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persistent data on solid-state flash memory. SSDs actually aren't hard drives at all, in the traditional sense of the term, as there are no moving parts involved. Instead, an SSD has an array of semiconductor memory organized as a disk drive, using integrated circuits (ICs) rather than magnetic or optical media.
1. INTRODUCTION
Solid state is term that refers to electronic circuitry that is built entirely out of semiconductors. The term was originally used to define those electronics such as a transistor radio that used semiconductors rather than vacuum tubes in its construction. Most all electronics that we have today are built around semiconductors and chips. In terms of a SSD, it refers to the fact that the primary storage medium is through semiconductors rather than a magnetic media such as a hard drive. SSDs have no moving mechanical components, which distinguish them from traditional electromechanical magnetic disks such as hard disk drives (HDDs) or floppy disks, which contain spinning disks and movable read/write heads. Compared with electromechanical disks, SSDs are typically less susceptible to physical shock, much quieter, have lower access time, and less latency. However, while the price of SSDs has continued to decline in 2012, SSDs are still about 10 times more expensive per unit of storage than HDDs. This arrangement has many advantages. Data transfer to and from solid-state drives is much faster than electromechanical disk drives. Seek time and latency are also substantially reduced. Users typically enjoy much faster boot times as well. In general, SSDs are also more durable and much quieter, with no moving parts to break or spin up or down. SSDs do, however, have slower write times and a set life expectancy, as there is a finite number of erase/write cycles before performance becomes erratic. Development and adoption of SSDs has been driven by a rapidly expanding need for higher input/output performance. High performance laptops, desktops or any application that needs to deliver information in real-time or near real-time can benefit from SSDs. Historically, SSDs have been much more expensive than conventional hard drives. Due to improvements
in manufacturing technology and expanded chip capacity, however, prices have dropped, leading both consumers and enterprise-level customers to re-evaluate SSDs as viable, if still expensive, alternatives to conventional storage. In recent years, SSDs have been used in enterprise storage to speed up applications and performance without the cost of adding additional servers. According to storage expert Rick Cook, one of the most potent uses of SSDs is to employ them as a "super cache" in a SAN, dramatically speeding up access to frequently accessed files or applications. While SSDs have many advantages over HDDs, they also have some drawbacks. Since the SSD technology is much newer than traditional hard drive technology, the price of SSDs is substantially higher. As of early 2012, SSDs cost about 10 times as much per gigabyte as a hard drive. Therefore, most SSD drives sold today have much smaller capacities than comparable hard drives. They also have a limited number or write cycles, which may cause their performance to degrade over time. Fortunately, newer SSDs have improved reliability and should last several years before any reduction in performance is noticeable. As the SSD technology improves and the prices continue to fall, it is likely that solid state drives will begin to replace hard disk drives for most purposes. [5]
2. ARCHITECTURE
The key components of an SSD are the controller and the memory to store the data. The primary memory component in an SSD had been DRAM volatile memory since they were first developed, but since 2009 it is more commonly NAND flash non-volatile memory. Other components play a less significant role in the operation of the SSD and vary among manufacturers.
2.1 Controller
Every SSD includes a controller that incorporates the electronics that bridge the NAND memory components to the host computer. The controller is an embedded processor that executes firmware-level code and is one of the most important factors of SSD performance.
Error correction (ECC) Wear leveling Bad block mapping Read scrubbing and read disturb management Read and write caching Garbage collection Encryption
2.2.2 DRAM-based
SSDs based on volatile memory such as DRAM are characterized by ultrafast data access, generally less than 10 microseconds, and are used primarily to accelerate applications that would otherwise be held back by the latency of flash SSDs or traditional HDDs. DRAM-based SSDs usually incorporate either an internal battery or an external AC/DC adapter and backup storage systems to ensure data persistence while no power is being supplied to the drive from external sources. If power is lost, the battery provides power while all information is copied from random access memory (RAM) to back-up storage. When the power is restored, the information is copied back to the RAM from the back-up storage, and the SSD resumes normal operation (similar to the hibernate function used in modern operating systems).SSDs of this type are usually fitted with DRAM modules of the same type used in regular PCs and servers, which can be swapped out and replaced by larger modules.
For general computer use, the 2.5" form factor (typically found in laptops) is the most popular. For desktop computers with 3.5" hard disk slots, a simple adapter plate can be used to make such a disk fit. Other types of form factors are more common in enterprise applications. A SSD can also be completely integrated in the other circuitry of the device, as in the Apple MacBook Air (starting with the fall 2010 model).
hard disk drives due to this laptop manufacturer keep them as an additional optional to standard HDD. Lack of physical work reduces the risk of mechanical failure. This technology is immune to magnets. Its size varies according to the requirement. Writing/reading data is secure as less failure occur which means there is less chance of data damage. SSD can perform parallel reads on multiple sections of memory which decrease the seek time of hard disk.
In mobile computing flash bases, solid state drives were costly for it. SSD are becoming popular in markets for notebook PC due to its less size and physical work. SSDs have been appearing in mobile PCs and a few lightweight laptop systems, adding significantly to the price of the laptop, depending on the capacity and transfer speeds.
4. CONCLUSION
This is a rapid developing technology. That is why it is been used in many applications. Until 2009, SSDs were used in mission critical applications where the speed of the storage system needed to be as fast. Since Flash memory has become a common, the falling prices have made it financially attractive for many other applications. Organizations that can benefit from faster access of system took this technology in hands. The list of applications which could benefit from faster storage is vast. Any company can assess the ROI from adding SSDs to their own applications to best understand if that will be cost effective for them. Flash-based Solid-state drives can be used to create network appliances from normal PC hardware. A flash drive which is writing protected containing the operating system and application software can substitute for larger and less reliable disk. Appliances built this way can provide an inexpensive alternative to expensive router. Thus this technology helps in any possible way to replace hard disk drives.
REFERENCES
[1] Devesh Agrawal, Deepak Ganesan, Ramesh K. Sitaraman, Yanlei Diao, and Shashi Singh. Lazy-Adaptive Tree: An Optimized Index Structure for Flash Devices. PVLDB, 2(1):361372, 2009. [2] Stephan Baumann, Giel de Nijs, Michael Strobel, and Kai-Uwe Sattler. Flashing Databases: Expectations and Limitations. In DaMoN, 2010.
[3] Jaeyoung Do and Jignesh M. Patel. Join Processing for Flash SSDs: Remembering Past Lessons. In DaMoN, pages 18, 2009. [4] Geoff Gasior. Intels X25-E Extreme Solid-state Drive. Technical report, The Tech Report, 2008.
[5] Goetz Graefe. The Five-Minute Rule 20 Years Later (and How Flash Memory Changes the Rules). Commun. ACM, 52(7):4859, 2009.