SSDs

A Shift in Data Storage Todd Dinkelman Micron Technology, Inc.

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

Agenda
SSD Defined Quick Comparison Why MLC Reliability/Endurance Summary

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

What is Being Called an SSD?

USB interface embedded solution Module-based IDE interface card w/o enclosure 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch, 32GB and 64GB SSD for notebook and performance computing Module/card with custom form factor, density, and interface

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

The Complexity of HDDs

Base casting Spindle Slider (and head) Actuator arm Cover mounting holes

HDD Advantages
Density Price/GB

Platters Actuator SATA interface connector

Source: Panther Products

Actuator axis

Power connector

Flex circuit (attaches heads to logic board)

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The Simplicity of SSDs

SATA interface connector

SSD Advantages
Performance Size Weight Ruggedness Temperature Range Power
NAND Controller Printed Circuit

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SSDs vs. HDDs

SSDs
Capacity Performance Reliability Endurance Power Size Weight Shock Temperature Cost per bit
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HDDs

Due to recent advances in NAND lithography, SSD densities have reached capacities for mass market appeal SSDs offer many features that lead to improved user experiences Early shortcomings regarding reliability and endurance are being overcome

SSDs in Computing
Relative Latency

CPU

Relative Cost/Bit

1 2.5 1,200

L1 Cache L2 Cache DRAM SSD HDD

1,800 1,400 10 3 1

NAND

25,000 25,000,000

NAND Flash closes the latency gap

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008
Cost/bit data as of November 2007

NAND in Computer Architecture

CPU DRAM DRAM DDR3
Memory & Bus Control

PCIe Graphics

USB Flash Drive

USB

Peripheral & Bus Control

Link

PCIe

NVMHCI Flash

Hybrid SSD HDD

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SATA

MLC and SLC Differences

SLC
Single-level cell One bit per cell Multi-level cell 2 bits per cell today 3 and 4 bits per cell future

MLC

Endurance
SLC is typically 10 times better than MLC

Performance
SLC provides ~2X the write performance of MLC

Price
SLC-based products have better than 2X the price/GB compared to MLC

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

SSD Market Trends Improvements in controller technology

Moving from CompactFlash architectures to true SSD controllers

Notebooks and PCs

Migration to MLC
Light usage model Cost, size, and performance are all important

Value Proposition
Better than desktop performance in an ultra-light notebook
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SSD Average Price/GB

1.8" HDD MLC SSD $/GB 2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

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NAND Reliability and Endurance

Effect Description
Cells not being programmed receive charge via elevated voltage stress Cells not being read receive charge via elevated voltage stress Charge loss over time Cycles cause charge trapped in dielectric

Observed As
Increased read errors immediately after programming

Management

Program Disturb

ECC and Block Management

Reliability

Read Disturb

Increased read error at high number of reads

ECC and Block Management

Data Retention Endurance/ Cycling

Increased read errors with time Failed program/erase status

ECC and Block Management

Endurance

Retire Block

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

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NAND Error Rate

Bit Error Rate
Failing bits corrected with appropriate levels of ECC Correctable bit errors do not result in data loss

Raw Bit Error Rate (RBER): Bit error rate prior to ECC Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (UBER): Bit error rate after ECC UBER is projected using the measured RBER and specific level of ECC
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SSD Reliability and Endurance

SSD reliability has two parts
MTBF
Measure of time between failures due to manufacturing or component defects 2 million hours is typical for Micron SSDs

Endurance
SSDs all wear out due to data writes Indication of drive life based on a usage condition Micron SSDs are specified to last 5 years under predefined usage conditions Usage conditions vary for consumer and performance products
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Endurance Factors
Wear-leveling efficiency Write amplification NAND cycles SSD densities

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Wear-Leveling
Dynamic wear-leveling uses the available free space and the incoming data to equally wear each of the physical blocks
Static data is not included in the available pool of wear-leveling blocks, leaving a portion of the drive with no wear

Static wear-leveling considers all physical blocks in the SSD, regardless of content, and maintains an even level of wear across the entire drive
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Wear-Leveling Example
MLC devices can typically support 10,000 cycles per block If you erased and reprogrammed one block every second, you would exceed the 10,000 cycling limit in just 3 hours! 60 x 60 x 3 = 10,080 Rather than cycling the same block, wear-leveling involves distributing the number of blocks that are cycled

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

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Wear-Leveling Example (continued)

An 8GB MLC-based SSD contains 32,768 independent blocks (each block is 256KB of data) If we took the previous example and distributed the cycles over all 32,768 blocks, each block would have been programmed once after 9 hours If you provided perfect wear-leveling on an 8GB drive, you could erase and program a block every second, every day for over 10 years!
10,000 X 32,768
60 X 60 X 24
Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

327,680,000
86,400

= 3,792 days = 10.38 years

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Write Amplification
Additional write overhead due to garbage collection and wear-leveling
Write Amplification = Flash Writes / Host Writes

Influence on host data patterns

Large number of small random transfers increases write amplification

Influenced by number of spare blocks and static data

Keeping a percentage of the drive as spares will bound the write amplification

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Typical PC File Transfers

Avg. Disk Bytes Per Read/Write

1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 Less than 4KB 4KB to 16KB 16KB to 32KB 32KB to 64KB Transfer Size
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Reads Writes

64KB to 128KB

128KB to 256KB

Greater than 256KB

SSD Endurance Calculation

Write amplification and wear-leveling efficiency must be accounted for when calculating SSD lifetime
Life in Years = NAND Cycles * SSD Capacity Amplification Factor * GB/Year

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SSD Lifetime
Given a capacity point, NAND endurance, and writes-per-day, the upper limit on SSD lifetime is defined
Example: A 64GB SSD, 10K PROGRAM/ERASE cycles and write duty of 350 GB/day will wear out in 5 years Wear-leveling of NAND is necessary

Uneven wear within a NAND Flash device may cause hot spots

Improper NAND data management may cause lifetime to be significantly less than the limit
A Flash ERASE operation must occur before a page can be rewritten To improve overall throughput, erase granularity is much larger than write granularity LBA traffic pattern can cause lots of extra data movement

Santa Clara, CA USA August 2008

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SSD Endurance
Average Number Of Times Per Day The Drive Space Gets Written
60

50 Times per Day (Count)

40

30

33% WRITEs 2K random IOPs 64GB drive (55GB user-accessible 20% reserved spares

20

10

0 0 12 24 36 48 60 72 84 96 Required Lifetime (Months)

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SSD Capacity Effect on Endurance

Years for SSD to Wear Out

Time to Failure

32

64

128 Drive Capacity (GB)

256

512

SSD life will double with every doubling of capacity

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Summary
SSDs bring many advantages to storage
Performance Power Reliability Environmental ruggedness

Different products for different markets

MLC-based SSDs for PCs

Reliability has two aspects

Endurance and MTBF
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Thank You
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