This document discusses solid state drives (SSDs) and flash memory from an independent perspective. It provides an overview of SSD technologies like SLC, MLC, eMLC and TLC flash and how they differ in performance, reliability and cost. It discusses challenges with flash like write amplification and the "write cliff" effect. It also covers topics like wear levelling, flash applications and benchmarks a virtual desktop infrastructure deployment using all-flash storage versus traditional disk.

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Trusted Advisor of Choice
Demystifying SSD
Flash is not always a good thing (an independent view)
Mark Smith 21st May 2013
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Mark Smith
Technical Director

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10. Trusted Advisor of Choice
Demystifying SSD
Flash is not always a good thing (an independent view)
Mark Smith 21st May 2013

11. Flash Memory
► Flash Memory is a non volatile semiconductor originally designed for digital
cameras
► They were not intended to be written to in the way most applications do!
► The two big challenges are:
› They wear out
› Read / Write imbalance
► The design maybe the same but the secret is in the manufacturing
Manufacturing, screening and quality
control has a massive impact of the
performance and reliability of flash
memory

12. SSD Drives
► There are over 300 SSD/Flash vendors (59 didn’t exist before 1st Jan 2013)
► SSD is just the productisation of flash based storage
► Different types of flash :-
› SLC
› eMLC
› MLC
› TLC
Single Level Cell
Each memory cell can either be on or off.
Most reliable type of SSD with a typical write
endurance in the 100Ks of cycles.
Performance – Fastest
Cost - Highest
Bit Density – Lowest – 1
Error Sensitivity - Low
Multi Level Cell
Each memory cell can support two levels
(voltages) so more bits can be stored per cell
with a typical write endurance in the 1Ks of
cycles
Performance – Middle
Cost - Low
Bit Density – Middle – 2
Error Sensitivity - Low
Enterprise Multi Level Cell
Similar to MLC but with an enhance error
correction to give much lower error rates.
Typical write endurance in the 10Ks of cycles
Performance – Middle
Cost - Middle
Bit Density – Middle – 2
Error Sensitivity - Low
Triple Level Cell
Similar to MLC in design but 3 bits of data per
cell. Lower cost due to increased density.
Typical write endurance in the 100s of cycles.
Performance – Middle
Cost - Lowest
Bit Density – Highest – 3
Error Sensitivity - High

13. Flash Failures
► Flash memory fails in a very different way to traditional mechanical disk
► The unrecoverable error rate for a mechanical hard drive remains pretty
constant over the number of writes to a drive
► Errors are typically adjacent sectors (like a scratched CD)
► Flash unrecoverable errors increase exponentially with every TB that is written
► Overtime the write payload causes more and more errors to occur
Unlike traditional mechanical disk, flash drives are
highly unbalanced, performing much slower in
write situations than they do under read only loads.
It takes much more time to erase and write a flash
cell than it does to read it. Typically 10 times!

14. Flash Products
Acceleration of specific
workloads
Features
› Uses flash to accelerate SAS
› Limited amount of flash
› Relies on traditional disk for
capacity
› Working set of data can be
small
› Flash cache misses can
cause performance issues
› Limited enterprise features
(replication, snaps etc)
Flash products typically fall into four categories:
PCIe Cards
Acceleration of single
applications
Features
› The flash based I/O
available
› No HA features (mirroring,
HA, etc)
› Low capacity so specific
application
› targeting required
› Not shared across hosts
› Most expensive (cost per
GB)
Flash Appliances
Acceleration of specific
applications
Features
› High performance boost for
existing storage
› Can compromise data
integrity
› Effects DR planning
› Most useful for read biased
applications
› Expensive (cost per GB) but
can accelerate a large
storage estate
General purpose Tier 0/1
storage
Features
› High capacity – all flash
› Typically has enterprise
class features (replication,
snap)
› Not the fastest
› Scales out to the largest
flash foot print of any
category
› High performance for all
workloads
Hybrid Arrays Flash Arrays

15. Flash and Applications
Flash is fantastic, its fast, its funky so would you like to buy some please?
► Do you have an application that would benefit from flash?
► Do you know your application’s performance footprint?
► How does your application access data?
Read/Write Ratio?
Working set size?
Latency Sensitive?
Persistent or Volatile?

16. The “Write Cliff”
So what is the write cliff and should you be concerned about it?
► The SSD write cliff is the effect where SSD write performance drops off after all
the free flash memory pages in an SSD have been initially written to and the
device cannot provide enough free pages to keep up with subsequent write
requests.
► Each new write request then requires the SSD locate a block that can be erased
for the new data.
► If a block that needs to be erased contains
active data, the active data must be written
to a new location to free up the block to be
erased.
► This process of copying valid data from one
block to a new block, called ‘write
amplification’ increases SSD wear and is the
primary cause of the write cliff.

17. Wear Levelling
Why is wear levelling important?
► Wear levelling is fundamental to the endurance of the flash drive
► SSD drives now contain wear levelling algorithms to improve longevity
► Flash array manufacturers typically add their own software wear levelling and smart
data placement routines to further improve flash drive service life
► Advanced wear levelling gives an eMLC drive a 9 year lifespan typically**
› No Wear Levelling
› Dynamic Wear Levelling
› Static Wear Levelling
No Wear Levelling
Each flash block is permanently mapped to a
O/S logical block. This means that every
block previously written too must be read,
erased and written. Highly written locations
wear out quickly while others could be left
unused. Blocks quickly reach their end of life
and could render the drive unusable
Static Wear Levelling
Static wear levelling works the same as
dynamic wear levelling except the static
blocks that do not change are periodically
moved so that these low usage cells are able
to be used by other data. This rotational
effect enables an SSD to operate until most
of the blocks are near their end of life
Dynamic Wear Levelling
Each time a block of data is re-written to the
Flash memory it is written to a new location.
However, blocks that never get replacement
data sit with no additional wear on the Flash
memory. The drive may last longer than one
with no wear levelling, but there is still an
uneven wear pattern
** Pure Storage rate their SSD drives for 9 years due to advance software wear levelling

18. The Secret Sauce
So let’s talk about Flash Arrays …..
► Most new SSD/Flash arrays regardless of whether they are All Flash or Hybrid have
a software layer. It’s no secret that most of the intellectual property is in the
software.
► Commodity hardware – is it a good or bad thing?
› Less investment in hardware means more to investment in the software
› Easier supply chain with less chance of manufacturing delays
› Are they a software company looking to productise and sell up?
› Technical impact of commodity hardware, will I be hardware constrained?
► Deduplication technology – faster, slower?
› If dedupe was designed in from the start then should be faster with better
drive wear characteristics and higher capacity
› Dedupe as an after thought just means wasted I/O
► Replication, snapshots and all that stuff
› Just like deduplication, designed in is great, thrown in as an after thought is bad

19. VDI
Lets look at VDI for an example Flash workload….
► 1000 users with an average of 25 IOPs per user
› 25,000 IOPs (+5,000 IOPs for tertiary workload)
› 2.8TB of storage space for OS and View components
Traditional Disk
► 166 data drives, plus parity and hot spares totals 194 drives!
› 20 x 8+1 Raid groups
› 100TB of available capacity (only need 3 TB)
› 20 x 1500 IOP Islands of performance
› 48U of rack space
› Power, cooling and purchase/maintenance costs
1000 users running Windows 7 Pro with local anti-virus (75% linked clones)

20. VDI
So how did we do it …..?
► All Flash commodity array with 18 x 200GB eMLC drives
› FC connectivity (for no other reason than they have Brocade SAN in place)
› 3.1TB usable capacity
› 90K IOPs maximum performance across two storage pools
› 2U of rack space
› 335W peak power consumption
The savings
► The solution showed a compelling ROI based on traditional disk
› Almost 4 times the required performance
› Much lower latency ~1millisecond
› 95% less rack space
› 94% less power
› EUE was excellent

21. VDI 2 Years on..
So how are things working today …..?
► Project was completed in March 2011
► Grown to 1300 desktops to date
► Write Cliff has not become an issue
► Reaching its maximum performance potential
► Good end user experience testing and user satisfaction
► VDI is an island of storage
► Gold images and persistent data stored on enterprise SAN
► Did not need to deploy replication or storage based snapshots

22. Which technology do I choose?
Think about your applications …..
► Flash based storage is great but they come in lots of flavours
› PCIe Card, Flash Appliances, Hybrid Arrays and all Flash Arrays
› Do you really need 800,000 IOPs?
› Low latency is usually the real answer
› If you copy TBs of data look for devices that actively manage wear levelling
Think about your investment …..
► With so many new flash vendors how do you avoid buying a dead duck?
› References, case studies, UK presence
› Investment, funding and the goal of the company
› It’s easy to make claims but can they back them up?
› POC, conditional P.O, labs sessions
› VMUG, Talk to your peers!

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