| see also:-
Virtium
- editor mentions on StorageSearch.com,
Virtium's SSD page |
|
Who's who in SSD? - Virtium
by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor StorageSearch.com
Virtium entered the SSD market in
October 2008 and
the Top SSD Companies
List in Q4 2013.
Virtium's best rank in this series was #6 in
Q2 2015.
Virtium's
SSDs are aimed at industrial
markets - and are available in a variety of form factors. Supported
interfaces include:- SATA, PATA, PCIe and USB.
Virtium StorFly SSDs
are SATA SSDs which are available in 2.5", 1.8", MO-297, M.2, MO-300
and CFast form factors designed for MIL-STD-810F environment compatibility.
Virtium also offers PCIe SSDs in M.2 and Mini Card formats
Virtium
offers 3 memory options across all the StorFly models - which are
endurance
and
memory related grades:-
- CE - 1 DWPD for 3 years (MLC standard temp)
- XE - 7 DWPD for 5 years (iMLC industrial temp)
- PE - 30 DWPD for 5 years (SLC industrial temp)
Virtium also
supplies industrial grade SLC SSDs for classic form factors and interfaces (CF,
USB modules and 2.5" PATA) for high reliability applications in its
TuffDrive family. |
| .....
|
| Nowadays cell phones are
coinage, spies and slot machines. And they've been joined by IoT. There's so
much intelligence which can be gathered about the meaning of it all. But no
memory or computing platforms fast enough to resolve everything which can
imagined by the next master plan in a timely fashion. |
| are we ready for
infinitely faster RAM? | | |
| .....
|
 |
| ..... |
| Many customers ask about
what interfaces and form factors they should use on their next generation
embedded designs. There is a lot of interest in PCIe and the M.2 form
factors, but there is also still a lot of misunderstanding out there too. |
| M.2
For Next Generation Designs (Virtium blog) - July 2014 | | |
| . |
| Virtium asks - can you
really afford to waste money on "general purpose" rather than "environmentally
optimized" industrial SSDs? |
Editor:- September 12, 2012 - Virtium today
launched a
new line of SSDs for the
industrial market.
The StorFly
range includes 1.8", 2.5", Slim SATA, mSATA and CFast form factors
that are specifically designed for embedded systems that have unique capacity
and workload requirements.
Editor's comments:- In a recent
conversation with Gary Drossel,
VP of product strategy at Virtium - I learned that the company is taking some
new approaches to the age old problems faced by equipment and systems designers
who need high reliability at industrial temperatures, but who also need to be
able to maintain exact functional replacements - without redesign over a
multi-year single system life which will represent many memory chip
product generations.
There are several prongs in Virtium's new SSD
design fork. And it's when you add them all up that they can make a big cost
difference to the customer - who otherwise may have to over-specify product
parameters in so called "general purpose industrial SSDs" to be sure
of being safe in the parameters which actually matter in their particular
application design.
- temperature characterization:- Virtium has a pro-active program of
characterizing flash memory at different operating temperatures in the
industrial range. Therefore if you've got an application which you know is going
to spend most of its life running at -10C, or at +80C - for example - then
instead of having to guess and extrapolate how much raw endurance you might
need - based on a headline datasheet number - you can have an SSD which
reliably meets your precise needs without having to overspecify a high safety
margin (on overprisioning or memory type) - with the additional cost that
entails.
- continuity of BOM:-
the traditional way to ensure long term functional fit of SSDs in
equipment used to be via memory process roadmaps coupled with stockpiling
devices from obsolete memory product generations.
Gary told me that one
of the fundamental assumptions which has changed in the SSD market is that with
SLC becoming a much smaller part of the world memory mix - no-one can be sure
that anyone will still be making merchant market SLC in the future just because
they have been the same memories in the past. Instead the flash market is
predominantly MLC. Recent history has shown that entire flash product lines
can disappear without notice due to changing market conditions.
Virtium's
strategy is to design SSD families which can adapt to use whatever popular
type of MLC is in the market - while still presenting exact compatibility
at the driver, interface, form factor, power consumption, reliability and
performance level.
That's a much more realistic option - Gary said -
than pretending that the needs of niche industrial SSD suppliers will somehow
be maintained and protected by memory companies who will be focused even more
than ever on the high volume markets for SSD (consumer and enterprise).
- investing in the driver firmware:- Gary said that many industrial
SSDs in the market today include design features which have been optimized to
make them look good in benchmarks for other markets - due to the design DNA of
other products made by those SSD oems.
Yet when Virtium asked its
customers what OS they were using in their embedded designs - most of them
weren't using the OS or software which looked anything like what competing
general purpose industrial SSDs had been polished for.
Virtium's
strategy at the driver and firmware level is to optimize performance and
reliability with the kind of workload which more typically represents the
embedded code of its customers. That provides better multi-generation
compatibility, better efficiency (in terms of memory chips), lower power
consumption and also better reliability. Virtium's (complex when you
first hear it) value proposition for designers who use SSDs in industrial
apps is that if they know enough about how and where their SSDs will be used -
they don't need to waste money by overspecifying general purpose SSDs to get the
set of characteristics which matter to them. And at the same time they can be
more confident about the long term reliability of what they're getting too.
PS
- I did ask Gary - as I have asked nearly everyone this year - what's Virtium
doing on the subject of
adaptive R/W
DSP?
He said Virtium doesn't have this technology in-house - but if
and when it becomes needed - the company will most liekly buy in or license the
appropriate IP.
They see their strongest core IP as being
specialists in temperature characterization and reliability. Adapting to the
adaptive flash R/W paradigm - if that becomes the market standard - will be no
different than the many other MLC variation realities which they plan to
contend with. | | |
| . |
| Virtium
creates a new framework for industrial SSDs |
Editor:- October 25, 2012 - Virtium today
announced
new models in its
StorFly
range of industrial temperature rated embedded SATA MLC SSDs and the company
also outlined a new 4 part categorization scheme for matching embedded SSDs
to user cases and needs. These are - in order of R/W performance - as follows.
- "write seldom, read many" apps - such as digital signage and
automotive infotainment - is the role for StorFly CE.
- optimized for higher reliability applications such as networking
appliances or industrial computing - is the role for StorFly RE.
- optimized to replace SLC SSDs economically in industrial automation or
central office switches - is the role for StorFly XE (25GB per day for 10
years)
- high R/W performance industrial SSD (500GB writes / day for 10 years) -
is the role for StorFly PE
A key factor for systems designers is that
Virtium offers all these different grades of guaranteed R/W lifetime
performance in each of the popular form factors within the StorFly range (2.5",
1.8", Slim SATA (MO-297) and CFast).
That means designers who
need industrial temperature range operation in embedded systems can choose an
applications optimized SSD which is efficiently and economically matched to
their knowable needs instead of having to overspecify a general purpose SSD.
I
think it's very useful to have conceptual labels and apps related contexts
around which to discuss different types of SSDs - what they do, and their
positioning within the market.
We already have loose definitions
within the SSD industry such as client / enterprise to differentiate
controllers within
SATA SSDs for example.
And I've proposed a complete
set of top level
applications architectures related silos which apply to the enterprise
SSD market.
It's not a totally new idea for SSD vendors to propose apps
related SSD categories within a market. In the enterprise space -
STEC has proposed write
targets and SMART
has identified a spectrum of distinctly different use cases for
SAS SSDs but I think
that what Virtium is doing now goes a step beyond anything I've seen before in
the industrial SSD
market.
The business advantage for Virtium in creating a useful
model which segments different types of industrial SSDs by apps usage is that
when you create a model which customers find useful - then people start seeing
things your way. And competing solutions don't make as much sense - when viewed
through this lens if they don't seem to have a recognizable fit within the
conceptual framework.
When I discussed this earlier this week with
Virtium's VP of product strategy - Gary Drossel
- he said he's already started writing
a blog about these concepts and will expand these ideas in future posts.
I also asked whether UBER and sudden power loss data integriry
protection was also differentiated across these categories. His answer was too
long and detailed to include here - but I will write up the interesting bits in
special interest articles later.
If you read my September write up of
an earlier conversation we had (which is in
Virtium's profile page)
you'll get a picture of Gary's views on:- steering an industrial SSD
roadmap in a memory market where other markets are setting the agenda, and also
some mission statements about
SSD design efficiency. | | |
| . |
 |
| . |
|
| |
|
| 1.8 still great |
Editor:- February 6, 2018 - A
new blog by Virtium
- One-Point-Eight
Still Great! says that the company thinks "1.8-inch will remain
strong in embedded, IIoT and M2M applications for some time to come."
Editor's
comments:- 10 years ago there were 22 manufacturers of storage drives listed on
StorageSearch.com. The highest capacity 1.8" SSD at that time in 2008 was
128GB.
The 1.8"
storage drive form factor was created for the portable PC market with the
first drives being shipped in
1991.
M.2 was the designated
successor to 1.8" for SSDs in notebooks. But form factors can have a life
of their own.
For example - in 2011 1.8" SSDs with
SAS interfaces were a
hot product for use in enterprise storage arrays.
Nowadays if
equipment designers have gone to the trouble of supporting 1.8" SSDs (solo
or arrays) in legacy designs (with interfaces like PATA, SATA or SAS) then it's
still easier to continue supporting that in markets where requalifying the box
is expensive (like medical) rather than switch to M.2 for no customer
discernible benefit. In some markets
EOL is an expensive
option. | | |
| .......... |
| what were
the big SSD ideas which emerged in 2016? |
"The most significant
ideas we at Virtium see and are directing our resources toward center on taking
SSD security, reliability, durability, and manageability to a much higher level,
to meet the needs of increasingly connected industrial embedded environments.
These ideas are now being realized through drives self-encryption
capabilities, advanced remote-monitoring software, dramatically reduced power
requirements, and the development of SSDs specifically for the Industrial
Internet of Things (IIoT)."
Scott Phillips,
VP Marketing - Virtium | | |
| ........ |
| new
industrial secure eUSB 3.0 10-pin SSDs from Virtium |
 Editor:-
August 22, 2016 - Virtium
recently
announced
new models of eUSB 3.0 10-pin models in its TuffDrive SSD range which offers
much faster speed than eUSB 2.0 at about half the power consumption.
Capacities
range from 2GB to 256GB, while drawing less than 1W. Size is 36.9mm x 26.6 mm. | | |
| ........ |
| Virtium
offers encryption in all its industrial SSD form factors |
Editor:- June 28, 2016 - Virtium today
announced self-encrypting drive features as options throughout all the form
factors in its StorFly range of industrial SSDs.
"These support
multiple SATA form factors, including 2.5", 1.8", Slim SATA, mSATA,
M.2, and CFast. Additionally, they support all 3 StorFly reliability classes
CE (MLC), XE (industrial-grade MLC) and PE (SLC)" said Scott Phillips,
VP of marketing at Virtium.
Virtium says many industrial-system makers
and their customers continue to push functionality closer and closer to the
network edge and the end-customer. This puts systems and the data they hold at
risk of hacking and data theft. Virtium's new SEDs provide security for
data at rest without sacrificing industrial features. | | |
| ........ |
| Virtium
introduces low cost 7 DWPD industrial SSD family |
editor:- January 12, 2016 - Virtium today
announced
a new range of industrial SATA MLC SSDs in its rugged
StorFly product line.
The new XE class iMLC models (available in the following form
factors M.2, CFast, Mini Card, mSATA, SlimSATA, 1.8" and 2.5") all
support 7 DWPD for 5 years
at a cost which is described as "only a marginal price premium over CE
Class SSDs". | | |
| ........ |
| Virtium
launches new 2.5" PATA SSDs for legacy slots |
| Editor:- November 17, 2015 - Virtium today
announced
a new range of 2.5" PATA SSDs for industrial applications with capacities
from 8GB to 256GB. Virtium's new
TuffDrive PATA SSDs
have been designed as drop in replacements for legacy 2.5"
PATA SSDs or
HDDs. | | |
| ........ |
| Virtium launches
industrial M.2 PCIe SSDs |
Editor:- July 28, 2015 - Virtium today
announced
it has expanded its StorFly range of industrial SSDs with new
PCIe SSDs (gen 2)
available in both M.2 and
Mini Card form factors with capacities from 16GB upto 480GB.
Endurance
is upto 3.3 petabytes of writes (about 3.7
DWPD for 5 years).
Virtium's new SSDs have full BOM control with up to 5 years of uninterrupted
product availability. | | |
| ........ |
| 3 scenarios of flash
data vulnerability at power voltage collapse |
Editor:- June 10, 2015 - a recent blog by Virtium -
SSD Protection
Against Data Corruption - outlines their thinking about protecting
data integrity
in industrial SSDs
from power loss events.
The author - Tony Pond, Director of
Marcomms - identifies 3 scenarios for data corruption:-
1 - Power
fail during a write, but before the SSD has acknowledged receipt of data.
2 - Power fail after the SSD acknowledges that it has data but before data has
been committed to NAND flash.
3 - Power fail after the SSD has data in NAND but before it has been
committed to the correct logical block address (LBA).
How does the company design around these exigencies? ...read the article | | |
| ........ |
| As little as 2 days
retention after 0.4 hot DWPD for 5 years in modern MLC nand and some other
things worth knowing about emdedded SSDs |
Editor:- October 23, 2014 - When choosing an
SSD form factor and interface for a new embedded / industrial project - in most
cases that determination will be obvious - and driven by considerations such
as:-
- is the new project like something you did before?
- and what would you like to change based on what you learned from that?
- or the availability of new smaller sizes or lower power SSDs or faster
SSDs or denser (more efficient) SSDs which in themselves can make new
application directions feasible.
Today I read a tour guide of the
range
of sizes and interfaces available in small embedded SSDs (pdf) - from Virtium - which says
among other things...
"the 10-pin embedded USB module is not
officially regulated by any industry standards body, but thanks to industry R&D
in this case, "rip-off and duplicate" - OEMs can source mechanically
equivalent modules from multiple sources."
The above paper is
several years old old - but still contains many relevant ideas. And the reason
I noticed it now was because it was easier to find than it had been before -
as it's one of a
group
of papers on the theme of selecting embedded SSDs according to design and
environmental considerations which Virtium has collected together in a new
resource page this week.
how does DWPD and retention come into
this?
Within this set - a more recent paper -
temperature
considerations in SSDs (pdf) includes some stark graphs and observations
about data retention - which you should be aware of - even if you're not in the
industrial market.
"This shows the dramatic effects that temperature has on data
retention for given workloads. For the same 750 full drive writes (0.4
drive writes per day for 5
years), SSDs operated and stored at 85C will only have 2 days of data
retention, whereas those drives at 40C will have 1 year and those at room
temperature 25C will exhibit characteristics of nearly 8 years of data
retention." ...read
the article (pdf) | | |
| ........ |
| "Virtium's goal is to
provide OEMs with some of the longest product lifecycles in the industry to
help minimize costly and disruptive requalifications. With its 2nd generation
StorFly SATA SSDs, Virtium is able to guarantee that its SLC-based StorFly PE
class products will not cause a requal for at least 4 years." |
| Scott Phillips,
Virtium
- commenting on
new
products - (May 14, 2014) |
 | | |
| ........ |
| Virtium's
new VP of sales |
Editor:- October 30, 2013 - Virtium today
announced
that Michael Nilsson
has joined the company as senior VP of sales.
Editor's comments:-
as you can see from Mike Nilsson's profile page - he knows the SSD industry
better than most - having been VP of sales at
Stec.
And
before that he also spent 6 years in another well known memory company -
Fujitsu Microelectronics -
which nowadays operates at the fringes of SSD technology with its
FRAM
(Ferroelectric Random Access Memory). | | |
| ........ |
| Virtium
offers offer faster range of extended temperature SSDs
|
Editor:- August 7, 2013 - Virtium today
introduced
a new line of faster 1.8"
and 2.5"
rugged SATA SSDs (80,
160 and 300GB capacities) for applications in in-flight entertainment, PoS
terminals, gaming equipment and mobile monitoring systems.
The
DecaStor
line - which is rated for approximately 65% full disk write / day for 10 years
- is available with AES
encryption, secure
erase, data protection in the event of an
unexpected
power interruption and
extended temperature
screening. DecaStor supports sequential R/W speeds of 410/375 MB/s
respectively, with read IOPS of 47,000 and 2,500 write IOPS.
| | |
| ........ |
Virtium
offers 64GB SLC TuffDrive CF
for "Godfather" slots in
industrial products |
Editor:- July 11, 2013 - According to Gary Drossel,
VP of product strategy at Virtium - "There
has been a misperception in the industry that, because other suppliers have
exited the market either through EOL or industry consolidation, CompactFlash
(which has been
the
Godfather of embedded form factors (pdf) for more than 10 years - ed) is
no longer viable as an SSD technology in the
industrial SSD
market. That is absolutely not the case."
Supporting the
view that as long as there's enough demand for legacy form factors someone
will supply it - Virtium recently
announced
a new generation of high density industrial SSDs (upto 64GB SLC) in its
TuffDrive
CF range which meet MIL-810 standards for shock and vibration. | | |
| . |
| Virtium ships 512GB
industrial Slim SATA SSDs |
| Editor:- January 30, 2013 - Virtium today
announced
it's shipping true industrial
512GB SSDs in the Slim SATA (MO-297) form factor - which is just 15% of
the physical volume of a standard
2.5" drive. | | |
| . |
| |
