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Google-Backed SSD Endurance Research Shows MLC Flash As Reliable As SLC (hothardware.com)
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.
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Yep, we need critical details, like if there is any way to tell that an SSD is about to become totally unreadable. There is some worrying stuff in TFA:
Other results point to the uselessness of the RBER value (raw bit error rate). It was found that there was absolutely no correlation between the number of these warnings and the number of uncorrectable errors that creep up.
Uncorrectable errors are not too bad, at least you can make a copy of the drive. It's when the drive dies completely and you have to reach for the most recent backup that we really want to predict.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
http://0b4af6cdc2f0c5998459-c0...
Someone you trust is one of us.
Thanks. However, what I read from this study is that SLC is indeed far more reliable, especially over time, with the risk of a several years old MLC drive developing an uncorrectable error is an order of magnitude or more higher than for a similarly old SLC drive.
Only some less common errors are in the same ballpark, which should not be extrapolated to what the title claims.
Just as worthless as their last "study" on storage reliability, as they do not name manufacturers and models. Research published by Google sucks badly.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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
All I know is that even Intel can't even make a decent SSD. The first SSD I bought was their Intel SSD 530 Series 120GB and I've never been able to use the damn thing. I've tried it on two computers, a Mac mini 2010 and a DIY PC with a recent motherboard, and in both of them the drive just won't boot after a warm reset. Even after all these years, Intel hasn't published a firmware upgrade to fix the problem.
...then it would stand to reason that other storage vendors mostly know this, too.
So why aren't there more MLC based flash arrays, especially all-flash models? For storage capacities under 24 TB raw, it would be pretty price competitive to HDD but produce a storage device with insane I/O potential.
They don't brick, they go into write only mode. Ask Intel, they'll tell ya.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.