to get much higher performance from some types of flash SSDs than you will actually see in your application..
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  34. Top SSD articles on StorageSearch.com - this is the article you're seeing now.
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  35. HA SSDs - is a new article and directory about fault tolerant enterprise SSD systems.
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  36. 1" SSDs - vendor directory and news related to 1 inch (and smaller) SSDs and SSDs on a chip.
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  37. military storage - news and directory about defence related SSDs and storage.
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  38. storage reliability - news & white papers.
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  39. storage market research & analysts - directory and report news updates.
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  40. Increasing Flash SSD Reliability - classic article about wear leveling published in 2005.
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  41. Calling for an End to Unrealistic SSD vs HDD IOPS Comparisons - in 2008 I suggested that SSD vendors stopped comparing their hard disk performance with SSDs. Who cared about hard disk performance? It had n't changed for nearly a decade.
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  42. flash and other nv memory - basic overview
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  43. 2011 SSD market milestones
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  44. ExpressCard SSDs - vendor list and market news.
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  45. what's the big picture message re SSDs? - why's everyone getting so excited about SSDs? Where's the market heading? (In simple non technical terms.)
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  46. Why size matters in SSD architecture
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  47. principles of bad block management in flash SSDs
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  48. notebook SSD encryption - questions answered
  49. flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome - Why SSDs need more capacity than you can use.
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  50. iSCSI SSDs
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  51. PATA SSDs
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  52. Record Breaking Storage - 1st, smallest, biggest, fastest etc
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  53. SSD cloud storage
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  54. SSD software - news and articles
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  55. What's the best / cheapest - PC SSD? - I often get emails from readers who ask the above question.
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  56. A new way of looking at the Enterprise SSD market - Legacy versus New Dynasty?
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  57. After SSDs... What Next?
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  58. storage glue chips
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  59. Hybrid Storage Drives - market reports and news.
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  60. RAM Cache Ratios in flash SSDs - all SSDs are in one of these categories - which also predicts operational characteristics.
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  61. Will there ever be 20,000 RPM HDDs? - why zero RPM won.
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  62. Can you trust flash SSD specs & benchmarks?
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  63. SSDs a $10 Billion Market? - the 2003 article which set the enterprise SSD market ablaze.
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  64. the changing face of the industrial SSD market
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  65. will the enterprise SSD market be big enough for all these companies [list] to grow?
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  66. Why can consumers expect to see more flaky flash SSDs?
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wrap up, keep warm and  enjoy these SSD articles
the editor often scribbled about SSDs

...
tier 1 - 1U rackmount SSD
no single point of failure
lowest latency, highest density 1U FC SLC SSD
the RamSan-720 - from Texas Memory Systems
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new SSD articles
Here are some new articles published in the past week or so - which don't show up in the stats on the left yet.

Perspectives - on the SSD market - How does the SSD market today compare with earlier disruptive tech markets?

what's really unique about Fusion-io's PCIe SSDs? - Which of these options do you prefer? - Speeding up the storage? - or - Speeding up the app? - Find out why the raw numbers - without the narrative - fail to tell the full story. See also:- don't all PCIe SSDs look pretty much the same?

the New Business Case for SSD ASAPs - SSD ASAPs are 1 of the 6 main SSD product types that will be around in the pure solid state storage datacenter of the future in the 2016 to 2020 timeframe.

if Fusion-io sells more does that mean Violin will sell less? - my analysis of the complex market interchange between the PCIe SSD and FC SAN SSD and IP SSD markets.

Can you tell me the best way to SSD Street? - I'm like the Old Woman of the SSD Village who talks to everyone that passes through. No wonder I have a unique perspective. It would be strange if I didn't.

what do I need to know about any new rackmount SSD? - I shouldn't have to struggle to find this info - and neither should you.
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"The beginnning of the SSD search is a different place for everyone. Every day someone is hearing the music of the Beatles for the very first time"
...Editor's view about why some SSD articles remain popular - even though they were written many years ago. (Many of these classic hits - which were originally in mono - have been remastered for a modern audience.)
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SSD blogs - on other sites
Here are some external SSD blogs I recommend.
  • appICU - 5 9's thought provoking SSD articles by Woody Hutsell whose insights into the enterprise SSD market were honed by over a decade managing one of the leading SSD oems.
  • Avere Systems - Record-Setting Latency and Why it Matters (December 2009).
  • Cadence - Messages for OEMs and SoC Designers from the Flash Memory Summit (August 2010).
  • Denali - includes many articles about flash issues (upto November 2010).
  • Fusion-io - Will Server-side Flash Caching Spell the End of Storage Arrays? - is my pick from the huge number of entertaining (but not always educational) SSD articles in this blog zone.
  • Kaminario - The effect of host/target ports on latencies is my pick from this regularly updated SSD blog
  • Percona - (a database tuning company) has measured the performance of various PCIe / 2.5" flash SSDs - and reports on how SSD performance varies with time and free capacity. If you know the underlying design architecture and have experience in modelling SSDs - the results are mostly obvious - but most of you aren't in that situation - so some of these results may surprise you.
  • SANRAD - Integration of Flash Based Storage to File Systems and Applications (July 2011) suggests that the backward compatibility integration phase of the PCIe SSD market will be followed by new types of better software integration.
  • STEC - this blog - I wish I had an SSD in Iraq (August 2011) - about sand ingress into hard drives - shows the cost of rotating storage in a military context.
  • TekiNerd - SSD Caching versus Tiering is my pick from this bunch of storage and server articles by one of the cofounders of Enmotus.
  • Texas Memory Systems - overprovisioning ratios and flash SSD Sustained Write Performance - is my pick (April 2011) from this new series of SSD blogs.
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flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome
Have you ever wondered how the amount of flash inside a flash SSD compares to the capacity shown on the invoice?

What you see isn't always what you get.
nothing surprised the penguins - click to read  the article There can be huge variations in different designs as vendors leverage invisible internal capacity to tweak key performance and reliability parameters. ...read the article
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Fusion-io fast SSDs - click for more info
world's fastest production PCIe SSD
from Fusion-io
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Surviving SSD sudden power loss
Why should you care what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?

This important design feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases - has a strong impact on SSD data integrity and operational reliability.

This article will help you understand why some SSDs which (work perfectly well in one type of application) might fail in others... even when the changes in the operational environment appear to be negligible.
image shows Megabyte's hot air balloon - click to read the article SSD power down architectures and acharacteristics If you thought endurance was the end of the SSD reliability story - think again. ...read the article
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the flash SSD story - survival of the fittest?
The emerging size of the flash SSD market as you see it today was by no means inevitable. It owes a lot to 3 competing storage media competitors which failed to evolve fast enough in the Darwinian jungle of the storage market in the past decade.

One of these 3 contenders is definitely on the road to extinction - but could one of the other 2 still emerge to threaten flash SSDs?

A recently published article - SSD's past phantom demons explores the latent market threats which hovered around the flash SSD market in the past decade. They seemed real and solid enough at the time.
SSD past phantom demons image - click to read the article Getting a realistic perspective of flash SSD's past demons (which seemed very threatening at the time) may help you better judge the so-called "new" generation of nv memory contenders - which are also discussed in the article. ...read the article
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the future of enterprise data storage?
Editor:- the future of data storage is the lofty sounding but aptly chosen title of a new article published online in Broadcast Engineering magazine.

It's written by Zsolt Kerekes editor of StorageSearch.com (that's me).

It's a completely new article which takes as its starting point - storage market models and concepts from several futuristic articles which have already appeared here on the mouse site - advances them and integrates them into a single cohesive whole.
image shows Megabyte viewing online tv - click to read the article in Broadcast Engineering It will give you a clear idea of how all the incremental changes you read about in storage news pages will add up to a different future - and the business reasons why. Sit back and ...read the article
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