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Intel Plans 'Overclocking' Capability On SSDs

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-make-sure-you-get-some-liquid-cooling dept.

Lucas123 writes "Anticipating it will make a 'big splash,' Intel is planning to release an product late this year or very early next that will allow users to 'overclock' solid-state drives. The overclocking capability is expected to allow users to tweak the percentage of an SSD's capacity that's used for data compression. At its Intel Developers Forum next month in San Francisco, Intel has scheduled an information session on overclocking SSDs. The IDF session is aimed at system manufacturers and developers as well as do-it-yourself enthusiasts, such as gamers. 'We've debated how people would use it. I think the cool factor is somewhat high on this, but we don't see it changing the macro-level environment. But, as far as being a trendsetter, it has potential,' said Intel spokesman Alan Frost. Michael Yang, a principal analyst with IHS Research, said the product Intel plans to release could be the next evolution of SandForce controller, 'user definable and [with the] ability to allocate specified size on the SSD. Interesting, but we will have to see how much performance and capacity [it has] over existing solutions,' Yang said in an email reply to Computerworld."

9 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Awsome by ciderbrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Time to make some watercooling blocks and special fans and make money from those with too much.

    1. Re:Awsome by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Time to make some watercooling blocks and special fans and make money from those with too much.

      Wow! That would be Overclocked!

      Years ago I could buy a cheap overclocked machine and play any overclocked game I could find. Nowadays, it's not so easy. You need an overclocked watercooling block and overclocked fans.

      I only hope MS overclock their efforts and manage to get an overclocking product in time. I'd be very underclocked otherwise.

    2. Re:Awsome by dj245 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Doesn't mean that "gamers" won't buy this stuff... People are stupid when it comes to buying components. Only have 1 video card? Not overclocking your CPU? Only one hard drive? Yeah let's just get this 750W supply just in case.

      A 750W power supply isn't that ridiculous. I had a system with 2 hard drives, a mid-level medium-power video card, and a dual-core processor (45W TDP). It had a 450W power supply from a reputable brand, which should have been more than plenty. However, when I switched out the processor to a 6-core one with a 95W TDP, stability went out the window. No overclocking, all BIOS settings on "safe", but it would freeze about every 30 minutes or so. I was going crazy trying to figure it out. I reformatted Windows, but no good. It was crashing using some Linux CD diagnostics tools so it had nothing to do with the software. I even RMA'd the CPU and got a new one.

      Eventually I bought a new 550W power supply and all the problems went away. Maybe the "reputable brand" of my 450W power supply wasn't actually reputable, or maybe some element inside had degraded over time, but power supply problems are the most frustrating kinds of problems to solve if you are assuming that X watts should be enough. I'm not made of money, but I'm going to buy the best power supply I can afford in the future.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  2. Sandforce... by Knuckx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, what Intel are saying, is that they are going to take a SSD controller with unstable, buggy firmware - and then add a feature that allows users to modify the internal constants the firmware uses to do it's job. This can only end very badly, unless Intel and Sandforce do some serious testing to find and fix the data corruption issues, the problems with the drive ignoring the host, and the problems where the drive gets stuck in busy.

    (all problems detailed in this post have been experienced with an Intel branded, Sandforce controller-ed drive)

    1. Re:Sandforce... by c0lo · · Score: 4, Funny

      So, what Intel are saying, is that they are going to take a SSD controller with unstable, buggy firmware - and then add a feature that allows users to modify the internal constants the firmware uses to do it's job. This can only end very badly,...

      How come? Personally, I can see the benefits... run the SSD to glowing hot, write your data then cut he power. Upon cooling down, the data will be compressed (by thermal shrinking) in a hardware mode... and is only common-sense that being hard is better than being soft when it comes to compression.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  3. Re:Seems ironic... by the_B0fh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wow. You really like the taste of the koolaid huh. Intel has always been against overclocking because it eats into their margin. They had thermal protection so overheating is not a problem. Overvoltage might fry your cpu, but only after a very long time or a very high voltage - both of which can be controlled, so it's not like you'd pump 5V through a 1.35V part.

    And Intel traditionally bins its parts - you might want to check that out.

  4. Re:Why... by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All SSDs use compression.

    Citation needed.

  5. I have the perfect term for it! by FuzzNugget · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Overclocking" is technically a misnomer. It's a sort of tweaking, but it's a bit more than that; we could call it ... twerking!

  6. Give me dead nuts reliability! by BoRegardless · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After you deal with HD & SSD failures, you are only concerned with reliability.