The term "solid-state" is actually slightly off, if the intent is to distinguish a unit with no moving parts from one with moving parts. The term "solid-state", although it can be used informally to mean "no-moving-parts", actually refers to lack of vacuum or gas-based tubes, thereby implying the use of semiconductors in their stead. By classical definitions, current hard drives, moving parts and all, are already solid-state devices.
(By the flawed definition of "no moving parts", even a vacuum tube would qualify.)
In addition, the term "drive", in the sense originally used for a mechanism that spins platters, doesn't quite fit a device with no moving parts either.
Perhaps a better term could be found for high-capacity nonmechanical non-volatile memory devices.
Intel: SSDs are coming
Summary
An Intel researcher said mass corporate take-up of solid-state disk drives is almost upon us. He predicts SSDs will cross the floor price of hard disks, driving mass adoption into the corporate market.
Topics
At a technical briefing at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday, an Intel researcher said mass corporate take-up of solid-state disk drives was almost upon us.
Although most discussion about SSDs has focused on high-performance servers, the breakthrough in adoption would take place in clients because of the cloud model of IT services, according to Christopher Saleski, initiatives manager of Intel's Storage Technology Group.
See also: Special Report: Intel Developer Forum
"Hard disks have the lowest price per gigabyte," Saleski said, "but a high floor cost [the minimum price of a drive, regardless of capacity]. Because of networked software and services, companies can have quite low client storage needs, depending on their IT environments.
"SSDs can be much cheaper for small capacities. We're about to enter an inflection point where, at the right capacity, SSDs will cross the floor price of hard disks, driving mass adoption into the corporate market."
At that point, said Saleski, SSDs' lower power, smaller size and increased robustness would be particularly attractive.
The claim came during a briefing that covered many of Intel's latest findings about the development of SSDs. Knut Grimsrud, Intel fellow and director of storage architecture, said the increasing popularity of SSDs had revealed a number of areas where performance was being compromised by outdated assumptions. "Existing chipsets, interfaces and drivers were all designed with hard disks in mind," he said, "and SSDs are sensitive to very different things."
He quoted examples of plugging SSDs into different apparently identical Sata interfaces on motherboards, which resulted in a 3.5-times performance improvement, with small changes in driver configuration producing equivalent changes. "Driver efficiencies can have small effects on hard disks, but can have a substantial impact on SSDs," he said.
Similarly, Grimsrud added, operating system optimisations for hard disks could actively hinder SSDs. He said Windows 7, which attempts to detect SSDs by their performance rating, reconfigured itself to avoid automatic defragmentation and data pre-fetching — two hard disk techniques that can slow down SSDs and increase their power consumption. "I'm very impressed with Windows 7. It's very encouraging," he said.
Saleski also demonstrated an experimental system, where seven SSDs with PCI Express interfaces were accessed in parallel and delivered over a million data requests per second — a throughput of around 4Gbps — to a dual-socket Intel Xeon 5500 server. "The same performance from hard disks would require some 5,000 devices and would take 50KW," he said. "This setup is taking under 400W."
Solid-state storage on a PCI Express card, as demonstrated at IDF in San Francisco
This article was originally posted on ZDNet UK
Talkback Most Recent of 22 Talkback(s)
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SID S-1-124th Sep 2009 -
Nice point but long name
What if we adopt "storage device" as a base name
and call the SSDs memory based storage devices?
In Brazil there is a common mistake where people
refers to storage as memory. Maybe we should
replace the term memory as well...
gallacci24th Sep 2009 -
How about "FASM"
FASM, or Fast Access Secondary Memory
adornoe@...24th Sep 2009 -
Name
It's really just SATA NVRAM then. But there should be a different classification
for slower SD cards etc.
chromeronin24th Sep 2009 -
RE: Intel: SSDs are coming
As a systems architect, I have to deal with databases
that are growing to a point where HD performance just
isn't enough. Considering the growing availability of
data to be consumed in corporate cenarios, large capacity
SSDs (or arrays of) is also becoming more attractive. In
my point of view, the cost curve can have different
shapes for distinct markets.gallacci24th Sep 2009 -
How do SSDs work in real life?
I would like to hear about people's experiences with SSDs. It is hard to find any info pro or con.
sdhaassr@...24th Sep 2009 -
Real life use case
Here you do from ta development point of view:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/03/27.html
tmeers20@...24th Sep 2009 -
So what you say Joel
He classed as worthless Clonezilla if your time is
valuable,then tries to use pay versions,spends a
day and a half with negative results,so obviously
his time is off no value(probably this was an SSD
problem,and computer,no problem with desktop).
morrigen12th Oct 2009 -
My experience
I upgraded my system using an OCZ Vertex SSD about 2 months ago. I paid $300 for 120GB at Microcenter, enough for my system disk. I am a developer who spends all day in Visual Studio 2008.
I would NEVER EVER go back to a hard drive as my system disk. This has been the single biggest upgrade I've ever done on my PC. I have a Dell D820 Core2 Duo and have no need to upgrade it now.
I first imaged my hard drive to my SSD for an apples to apples comparison. I was running Vista which grinds away at disks constantly. No more grinding....literally (no sound) but also functionally (it got data so much quicker that disk access was cut down dramatically). The system felt snappy again, I had been running this image since Vista came out to devs (November 2006) so it was pretty junked up as Windows Installs go. Without the SSD it was becoming painful to work, with the SSD the system was responsive, snappy, the difference was amazing.
A few weeks later I did a fresh install of Windows 7 (I have MSDN) onto the SSD and this system runs amazingly fast and smooth. I am not sure how much of this is Win7 and how much is my SSD but seeing how much it boosted Vista I'm going to imagine a large part of my satisfaction is with running the SSD. I am far more productive and it was seriously the best $300 I have ever spent on a computer upgrade.
That said, I did a lot of reading before I jumped. Anandtech has a great article about SSD's particularly in regards to a stuttering problem that earlier units had that is a must read if you are considering a non-Intel version. The only non-intel version I'd recommend at this time is the OCZ Vertex. You can read more about my experience on my blog at http://www.blendblog.net which also links to the Anandtech article.
Hope this helps...
Sean
stiphy24th Sep 2009 -
Another vote...
for the vertex or intel SSDs. And anandtech definitely
has the best articles on SSDs.
The difference compared to a HDD (at least for a laptop
user) is phenomenal. Applications start in 50% less
time or better. You can actually let the Vista/Win7
content indexer run, and never notice it. Same thing
with a daily AV scan...it will have absolutely no impact
on your system performance. You can run backup,
download files, etc and keep working along just fine.
Bottom line...if given a choice between systems with an
$800 CPU and a $100 HDD, or an $100 CPU and $800 SDD,
take the one with the SSD every time.
Richard in Phoenix24th Sep 2009 -
My 32 GB OCZ SSD
I was curious about the access speed increase, so I grabbed a 32GB OCZ that TigerDirect had on sale for $99. Unfortunately, I was not too impressed. Maybe it's because it's an older SSD model that they were liquidating, but I ended up with the same throughput that I have on my eSATA 1TB SimpleDrive unit.
I read an article yesterday about a SATA3 6Gbps Seatage 2TB (4x500GB platters) drive for the same price as a 120GB SSD on a slower interface. Until SSDs come out with SATA3 capability, I'm going to wait and watch others get cut on the bleeding edge for a while.
Bit-Smacker24th Sep 2009 -
My thoughts
This si my experience. A bit lame but as a normal corporate PC user. They make an awesome difference.
http://communities.intel.com/community/itgalaxy/uk/blog/2009/09/07/why-i-love-my-solid-state-drive--by-david-byrne
Dave J Byrne24th Sep 2009 -
My experience
I run Intel Extreme SSD's in 3 of our servers. I replaced a 5 disk raid array with 1 drive and the performance is actually better with the SSD. Not everyone could do this though. I don't have much data on that particular machine but 200+ users hit it at once.
One machine processes data from an FTP server running an SSD and it cut the processing time to 1/3 it's original going from a sata hdd to the ssd.
I flashed the firmware on the drives with an update from Intel this week and it seems to have made the performance even better.
By the way, the primary server, Windows 2003 x64 on an IBM Xserver, boots in 20 seconds, once you get past the lengthy bios post on that machine.
They are expensive and low capacity but they have dropped by half or more in price since I bought them.
I'm a believer.
20kwfence25th Sep 2009 -
RE: Intel: SSDs are coming
Thanks for the info. It was a good read.tmeers20@...24th Sep 2009 -
RE: Intel: SSDs are coming
What about file erase capabilities or device erase? will these capabilities come down with the price?
cliff.coppinger@...24th Sep 2009
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