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DrQuine
As I recall, flash drives support a relatively limited number of read/ write ...
gautham
That's an interesting point, Baolt- about Samsung being late into SSDs. I am not ...
Samsung, Seagate develop flash drive controllers
Rick Merritt
8/12/2010 11:53 AM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Disk drive and flash memory giants Seagate Technology plc and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. have struck a deal to co-develop and cross-license controller technologies for server-class solid state drives. The duo will use Samsung's 30nm multi-level cell flash technology.
Seagate, the world's largest hard disk drive maker, is to some extent playing catch up. Intel and drive maker Hitachi GST stuck a deal to co-develop server flash drives in December 2008.
Seagate started shipping its first flash drives for servers, the Pulsar family in September. The 2.5-inch Pulsar drives comes in 50, 100 and 200 Gbyte models using a 3 Gbit/second serial ATA interface and single-level cell flash chips.
Competitors have been offering server flash drives since 2005, some of them now using multi-level cell flash chips that provide higher densities but need enhanced controllers to ensure reliability and peak performance.
Seagate and Samsung did not say when they expect to field products based on the new controllers. In January, Seagate said it is developing with LSI to develop controllers that put flash drives on a PCI interconnect.
International Data Corp. estimates more than 11 million flash drives shipped in 2009. It expects server flash drives to expand from revenues of $424 million in 2009 to approximately $2.5 billion by 2014, reflecting 48 percent compound growth, said Jeffrey Janukowicz, research manager for flash drives at IDC.
“Today’s agreement with Samsung will help us bring a compelling set of SSD innovations to the enterprise storage market, with benefits that range from enhanced performance, endurance and reliability to cost and capacity improvements,” said Steve Luczo, chief executive of Seagate, speaking in a press statement.
“Our green memory solution is designed to enable more energy-efficient server applications, which is expected to increase the use of NAND-based SSD storage in enterprise applications,” added Chang-hyun Kim, a Samsung Fellow and senior vice president of memory product planning and applications engineering in Samsung's semiconductor group.
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Rick Merritt
8/12/2010 12:23 PM EDT
How do you think this deal could impact the server flash drive market?
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Baolt
8/12/2010 5:27 PM EDT
During computex i saw many examples of SSDs, but none was samsung rooted. Intel or Sandisk. For sure Samsung is big brother, now with Seagate stronger yet they are delayed for SSD market.
I have a new laptop with ssd and mad about its speed, no noise, no heat trouble, very slim and lightweight. What SSD would bring to server market...No Taa-Das in short term for sure. However while capacities grow, speeds increase, we will see faster webpages, swift solution servers, feasible cloud computing, less energy consumption more green, less noise at server boxes and happy technicians let say in 3 year time latest.
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gautham
8/13/2010 8:00 AM EDT
That's an interesting point, Baolt- about Samsung being late into SSDs. I am not sure Seagate has the technology lead either in this respect.
BTW, I'm curious about your laptop model.. which one is that?
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DrQuine
8/14/2010 6:50 PM EDT
As I recall, flash drives support a relatively limited number of read/ write cycles for each bit. Is effort being expended in the driver design to ensure that the read / write cycles are spread across the media or are failed bits / blocks simply detected and mapped out?
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