FORTASA BLOG

Using SMART Command to Monitor Life of SSD or Flash Card

SMART Command Information

Predicting usable life of an SSD or Flash card is more of an art than a science. Not only is it dependent on the Flash components used and Firmware algorithm, but also on the device usage model which in most situations is inherently impossible to predict.

However, monitoring the SSD usage for Flash media end of life is quite customary. A standard way of monitoring the media is through the use of SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) Command. The SMART command is an open standard, as defined by the work group at T13.org, allowing an individual disk drive in the ATA/IDE or SCSI interface to automatically monitor its own health and report potential problems to the host in order to anticipate drive failures and prevent data loss. The SMART information is collected during the drive operation and helps host to predict the likelihood of drive failure due to critical use conditions.

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CompactFlash Card - Celebrating 20-year Anniversary - Still Designed in Industrial Applications

CFA Oversees the CF Card Standard

One of the most widespread Flash Card standards is CompactFlash (CF). Introduced initially by SanDisk in 1994, this format survived multiple generations of specification revisions and is still quite a popular choice in Industrial and some consumer applications. Confined to an most common (Type I) physical dimensions of 43mm × 36mm × 3.3 mm, CompactFlash card is manufactured in capacities of upto 128GBytes and offers sustained performance of up to 200MB/sec.

The CompactFlash standard is governed by the CompactFlash Association (CFA) which manages updates to the standard, oversees device compliance and certifies compliant products. The CompactFlash standard not only incorporates Flash memory based devices, but also HDDs and I/O cards in the same physical form factor. CFA has also announced extensions to the CF spec - CFast (SATA interface CompactFlash card form factor) and XQD (PCIe Interface CompactFlash card form factor).

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Industrial Solid State Storage Products Deliver Best Reliability and Life Span - Go For The Gold

As the world is watching the 2014 Sochi Olympics we reflect on our device portfolio and technical capability as we challenge ourselves to provide a Gold Medal level of product and service to make us memorable and dependable for our customers..

Gold Medal In Product and Service

Product Engineering - we are the technical experts in Solid State Storage design. We select the best on breed components to fulfill the most demanding customer requirements.  Whether the customer most important criteria is performance, power budget, endurance, temperature or environmental tolerance - we have an ability to propose a custom solution for the specific customer needs. Our vast experience with high speed and high reliability board design allows us to lay out the PCB with maximum tolerances for reliable operation.

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Industrial SSD or Flash Cards - Most Reliable Storage Choice for Embedded Storage

Friends frequently ask me, "What is an Industrial SSD, and how does it differ from the one I buy on Amazon and Ebay ?".  This question is quite loaded. From the first look, the Industrial and what I call "Consumer" versions of SSDs or Flash cards seem to be rather similar. Both made of semiconductors and Flash memory, both have similar capacity and the performance of the "Consumer" devices oftentimes is better than that of the "Industrial" type. On top of that, the "Industrial" SSDs typically cost more than twice than the "Consumer" ones. So what is the difference ??????

The answer is, however, quite elaborate. Industrial SSDs and Flash Cards are manufactured with the sole focus of providing superior reliability. This focus drives every facet of product development, from design considerations, component selection, test methodology, product tracking and Failure Analysis. Lets have a more detailed understanding:

Design Considerations

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