While listening to the most recent quarterly earnings calls The SSD Guy learned that there’s suddenly a lot of interest in 60-100TB SSDs for the data center. What I didn’t hear was a strong understanding of why that is happening, although four of the five the leading flash companies say that it is driven by AI. (Kioxia hasn’t reported yet.) Some say these SSDs are being used for training applications, while others say Continue reading “New Interest in Monster-SSDs”
Generative SSDs Coming Soon
Now that Generative AI has hit its stride, the industry is beginning to see new applications of this technology that have previously been out of reach. One such application is the development of the Generative SSD by an Andorran company by the name of SSDystopia, who took the time to brief The SSD Guy about its development.
The Generative SSD comes to the market with a completely different approach to Continue reading “Generative SSDs Coming Soon”
WDC Stealthily Announces More Details for HDD/Flash Split
On March 5 Western Digital issued an announcement updating the company’s plan to divide its HDD and flash businesses into two independent companies in the second half of this year.
The flash part of the business will be spun out with current WDC CEO David Goeckeler as “CEO Designate.” No further Continue reading “WDC Stealthily Announces More Details for HDD/Flash Split”
NVMe-oC: Wolley’s New Take on CXL-Based SSDs
With all the recent interest in CXL, and its ability to connect a processor to any memory, no matter the speed, it’s only natural that someone would try using it for SSDs. This notion is the basis for the Memory-Semantic SSD, or MS-SSD.
But MS-SSDs suffer from the same problem as SSDs, hard drives, and other mass storage. The basic concept requires Continue reading “NVMe-oC: Wolley’s New Take on CXL-Based SSDs”
It’s Official: WDC to Split into HDD & Flash Parts
During the company’s October 30 earnings call Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler started the conversation with the revelation that the company would be split into two, with a new flash-only company to be created in the process. This plan, intended to increase the company’s shareholder value, was the outcome of a process triggered by activist shareholder Elliott in May 2022, which was the subject of a couple of Continue reading “It’s Official: WDC to Split into HDD & Flash Parts”
Flexible Data Placement Means Better SSDs
One of the most compelling keynotes at the Flash Memory Summit last August was presented by SSD controller maker FADU Technology and social media giant Meta (Facebook). These two companies were advocating a new way of managing SSDs called: “Flexible Data Placement.” The SSD Guy believes that these two companies’ findings are pretty remarkable and well worth sharing.
Ross Stenfort from Meta presented a timeline showing that since 2019 Meta and Microsoft (Azure) have been working Continue reading “Flexible Data Placement Means Better SSDs”
WDC’s Top-to-Bottom Storage Fabric Approach
Western Digital launched a storage fabric architecture in August that aims to address certain issues that occur with existing storage systems. WDC is furthermore taking a number of steps to try to promote this architecture’s adoption into mainstream storage. It’s an interesting approach that The SSD Guy thought was worth discussion.
The company is working to address the problem of Continue reading “WDC’s Top-to-Bottom Storage Fabric Approach”
AI’s Feeding Frenzy Killed My Sites
Some of this blog’s kindly readers alerted me to an outage last week. The Internet service provider that hosts both blogs (The SSD Guy and The Memory Guy) plus the Objective Analysis website explained that one of the blogs’ activity had suddenly increased to over 100 times what was budgeted, so all three sites were shut down in response.
Time for a speedy call to my website guru for help. He and I guessed that the culprit was probably Continue reading “AI’s Feeding Frenzy Killed My Sites”
SNIA CXL Webinar
On June 27, The SSD Guy moderated a 1-hour CXL webinar, sponsored by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). The slides are already online at the SNIA Educational Library, and a recorded video is available on BrightTalk. Both attendees and those who missed it can now take advantage of this rare collection of Continue reading “SNIA CXL Webinar”
Tailor-Made Enterprise SSDs
An interesting advertisement appeared in The SSD Guy’s in-box, so I decided to ask more about it. SSD maker Swissbit is offering to customize one of its enterprise SSD models to match their customers’ workloads.
Matching an SSD to the workload has always been problematic for SSD makers and users alike. Everyone’s workload is different, and an SSD must be Continue reading “Tailor-Made Enterprise SSDs”
