Ask an Intel SSD Engineer

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FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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We are going to be doing an interview type discussion that will be run by our readers. Mr. Schmidt, an engineer with Intel's Solid State Drive division has graciously offered to answer any questions we might all have about Intel's SSDs.

So please post your Intel SSD questions here...in the form of a question. Those questions lacking proper spelling and grammar will be fed to the lions.

Our video review coverage is here for those of you wondering just what an SSD is.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU1OSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
 
Simply when do you anticipate a 100GB drive will cost less than £75 / $120 ish.
 
How much of a performance increase could be obtained by using file systems designed for SSD instead of current hard drives?

Are there significant penalties to SSD performance caused by the way current operating systems handle disk I/O?

As I understand it, striping techniques such as RAID 0 works by allowing the disk to read twice as fast because the data is stored across two drives. Would the read mechanisms in SSD's benefit from striping to the same degree?
 
Are Solid State Drives better at multitasking when compared to traditional hard drives (i.e. copying multiple large files simultaneously)?
 
1. How much research has Intel done into the long term reliability of SSDs?

2. When SSDs fail, what generally is the prognosis for data recovery?
 
1. Will 2.5" SSD become the standard size, or is there another reason why 3.5" drives are not common (yet)?

2. Besides capacity, what features/improvements are being focused on SSD the most? (speed, heat, reliability, price, etc etc)

3. When do you expect SSD's to surpass HDD's in storage capacity?

4. Are there plans in the industry to obsolete HDD's with SSD's completely?
 
i only have 2 questions

1. why the hell are ssd drives so damn expensive?!

2. are we gonna see any future drives at a cheaper price for gigabyte?
 
1. Will SSD's drive SATA III?
2. Will we see a single SSD unit that actually has two controllers and thus operates as a RAID 0 in effect?
3. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Very generous of you.
 
How do Intel SSDs handle wear-leveling? Is this expected to be a problem for systems which are mostly full but frequently write to "free" space (eg heavy temp file usage)?

Do Intel SSDs do any kind of checksum calculations in firmware to confirm that writes are, in fact, written correctly? What is the rate of errors on write?

Why should we be as confident in flash SSDs as long term storage devices when they have no long term track record for anything other than storing MP3s?

SanDisk recently got a lot of press announcing their ExtremeFFS for flash SSDs. Does Intel use this? If not, what are the advantages of the system Intel uses?

btrfs is the next-generation filesystem for Linux which (among many features) is optimized for use with SSDs. Intel employs multiple Linux kernel developers. Are there any plans for Intel to contribute to the development of btrfs?

references for questions:
http://valhenson.livejournal.com/25228.html
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MzYwMDIsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=
http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
 
Since SSD's contain no moving parts, thus eliminating a common point of failure among hard drives: mechanical issues such as heads crashing, motors dying, etc... What will then be the most or expected to be the most common failure issues with SSD type drives and how would that be best mitigated? (Ie, along the lines of keeping hard drives cooled with fans, will this also be needed with SSD's?) And with that, as spine asked above... "When SSDs fail, what generally is the prognosis for data recovery?" Will there still be much hope for recovery when it could be said that the logic board failed but the chips containing data are still readable?

A question for people who aren't as technically oriented, but have heard asked many times: What are the differences between USB Thumbdrives and SSD's aside from interface? What do SSD's have to provide over USB thumbdrives if you end up building a system that boots from USB and uses a dual channel type stick to take advantage of better speeds? (I'd like to have an answer to this question with both an engineer's approach and with a layman's explanation.)

Considering that cost and performance could be equal in this scenario, what advantages do hard drives still have over an SSD and what can be done/is being done to give SSD's the upper hand in that aspect?
 
A couple questions if you could sir.

1. We all know new tech comes with a price premium. When do we expect to see SSD drive components mass produced in such a way as to see a price reduction making it more attractive to the every day consumer? (Uhhh when will they be cheaper?)

2. Reliability. How many hours are SSD drives rated for. And in failure what is the point of failure?

3. Can we disconnect a drive for an extended period of time from any power source and maintain data integrity. What about shipping a drive will the common security requirements damage the data?

4. Drives in space. What kind of durability is expected for these drives in use on probes or anything else expecting high amounts of G-force as well as continued various radiation and temperature changes?

5. Price per Gigabyte makes these drives somewhat less attractive to the average consumer like myself. That and a real understanding of durability. Your taking the time out of your day to answer these questions for us is much appreciated and we look forward to your answers not clouded with marketing puff. Thank you for your time and have a great day!
 
1. On what process technology and in what Fab are memory cells made for use in Intel SSDs?

2. In terms of density and process technology, what kind of a roadmap is there for those memory cells? Are there changes made to the process and/or design as often as CPUs?

3. Do Intel SSDs utilize a cache? If so, how big is it and how was its size chosen?

4. Is Intel currently researching any alternatives to SLC and MLC designs? What about memresistors?

5. In real world application, can you tell us what the biggest gain in performance you've ever witnessed was in going from HDD to SSD?

6. Can I have one? :D
 
Q: Were you worried about Kyle's lack of anti static strap in the review video?

:)
 
1. DO you forsee a day where SSD's completely replace HDDs in desktops, or will they mostly be OS drives, with HDDs playing a storage role?
 
Does either type of storage medium have a foreseeable limit in storage density expansion, or a benefit in the area when compared to the other. A physical density limit must exist for both, but is it expected that SSD's will be able to continue past the range of limitation for mechanical drives, or vice versa?
 
1. What are intel's immediate plans to stay competitive in terms of performance? While I believe the X25-E SSDs currently hold the performance crown, companies like OCZ are releasing new products like the Vertex SSDs that start to close the gap in performance and certainly price.
2. When do you expect the technology to begin to plateau in terms of performance? Surely we can't expect to see 1GB/s read speeds in the near future, right? The technology is developing so rapidly, I'm sure intel is already past R&D and already testeing the next gen after the X25-E products.
3. At this time, is intel focusing it's R&D more on performance or capacity?
 
My only question: will Intel create a price-bracket system such as in the case of Western Digital with their Caviar Blue and Black drives with different pricing, geared towards more mainstream applications? SSDs have great appeal for me in a mobile computing sense due to their lack of moving mechanical parts, but reliable, steady performance (nothing on JMicron controllers) with reasonable price-per-GB is the only thing shying me away from SSDs for now, especially with Intel's pricing for their X25-Es.
 
1. Do SSDs get slower to write and/or read as they get used more?
 
1. Why do you choose to develop drives based on MLC memory rather than SLC memory?
2. Why are your MLC drives so much more expensive in comparison to similar SLC-based drives?
3. Will you continue development of drives in 1.8" PATA form factor?
 
Will SSD's ever implement a system to indicate end of life, or other problems, before failure like S.M.A.R.T. does for HDD's?
 
Do you have any plans on releasing a high capacity 3.5" MLC SSD?
 
(but I might be a scientist)

Are the memory features in MLC and SLC expected to scale well to smaller processes? Is there a limit where there simply is too small a charge to really hold the data (thus putting a limit on the memory density)?

Considering the high possible throughput of SSDs, are there plans to design or use a faster interface than what's available through SATA (obvious ones being PCI-x)?

How many years down the line are we from non-volatile memory which accesses and reads as quickly as DRAM?
 
1. Does Intel have any plans to create an SSD-HDD hybrid 3.5" drive? (Example: 24GB SSD for OS and 500GB HDD for data on a single drive)

2. What's after SSD? Any foreseeable elements that might be used besides memory chips? I'd like your insight on the future of storage needs.

Thank you for the time answering all our questions. It will generate a positive buzz.
 
chem said:
How do Intel SSDs handle wear-leveling? Is this expected to be a problem for systems which are mostly full but frequently write to "free" space (eg heavy temp file usage)?

Do Intel SSDs do any kind of checksum calculations in firmware to confirm that writes are, in fact, written correctly? What is the rate of errors on write?

Why should we be as confident in flash SSDs as long term storage devices when they have no long term track record for anything other than storing MP3s?

SanDisk recently got a lot of press announcing their ExtremeFFS for flash SSDs. Does Intel use this? If not, what are the advantages of the system Intel uses?

btrfs is the next-generation filesystem for Linux which (among many features) is optimized for use with SSDs. Intel employs multiple Linux kernel developers. Are there any plans for Intel to contribute to the development of btrfs?

references for questions:
http://valhenson.livejournal.com/25228.html
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MzYwMDIsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=
http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
Click to expand...

To piggy back of one of the questions you ask;
Will, or has, Intel been working with Microsoft in regards to file systems better suited for use with SSDs?

Not so much a question, but perhaps an answer to a question many are asking:
My rough understanding of failures in SSDs is their inability to write after certain number of times, but the data that already exists can still be read and transfered. Perhaps we can seek confirmation of this fact, but I'm a little more at ease if this is true.
 
1. Other than increasing demand/production bringing SSD prices down what are manufacturers like Intel doing to bring the costs down?

2. Why are so few SSDs being produced in the 3.5" form factor?
 
1. I hear that as you decrease the process size on which the NAND cells are made, there are new reliability and performance issues. How does Intel plan on solving said issues.

2. We hear a lot about i/o fusion and micron putting NAND on PCI-Express. Does Intel plan on doing the same?

3. Intel says that a lot of the reason why its SSDs are superior are due to the in house design of the controller. How does Intel plan to further tweak their controllers to squeeze out more performance?
 
1) Can the Intel SSD's be "hot-swapped", in other words, changed out on the fly without powering down the system?

2) Do they "wear out" or have a limited life span? If so, how long do you expect them to last under normal work load, and also under continuous maximum work load?
 
Is the controller board, the memory itself, or the interface (SATA, PCI-E, Express Card) the limiting factor in SSD speeds?
 
1. I understand that SSD drives have a limited life shorter than their traditional magneto counterparts, with that said are we given any kind of warning when it starts to decline IE Smart monitoring or other means. Will disk capacity start to decrease and what is the general MTBF or length in years should we expect to get out of a device like this.


2. Since the unit is Solid State many will be thinking that they are much tougher than other disks especially magnetic radiation. What can we expect in higher tolerances with SSD vs. Magnetic Disks in vibration/magnetic radiation etc etc.

3. In your professional opinion, what is not a good application for SSD drives?

Thank You.
 
If it's correct that SSD's have a limited number of read / write cycles, then are measures planned to minimize data fragmenting thus reducing the need for added accessing through defragmentation?

Pertaining to drive life, is the need for and process of defragmenting rw cycles considered significant enough to be concerned about?
 
Things being what they are, do you have plans to make a hybrid SSD+HDD drive?
 
From a bussines stand point what is the expected yield in earnings of the SSD drives sales in the foreseeable future?
Since Intel started out as a memory company, What are the expectations of this introduction at this moment in the Industry for Intel?

Is Intel considering furter R&D in SSD like technologies but with better performance that what's currently avialable? This is the same question done a few times beore but I'm considering MRAM as the example.
Thank You very much for your time and effort.
 
What real-world differences in power consumption do you see in consumer-level SSD's and consumer-level mechanical 2.5" drives? Any details on wattage consumed at the wall and/or ratios would help.

Are software-based data recovery applications still applicable for SSD's? (ie: from accidental formats, etc.)

How will the switch to SSD's affect data recovery companies? If possible, please elaborate on differences in possible data recovery methods for SSD's for cases of SSD failure.

How many years are we away from considering enterprise-level SSD's versus mechanical SAS/SCSI drives as competitive from a cost/benefit ratio? Probably this would be better responded with two answers: one in regards to OS/Application drives (a drive performance perspective), and the other as dumb storage (from a capacity perspective).

Do you foresee SSD's expanding into 3.5" form factors? Are any other sizes being worked on beyond 2.5" and 1.8"?

Any known issues for SSD's in regards to airport metal detectors, EMI, etc.? Just thinking about travel, security checkpoints, metal detectors, and so on.


... And TIA for the support to the [H] community! It's much appreciated!
 
I love new hardware here are my questions

Do ssd have a quick destroy system embeded for covert use?
Are ssd drives more resistant to EMP and EMI?

I know similar tech is in use on black planes and choppers i'm just asking about the consumer level devices.
 
1. Can a MLC preform (almost) the same as a SLC when combined whit a good raid controller like a Areca ARC-1200 ore better
As a controller whit cache can improve the speed a lot, but will a controller whit enough cache improve speed to the level of SLC

f_m_9f11247.jpg

Source (Dutch): http://femme.tweakblogs.net/blog/595/mtron-mobi-+-areca-invloed-van-cache-onderzocht.html


2. Why is there suds a dramatic drop in performance after reruns of the same benchmarks.
As run 1 is between 50 and 250% faster then run 3, and other SSDs dint have this behavior.

f_Speedproblem_c8ee9d6.jpg

Source (Dutch): http://tweakers.net/reviews/1067/1/intel-x25-m-solid-state-disk-getest-pagina-1.html

The guy hows test this is, is imho one of the most knowledgeable person i know when it comes to hard drive and raid testing.
(and as a long time raid user i have bin following up on most test on the web)
 
If the MBTF of 1.2m hours is correct, why not support that figure with a 5 year warranty? 3 years seems to say even Intel isn't so sure the drive will last.

Does lifetime get reduced by the degree the drive is full with permanent data? I know a lot of the classic Raptor drives that were relatively full, due to their small size, which is just what I envision a 80gb primary SSD drive is likely to get, full. If they stay around say 75% full all the time, what is the expected lifetime of the drive?

What are the signs of a failing drive?

How do you treat a drive that has failed unexpectedly? Is the data recoverable? Is the drive mountable as a secondary for recovery purposes?

When is SLC likely to take over the product line due to the cost/durability ratio? 2012?
 
1) Which file system is best suited for SSDs?
2) What are the shortcomings of existing file systems for SSDs?
3) Is there a certain programming environment (OS, file system, language) that has advantages with SSDs? I am thinking about smalltalk-like environments where an image of the system is all there is - no files, etc.
4) Is defragmentation an issue with SSD (my guess is no)?
5) What applications do you see benefitting most from SSD technology?
 
I was researching Intel SSDs and read somewhere that Intel bases their expected typical consumer usage at 20 gigs worth of data writes per day. It was something like if user writes 20 GB per day, the drive would be expected to last for 5 years or something like that. Anyway, based on that info, my questions are:

1. What does a NON-typical user write to their disk per day? As you might gather, most of us on this forum are not "typical" users. Let's say my family on average per day plays 8 hours of World of Warcraft, encodes a movie or two, rips albums to mp3, reinstalls the OS several times a year, etc... (my point is, it wouldn't be a PC for Grandma to check her email once a week and google different needlepoint techniques). How long could a REAL (one of us) PC user expect their SSD to last?

2. If your disk space is consistently low (which is likely to happen with SSDs with the low capacity at this time), how does Intel's algorithm handle even wear across the drive? Say, if I've got only 1 GB of space left on my HDD and the contents of my drive pretty much stays the same except for regular write usage and gaming, how would that affect the longevity of the drive? If there is little unused space for the controller to re-write to, won't those areas of the drive fail really quickly and the other areas would be underutilized?

Thank you for your time.
 
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