SanDisk CEO says Vista is not ready for new SSDs
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
The Solid State Disk's (SSD) slow rise to preeminence is not without its technical hurdles, says Eli Harari, the Chairman and CEO of SanDisk. In a recent conference call regarding SanDisk's second quarter earnings, he firmly suggested that the next generation of Solid State Disks employing multilevel cell (MLC) technology will be too complex for Vista to leverage correctly.
MLC NAND flash is set to revolutionize the anemic capacities of today's SSDs. Current disks use four transistor states per cell to hold two bits of information. MLC drives will address the present inability to increase areal density by vertically stacking multiple levels within a single cell. This technology is expected to usher in drives boasting capacities exceeding 256GB.
Harari suggests that Vista's ability to coordinate the exchange of information between the mainboard's controller and the on-disk controller is insufficient with the next generation. He further ascribes SanDisk's ailing development cycle to these issues by saying, "We have very good internal controller technology, as you know...That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment."
He goes on to suggest that we have not yet realized the enormity of the problem because "Existing controllers can get the job done for 8-, 16-, and 32-gigabyte storage because these are relatively unsophisticated and demanding requirements."
These statements come as the first indication we've heard that Vista's SSD performance is less than acceptable. We are concerned with the validity of these assertions given that SanDisk is blaming their sluggish development process on a previously unheard of problem.
Perhaps other SSD manufacturers will confirm these claims in the coming weeks as MLC technology is closer to release, but for now we're going to take all of this with a grain of salt.
MLC NAND flash is set to revolutionize the anemic capacities of today's SSDs. Current disks use four transistor states per cell to hold two bits of information. MLC drives will address the present inability to increase areal density by vertically stacking multiple levels within a single cell. This technology is expected to usher in drives boasting capacities exceeding 256GB.
Harari suggests that Vista's ability to coordinate the exchange of information between the mainboard's controller and the on-disk controller is insufficient with the next generation. He further ascribes SanDisk's ailing development cycle to these issues by saying, "We have very good internal controller technology, as you know...That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment."
He goes on to suggest that we have not yet realized the enormity of the problem because "Existing controllers can get the job done for 8-, 16-, and 32-gigabyte storage because these are relatively unsophisticated and demanding requirements."
These statements come as the first indication we've heard that Vista's SSD performance is less than acceptable. We are concerned with the validity of these assertions given that SanDisk is blaming their sluggish development process on a previously unheard of problem.
Perhaps other SSD manufacturers will confirm these claims in the coming weeks as MLC technology is closer to release, but for now we're going to take all of this with a grain of salt.
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I also disagree that MLC is the way to be; the cost of putting those four layers in per chip means that disk lifetime goes down as you'll have to access each chip more often. Read and write speeds drop because of it as well. Lower MTBF + slower disk usage doesn't outweigh the increased capacity to me.
I think they found something that is making them go back to the drawing board and they simply don't want to pay the cost of redesign.