Solid State Drive

A Better Storage Solution

Presented by M.Bhaskar Reddy

What is a Solid State Disk?

A solid state drive (SSD) is a semiconductor-based block storage device that behaves as a virtual HDD and appears to the host device as a disk drive.

History of Solid state Drives?

Solid State Storage was invented long ago, however it was immediately replaced by cheaper drum storage units. First modern type SSD was developed by Storagetek in 1978. In the mid-1980s Santa Clara Systems introduced BatRam, an array of 1 megabit RAM Chips and a custom controller card that emulated a hard disk. [contnd..]

History of Solid state Drives?

In 2007 small notebooks started using SSDs of a few gigabytes capacity . The SSD with the highest capacity now has 1 TB and developed by PureSilicon. Before that it was 640GB and was developed by ioDrive. Toshiba has announced that it will produces a SSD of 512 GB beginning 2001. Although SSD has not yet gain mainstream popularity, with the trend of achieving high capacity into solid state drives It is expected to replace the traditional [contnd..]

History of Solid state Drives?

At Cebit 2009, OCZ demonstrated a 1 TB flash SSD utilizing a PCI Express x8 interface. It achieves a minimum read speed of 654MB/s and maximum read speed of 712MB/s.

In April 2009, Texas Memory System announced a 5TB RamSan-620. It has a throughput of 3GB/s and a sustained random read/write of 250,000 (IOPS).
On May 4, 2009, DDRdrive LLC introduced th DDRdrive X1. It integrates both 4GB DRAM and 4GB NAND for achieving up to 300,000(IOPS), a power efficiency of 30,000+ IOPS/W.

Inadequacy of Using HDD for NoteBooks?

Slow access time Access time for HDD = spin up time + seek time + rotational delay + transfer time Cannot withhold too much vibration Noise Heat

The Problem with Hard Disks?

Processors have increased in speed by orders of magnitude over the years. But spinning hard disk drives (HDD) have not. This difference has created a substantial performance gap between how fast processors demand data and how quickly HDD responds. HDD speed lags behind processors because it is constrained by physical components

What is a Solid State Disk?

Flash Memory Based
Same class of memory used in consumer electronics Inherently non-volatile Best known for ruggedness and good random read performance Same memory used in enterprise servers Requires batteries and backup hard disks for non-volatility Best known for outstanding performance and high cost. Mix of DDR RAM and NAND Flash.

DDR Memory Based

Cached Flash

Flash Memory Characteristics

Two types of NAND Flash Memory SLC single layer 100,000 writes per cell Primarily used in industrial and military applications Higher cost 1.5 millisecond erase times; 200 microsecond write times; 25 microsecond read times Maximum density 16Gbit with 32Gbit on the way SLC memory is best suited for the enterprise MLC multi layer 10,000 writes per cell Primarily used in consumer electronics Lower cost Half the performance of SLC Maximum density 32Gbit with 64Gbit on the way. Expect mixed SLC MLC flash SSDs in the near future.

Flash Memory Characteristics

The process to write data to flash follows these steps: Determine block to update. NAND flash is typically divided into 128KB blocks and further subdivided into 2KB pages. Copy data from the existing block (if necessary) Erase the block and reset cell to all 1s Rewrite the block, only 0s can be written to a flash cell.

Overview of Flash Memory

Representation of 0/1
By type of charge stored in the float gate Charge -> Current

Overview of Flash Memory

Reading data
+ Voltage on bit line Ground source line Negatively charged float

gate
No flow of current Positively charged float gate Flow of current

Overview of Flash Memory

Writing data
Ground source line + Voltage on bit line + Voltage on Control Gate Electrons move into float gate with quantum tunneling effect To remove electrons negative voltage

flash internals

An example of SSD
1 die = 4 planes 1 plane = 2048 blocks 1 block = 64 pages 1 page = 4KB Dies can operate independently Reading and programming is performed on a page basis, erasure can only be performed on a block basis.

DDR RAM Characteristics

Unlimited writes per cell Primarily used as computer memory Higher cost and lower density than NAND flash Inherently volatile Highly reliable chip design 10-15 nanoseconds read and write times Maximum density 1Gbit (2Gbit is being sampled)

DDR RAM is well suited for the enterprise.

SSD: A Better Solution over Rotaing Drives

Instead of rotating disks, solid state disks (SSD) use RAM and Flash chips. SSD: Dramatically lowers response time (latency)

Offers extremely high inputs / outputs / second (IOPS) Uses less power and less space