Last month, Samsung Electronics announced mass production of its next generation of 250GB V-NAND SSDs for client computers. Today, the South Korean electronics manufacturer pushed the envelope of its PM1733/PM1735 SSDs geared for industrial use in data centers by incorporating three new software technologies that complement the durability and performance offered by the hardware. Namely, the developments to its PCIe Gen4 solid state drives include "fail-in-place", "SSD virtualization" and "V-NAND machine learning".
First up, "fail-in-place" (FIP) technology enables what Samsung is touting as a "never-dying" SSD that will be maintaining normal operations even when faults arise at the chip level. To achieve this, the FIP technology detects the faulty chip and scans for any data damage. In the case where damage is detected, the data is relocated to working NAND chips onboard the SSD by the error-handling algorithm in place without sacrificing the drive"s performance and stability.
Secondly, Samsung"s SSD Virtualization technology allows the storage space available on the PM1733 and PM1735 series to be divided up into 64 independent virtual compartments that can function independently for multiple users. By doing so, the firm claims that cloud users will be able to provide better throughput for a multitude of users simultaneously. Alongside this, the virtualized SSDs will also be able to handle tasks like Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV), thereby reducing the workload on the server CPUs that will, in turn, improve efficiency and performance.
Lastly, with V-NAND machine learning technology, the SSDs will be able to detect variations in circuit patterns through big data analytics and also aid in predicting and verifying cell characteristics. Samsung claims that this enables data reliability and access speeds in the face of increasing computational power offered by today"s GPUs and CPUs working with machine learning software.
Vis-à-vis the three software developments, the Executive Vice President of Memory Solution Product and Development at Samsung Electronics, Kye Hyun Kyung, commented:
"We are combining breakthrough speeds and capacities with revolutionary software solutions as we accelerate expansion in the premium SSD market. We plan to introduce additional innovation led by our most advanced (sixth-generation) V-NAND in helping to trigger a lot more growth in the global IT market."
Furthermore, Samsung has envisaged that it will soon expand these innovations into a wider swath of industrial SSDs to address the challenges offered by growing customer needs.
For more details, you can read the press release here.