New Intel SSD roadmap

[Ao1]

Sorry guys, this was a wind up and I fell for it. Dang. - Deleted

[virtualrain]

RE: 720P... Does RAID5 provide any tangible benefit in this kind of situation? It's not like you can hot swap out some bad NAND or a failed controller and rebuild the array if something dies. Anyone running something like this is going to have a backup on mechanical anyway, so the parity seems to just be consuming pricey SLC NAND and controller CPU cycles that could be put to much better use IMHO.

Is the RAID5 there to improve the reliability of the SLC NAND? Is it error prone to the extent that this is necessary?

[One_Hertz]

RE: 720P... Does RAID5 provide any tangible benefit in this kind of situation? It's not like you can hot swap out some bad NAND or a failed controller and rebuild the array if something dies. Anyone running something like this is going to have a backup on mechanical anyway, so the parity seems to just be consuming pricey SLC NAND and controller CPU cycles that could be put to much better use IMHO.

Is the RAID5 there to improve the reliability of the SLC NAND? Is it error prone to the extent that this is necessary?

I believe if any 1 of the 4 fails, the array will just get rebuilt into a 3 device R0 array with similar performance as the original but with no more redundancy.

The 50 microsecond read latency of the 720P looks very promising. Slowly approaching FusionIO in this respect.

[lowfat]

I honestly didn't notice that the 310 was SLC before. 20GB SLC drive for $110 seems like a pretty damn snazzy deal.

[johnw]

I honestly didn't notice that the 310 was SLC before. 20GB SLC drive for $110 seems like a pretty damn snazzy deal.

You mean the Larsen Creek? The 310 (which has been out for a while) is not SLC, it is MLC.

[Anvil]

Larson (or Larsen) Creek is the 311 and according to the "roadmap" it is SLC.
The 310 has been out for some time and is MLC and is using the mSATA connector. (not compatible with the standard SATA connector)

[Mech0z]

Meh only 80GB as max in the next mSATA, give me 120GB for boot drive.

[Anvil]

Quite a few of my setups use the Intel X25-V 40GB (or Kingston equivalent) as the boot drive, and I've still got 10-15GB available.
I'm using VMWare and so the boot drive doesn't need to be more than 32-40GB.

So, it's doable on small drives but it depends on usage.

[Mech0z]

I have had 60GB as primary (And only) for a long time and I am getting tired of it, but ofc if you use mSATA you will also have another drive, which will help.

But I just ordered a 128GB Max IOPS drive so wont need it anytime soon as I also have a normal drive in my W520 (Instead of dvd drive which I never use)

[lowfat]

Larson (or Larsen) Creek is the 311 and according to the "roadmap" it is SLC.
The 310 has been out for some time and is MLC and is using the mSATA connector. (not compatible with the standard SATA connector)

It might be the 311 I am referring too. I think the review site might have just listed the 310 by mistake.

[Chickenfeed]

Yeah its the 311.

Intel® X25-M SSD 80GB performance with the convenience of a single drive letter (C:\)
SATA 3Gb/s (SATA Revision 2.0)
20GB capacity, 2.5” 9.5mm and mSATA
Up to 60% performance improvement over a desktop 7200 rpm hard drive
Built with Intel 34nm SLC Compute NAND Flash Memory – higher performance, endurance
Compatible with Intel 6 Series Express Chipsets: Z68, HM67, QM67

Link

[One_Hertz]

I bet the 311 is SLC because Intel's new caching gizmo does a whole lot of writes to the SSD, since the most frequently accessed datasets would likely change a lot.

[johnw]

I bet the 311 is SLC because Intel's new caching gizmo does a whole lot of writes to the SSD, since the most frequently accessed datasets would likely change a lot.

That may be a consideration, but I think the main reason is that even a 40GB Intel 320 SSD can only write at 45 MB/s, and the 311 is only 20GB so its write speed would be horrible if it did not use SLC flash.

I noticed from the picture of the 311 circuit board in Anand's review that the 311 does not appear to have the large capacitors that the 320 has for power-loss protection. Instead, there is a large "ISSI" IC that I cannot read the small print on. DRAM, I guess.



Speaking of write speed, I wonder how well a 64GB Samsung 470 would do as a cache drive. It has the highest incompressible data sequential write speed of any MLC 64GB SSD, and the Intel chipset apparently limits the cache size to 64GB. But if 4KB random write, especially at high QD, is more important than sequential write speed, then the Samsung 470 would not be a great cache drive.

[Anvil]

This should sort out the small print
ISSI.JPG

I'm not sold on this new Z68 caching thing yet, might give the 311 a try though.

[johnw]

This should sort out the small print

Thanks!

So, it is a 256 Mbit synchronous DRAM IC.