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SSD Latency, Error Rates May Spell Bleak Future

Posted by timothy on from the everything-counts-in-large-amounts dept.

Lucas123 writes "A new study by the University of California and Microsoft shows that NAND flash memory experiences significant performance degradation as die sizes shrink in size. Over the next dozen years latency will double as the circuitry size shrinks from 25 nanometers today, to 6.5nm, the research showed. Speaking at the Usenix Conference on File and Storage Technologies in San Jose this week, Laura Grupp, a graduate student at the University of California, said tests of 45 different types of NAND flash chips from six vendors using 72nm to 25nm lithography techniques showed performance degraded across the board and error rates increased as die sizes shrunk. Triple-Level NAND performed the worst, followed by Multi-Level Cell NAND and Single-Level Cell. The researchers said MLC NAND-based SSDs won't be able to go beyond 4TB and TLC-based SSDs won't be able to scale past 16TB because of the performance degradation, so it appears the end of the road for SSDs will be 2024."

15 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds legit by sbrown7792 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because there could *never* be a breakthrough discovery/invention found within the next 10 years.

    1. Re:Sounds legit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh there will be a great discovery/invention in the next 10 years. Unfortunately it will be tied up in patent litigation for the next 50 years after that. All fun and games when it is a hard drive. Not so funny when it is a medicine that can save your kid.

    2. Re:Sounds legit by peragrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      what about the last 3-4 years worth of discoveries, of phase change, memresistors, etc. Many of which get more efficient the smaller you go.

      So NAND Flash has a lifespan. big deal, So did magnetic core drives, Hard drives are still going strong but are reaching the top ends for themselves too.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    3. Re:Sounds legit by jimbolauski · · Score: 4, Insightful

      NAND has been around for 14 years and they are trying to extrapolate out to 2024, almost double it's life span. I'm trying to think of any technology that was 10 years old that there was a road map of where it would be in another 10 that turned out to be accurate.

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      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    4. Re:Sounds legit by sonicmerlin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HDD tech has advanced without patent litigation tying anything up. What makes you think it will be different for NAND's successor?

    5. Re:Sounds legit by mcavic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, to start with you can make an SSD as big as you want by taking smaller SSD's and chaining them together with an intelligent front-end.

    6. Re:Sounds legit by PsychoSlashDot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It would help if those damn Brits wouldn't use such ridiculous words. Here on the reasonable side of the Atlantic, we call them strollers.

      Understand I'm a North American. So when I point out your wrongness, it's not because I'm a damned Brit.

      Sprinters sprint.
      Runners run.
      Juggers jog.

      You'd think strollers stroll.

      Strangely instead strollers convey small children nestled within their confines but only because someone is pushing them along.

      Know what. I'll take a word that is allocated to naming the object any day over a misleading one. The Brits got it right, we got it wrong.

      Speaking of wrong, the word you're looking for is "buggy". Like... rubber baby buggy bumpers.

      --
      "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
    7. Re:Sounds legit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      COBOL

    8. Re:Sounds legit by Pulzar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why? I'd rather have a bunch of 80gig disks in a RAID 50 it would be much faster than a 2TB drive and far more stable in case of data loss.

      Because 25 hard drives would be a bitch to carry around in your laptop?

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
  2. Stuff like this... by blahplusplus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... always denies other areas of innovation. The same way processors were thought not to scale down to x nm and we're at 20'ish nm now. The same way hard drives were thought only to have x capacity and we're now in the terabytes. If nand is really so limited then something different then nand will take it's place. But a few terabyte will be more then enough for 99% of applications and hard disks will be for packrats and those who need large amounts of longer term storage.

    1. Re:Stuff like this... by blahplusplus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "640k ought to be enough for everyone!"

      One can take a look at videocards, right now for most PC gamers they haven't needed to upgrade their video hardware for quite some time relatively speaking compared to the past. The idea that needs will scale linearly forever is nonsense.

      There is a point after rapid growth where you reach 'good enough' until the next step is ready which no one knows in advance.

    2. Re:Stuff like this... by TheLink · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's because monitor resolution has stagnated. Perhaps 1920 x 1080 is enough for most people. But add 3D and 120Hz updates and you might start needing a bit more grunt.

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  3. Re:In other news... by dyingtolive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Hey, would you want a computer? It's a city block large, uses all of these punchcards for I/O, and doesn't really do much other than crack Enigma. Hey, where are you going?"

    "Hey, would you want a computer? It can fit in your pocket, let you talk to anyone in the world, can take pictures and provide you god damn near any information written down by a human being, and you can watch porn on it!"

    Computers are the same thing they were even 20 years ago in name only.

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  4. "...the end of the road for SSDs will be 2024..." by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes. They'll all stop working then and it will become impossible to make any more.

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    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  5. 4TB limit by afidel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, about that 4TB limit, I think these folks will be surprised that their 5TB and 10TB drives won't be possible in the next few years....

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