SSD breakthrough means 300% speed boost, 60% less power usage...

[A Guy]

SSD breakthrough means 300% speed boost, 60% less power usage... even on old drives

A breakthrough has been made in SSD technology that could mean drastic performance increases due to the overcoming of one of the major issues in the memory type. Currently, data cannot be directly overwritten onto the NAND chips used in the devices. Files must be written to a clean area of the drive whilst the old area is formatted. This eventually causes fragmented data and lowers the drive's life and performance over time.

However, a Japanese team at Chuo University have finally overcome the issue that is as old as the technology itself. Officially unveiled at the 2014 IEEE International Memory Workshop in Taipei, the researchers have written a brand new middleware for the drives that controls how the data is written to and stored on the device. Their new version utilizes what they call a 'logical block address scrambler' which effectively prevents data being written to a new 'page' on the device unless it is absolutely required. Instead, it is placed in a block to be erased and consolidated in the next sweep. This means significantly less behind-the-scenes file copying that results in increased performance from idle, during intensive jobs and a longer lifetime for the drive as SSDs have a finite number of possible write operations.

Source

A Guy

 

[lehnerus2000]

I have no idea how that description "translates" into reality.

The title seems to be suggesting that the firmware could be updated on older SSDs.

 

[Cr00zng]

I have no idea how that description "translates" into reality.

It doesn't, at least not to the level the article implies, quote from the article:

In tests, drives using the technology wrote data 55% less often than drives without and performance increases of up to 300% were noted. This could enable high-end devices to easily reach transfer speeds of 1.5GB/s as current models achieve around 500MB/s typically;

The current SATA 3 interface has a maximum transfer rate of 6 Gb/s, or 750 MB/s. The actual maximum data transfer rate is 4.8 Gb/s, or 600 GB/s, when the data transfer overhead, 8b/10b encoding, is taken into account. The current maximum SATA 3 SSDs transfer speed, low to mid 500s, is about a third from the claimed improvement of 1.5 GB/s.

The title seems to be suggesting that the firmware could be updated on older SSDs.

The chances are that the firmware for the older SSDs could be updated, but it won't be. One is the interface limitation for the current SATA version; for example the SATA 3 would have less than 10% improvement in data transfer rates, while for older SATA version it would provide no improvement.

The other is the manufacturers themselves. Why would they update the firmware for older SATA SSDs, when they could just sell you a new SSDs with higher data transfer rates with new interface? And yes, that will require a new motherboard at least, if not a new computer?

The chances are that this technology will be incorporated into the new SSDs that will have either SATA 3.2 (16 Gb/s nominal transfer rate), or PCIe (5 Gb/s per lane, 20 Gb/s with four PCIe lanes) interface.

For enterprises, SANs, etc., it will make sense to update the firmware for the current SSDs. Not so much for transfer rate increase, instead, the power savings advantage of the new technology for SSDs.

 

[lehnerus2000]

The other is the manufacturers themselves. Why would they update the firmware for older SATA SSDs, when they could just sell you a new SSDs with higher data transfer rates with new interface? And yes, that will require a new motherboard at least, if not a new computer?

Agreed.

The chances are that this technology will be incorporated into the new SSDs that will have either SATA 3.2 (16 Gb/s nominal transfer rate), or PCIe (5 Gb/s per lane, 20 Gb/s with four PCIe lanes) interface.

For enterprises, SANs, etc., it will make sense to update the firmware for the current SSDs. Not so much for transfer rate increase, instead, the power savings advantage of the new technology for SSDs.

Those ideas sound believable/realistic to me.

 

[Britton30]

The fact that a firmware update would 'convert' existing SSDs indicates this is a controller change within the drive. I don't think a new board or anything would be needed. The controller allows Windows and other OSes to 'see' the SSD as a normal HDD with sectors, cylinders, etc.

 

[carwiz]

To me, that would eventually lead to dead (unusable) areas on a "disk". The primary purpose of the current write to new areas first logic is part of the wear leveling process. This ensures that available space is used evenly across the entire disk instead of reusing a deleted area over and over. Sounds like a ploy to ensure the continued sales of HDDs.

This will virtually guarantee HDDs will be required for temporary work files. (User data, browser cache, DOM, cookies, video, etc.) I moved mine off my SSD a long time ago but this new logic could "use-up" a SSD a lot faster for those that don't have a HDD.

 

[Cr00zng]

The fact that a firmware update would 'convert' existing SSDs indicates this is a controller change within the drive. I don't think a new board or anything would be needed. The controller allows Windows and other OSes to 'see' the SSD as a normal HDD with sectors, cylinders, etc.

Yes, the firmware could be updated to increase the internal performance of the SSD to 1.5 GB/s. In order to take advantage of the increased transfer rate, you'd need a motherboard that supports SATA 3.2, or SATA Express interface.

The SATA Express interface connectors are different, not interchangeable, with SATA 3.0 connectors:

ASUS is ready for SATA Express - Early tech and performance preview

Will there be cables that are SATA on one end and SATA Express on the other end? Maybe, but it remains to be seen how useful it'll be for older SATA X drives with updated firmware. Keep in mind that the SATA Express will use PCIe lanes and the communication between devices might be different, even if the data encoding is the same.

To me, that would eventually lead to dead (unusable) areas on a "disk". The primary purpose of the current write to new areas first logic is part of the wear leveling process. This ensures that available space is used evenly across the entire disk instead of reusing a deleted area over and over. Sounds like a ploy to ensure the continued sales of HDDs.

That's a good point... Now, why didn't I think of that?

 

[techarchives259]

when and where (site) will this firmware be located? and side note, can this be done within windows or would u need to reinstall a new os to take full advantage?