Storage Intelligence Improving Performance and Endurance of SSDs

Revealing a new Storage Intelligence feature that improves the performance and endurance of SSDs, the STA (SCSI – Small Computer System Interface) Trade Association) announced that the INCITS T10 Technical Committee has approved it for inclusion in the SCSI Block Commands feature set (SBC-4).

The feature will be used in products making use of the SAS protocol that delivers the performance and reliability required for enterprise storage.

“This move signifies that T10’s Storage Intelligence proposal is stable and that storage developers can begin to integrate this new functionality in products they bring to market,” said Rick Kutcipal, president, STA and product planning, data center storage group, Avago Technologies Ltd. “This SCSI feature is leading the industry in its capabilities for providing features for optimization of SSDs and their applications.“

The Storage Intelligence feature of SBC-4 provides SSD applications control over the access and grouping of the physical information (streams) written to the drive, allowing for improved performance and endurance through the reduction of garbage collection and the undesirable phenomenon of write amplification. The feature allows for system control of background activities such as housekeeping so tasks can be performed during optimal times of low usage in order to meet data throughput requirements during peaks of high demand.

“Because flash memory must be erased before it can be rewritten, there are many factors that affect the performance of an SSD,” said Don Jeanette, VP, storage industry market research and consulting firm, Trendfocus, Inc. “The Storage Intelligence feature of the SCSI standard is a significant industry advancement that will optimize SSD applications, boost storage system performance and increase the endurance of SSD drives.“