HomeDuraClass technology represents a set of NAND flash management features that work in tandem to deliver world-class SSD reliability, performance, and power efficiency that differentiate SandForce SSD Processors from standard flash controllers. Of particular importance is the use of processing elements to optimally overcome a number of the inherent issues associated with commodity NAND flash memory. DuraClass features include:
- DuraWrite, which optimizes the number of program cycles to the flash effectively extending flash rated endurance by 20x or more when compared to standard controllers.
- Powerful flash media error correction (ECC) and RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements), which deliver an orders-of-magnitude improvement in drive reliability versus today’s best enterprise HDDs and SSDs. The result is single-drive RAID-like protection and recovery from a potentially catastrophic flash block failures – all while avoiding the inefficiencies of traditional RAID.
- Advanced Wear Leveling and Monitoring - Optimized wear leveling algorithms, further extending flash endurance
- Advanced Read/Program Disturb Management, which safeguards against errant re-programming of cells during read and program cycles
- Recycler, which intelligently performs garbage collection with the least impact on flash endurance.
Scalable Technology for Generations to Come
With smaller silicon geometries and the trend toward packing more bits per cell in flash devices, there has been a dramatic reduction in the cost-per-Gigabyte for NAND flash-based SSDs which has accelerated deployment in mainstream applications. However, these changes have also reduced the reliability characteristics of flash devices, i.e., lower endurance, worse data integrity, and shorter data retention, placing increasing importance on advanced flash management technology. DuraClass technology is architected to scale and compensate for commodity NAND flash memory shortcomings ensuring SSDs can be reliably used in enterprise and client computing environments for generations to come.
