spectrumbx
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2003
- Messages
- 1,647
Reading this AnandTech's article on Intel and Micron next generation SSDs built on the new 25nm process, there is a paragraph with important implications:
This means that the block size is now 256 pages x 8KB = 2MB.
Remembering that in order to overwrite data you need to erase a full block, these new drives will not be good for small write applications.
People doing things like video editing or using SSDs for mostly read operations will have nothing to worry about, but people using SSDs for things like databases and others might want to stick to SLC or the current generation MLC.
Normally one would think Intel and Micron would bring out new controllers that efficiently address this issue. However, increasing the page and block size is inherent to controller limitations. Better controllers would simply do without that increase.
Since we have a full year before we start seen these new drives, we can only hope that better controllers will come into the picture.
The other major change to the 25nm NAND is an increase in the page size. At 50nm and 34nm, IMFTs page size was 4KB. At 25nm on the 8GB device the page size is now 8KB. Block size has also gone up from 128 pages to 256 pages. This will obviously have performance implications and require some firmware reorganization, but given that Intel has known this was coming for some time now I would expect that its 3rd generation drives will be optimized for 25nm.
This means that the block size is now 256 pages x 8KB = 2MB.
Remembering that in order to overwrite data you need to erase a full block, these new drives will not be good for small write applications.
People doing things like video editing or using SSDs for mostly read operations will have nothing to worry about, but people using SSDs for things like databases and others might want to stick to SLC or the current generation MLC.
Normally one would think Intel and Micron would bring out new controllers that efficiently address this issue. However, increasing the page and block size is inherent to controller limitations. Better controllers would simply do without that increase.
Since we have a full year before we start seen these new drives, we can only hope that better controllers will come into the picture.