FORTASA BLOG

Every customer looking to integrate SSD or Flash Memory based storage system is keen on knowing the useful life he can expect from the chosen storage product. The worst thing that could happen is that the Flash drive reaches the functional end of life and stops working frustrating the user and mandating an expensive service call.

SSD Reached Its Endurance Limit

Endurance, or how many program/erase cycles the Flash device can handle over the product lifetime, is a key metric that determines the effective service life of a Flash device and defines the amount of written data that it can can sustain before reaching the end of its rated life. In SSDs or Flash cards there is NOT a one-to-one relationship between the number of host writes and the actual physical program/erase cycles performed to the NAND Flash media. Due to the nature of Flash Controller data management algorithm, not all NAND blocks  reach their end of life simultaneously.

Several factors impact the Flash product endurance including the efficiency of the Wear Leveling algorithms, the write efficiency (Write Amplification), the cycling rating of the NAND components, and the nature of the applied workload. The relationship between product life cycle is also highly dependent on the device workload applied for the characterization of endurance.

Since device endurance depends on the maximum erases for any of the blocks on the NAND, both the Write Amplification and Wear Leveling Efficiency must be properly accounted for in determining an expected endurance and lifecycle rating.

Please contact Fortasa to discuss your solid state product requirements or your production needs.