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Google-Backed SSD Endurance Research Shows MLC Flash As Reliable As SLC (hothardware.com)

Posted by timothy on from the utah-vs-oklahoma dept.

MojoKid writes: Even for mainstream users, it's easy to feel the differences between using a PC that has an OS installed on a solid state drive versus a mechanical hard drive. Also, with SSD pricing where it is right now, it's also easy to justify including one in a new configuration for the speed boost. And there's obvious benefit in the enterprise and data center for both performance and durability. As you might expect, Google has chewed through a healthy pile of SSDs in its data centers over the years and the company appears to have been one of the first to deploy SSDs in production at scale. New research results Google is sharing via a joint research project now encompasses SSD use over a six year span at one of Google's data centers. Looking over the results led to some expected and unexpected findings. One of the biggest discoveries is that SLC-based SSDs are not necessarily more reliable than MLC-based drives. This is surprising, as SLC SSDs carry a price premium with the promise of higher durability (specifically in write operations) as one of their selling points. It will come as no surprise that there are trade-offs of both SSDs and mechanical drives, but ultimately, the benefits SSDs offer often far outweigh the benefits of mechanical HDDs.

3 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Where is the report? by selectspec · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://0b4af6cdc2f0c5998459-c0...

    --

    Someone you trust is one of us.

  2. Re:Where is the report? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Okay, thanks to selectspec for posting a link to the report: http://0b4af6cdc2f0c5998459-c0...

    The bad news is that Google were using their own custom controllers. Thus we can't draw any conclusions about different manufacturers or controllers or error correction techniques. All they look at is the error rates for different types of flash memory and how often their hardware could correct the errors.

    For consumers this is likely meaningless. So much is dependent on the drive controller and selection of error detection/recovery scheme, it doesn't really help to look at the type of flash.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Re:If Google knows this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Your math is off... 400*24=$9600, not 96K.