Do you think Solid-State Hard Drives (SSD) In Your Future?

In our increasingly computer-dependent world, we're always looking at the next "big technology". Most often, it's the latest microprocessors from Intel or AMD. In recent times it is more often the microprocessor that is not the sole factor that affects the performance of computers.

While the memory capacity of hard drives has been increasing in recent times, the speed at which they access remains relatively steady. This is a fundamental issue for the technology. The hard drive is mechanical and attempts to increase speed have not been gaining any yields.

One technology that is in competition with the traditional hard drive (HDD) can be described as the SSD. A solid-state drive (SSD). The SSD isn't mechanical, it's based upon "flash memory" which is the same chip technology that stores images in cameras that use digital technology. The SSD drive was an innovation not long ago, but it is no more.

An SSD is superior to traditional mechanical hard drives since it is four times smaller and lighter, and 50 times faster, is more reliable due to the fact that there aren't moving parts, generates less heat and consumes less energy. SSD drive memory has increased and now 250 gigabyte SSD drives now are accessible. The only drawback currently is the price.

SSD drives are, however, more expensive than the conventional HDD. A SSD Drive now costs about $2 per gigabyte whereas an HDD drive is less than one gigabyte. The cost of an SSD is increasing (SSD drives used to cost over $25 for a gigabyte) and, with the expected increasing production this price gap will be reduced further.

Flash memory can handle an indefinite number of rewrites per memory cells (as are traditional drive). A number of significant advancements in technology are being made in recent years. In addition, Intel developed "load leveling". This method ensures that all memory cells in the SSD get the same workload. The majority of SSD manufacturers are now using similar methods. An SSD is expected to last for 10 or more years for the average consumer.

The main reason behind the optimistic prospects for the future SSD is its access speed. A speedy conventional HDD access time is equal to 5 milliseconds. It may sound fast but when the processor is capable of millions of commands every second (MIPS) 5 milliseconds are an issue. SSD could be as fast as 100 microseconds access time (50X more speed).

A major issue to consider in utilizing this SSD speed capabilities is the possibility of bottlenecks due to the interface. There are three common interfaces utilized today by SSD drives.

SATA interface is the most popular interface for traditional HDD However, the SATA interface is currently restricted in its total capacity in both the send and receive up to 3 Gbps. It is too slow for SSD and cause performance issues. Certain SSD drives can achieve more than five Gbps throughput.

X-PHY Technology, in conjunction with AMD recently unveiled the Serial ATA 6Gbps storage interface which is also known as SATA Revision 3.0 which is a new technology that has the potential to be double the speed of the fastest SATA interface currently available. The technology was tested on conventional hard drives, however it could be of use to SSDs. 

SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) is a different option for an interface. SAS is a point-topoint technology that comes with at minimum four channels. Each channel has a the capacity at 3.0 Gbps per direction (a total of 6 Gbps per channel).

A third option is to install the SSD using the PCI Express interface. The PCI Express interface has unidirectional data paths: one send and one receiver and each with a speed of 2.5 Gbps for a throughput of 5 Gbps.

The ability to optimize the speed benefits of SSD technology through careful selection of the correct interface.

Sun Microsystems Endorses SSD:

Sun Microsystems, a leading manufacturer engineers workstations (very high-performance computers) will likely be committing completely in the direction of SSD technology. Sun is seen as an indicator for the PC business. If Sun supports the technology at its prices currently in place, and as prices decrease it is likely that the technology will be adopted by the common PC user. This trend of adoption has been observed for other emerging technologies.

Sun has announced that it will be making the move to add SSD technologies to their products to boost the performance of I/O-intensive applications. In the last quarter of 2011, Sun introduced SSD in its Amber Road product line. Amber Road is Sun's new collection of data storage systems. Its Amber Road products are selling very well.

SSD technology allows customers to achieve speeds up to 65x faster reaction time and up to eight times faster throughput, and as much as 38 percent lower power consumption than servers that use traditional spinning hard disk drives.

An SSD drive is more robust to operating in harsh conditions and will be more robust. Computers using SSD drives will experience quicker loading times for applications and superior overall performance. An SSD drive is able to emulate a conventional mechanical hard disk drive (HDD). This makes the process of replacing your traditional HDD with an SSD on your existing system simpler. An SSD will likely be in your future, the only issue is what time.

X-phy Cybersecure Product is a Certified AI Embedded SSD for laptop and Cybersecure Laptop company to help secure data and enhanced laptop speed. Expertise include in these product are protect from ransomware attract, data protection, reduce battery power and speed your laptop to 2X. He runs a technology for communications company that is serving customers in the Southwestern United States with offices in Plano, Texas (Dallas) and a second office located in Peoria, Arizona (Phoenix) and is managed by the brother of his, Keller Bradshaw.