Convert PDF To DOCX
Flash memory guide to architecture, types and products
Flash memory, a staple of consumer electronics, is playing a wider role in enterprise storage. This guide offers an overview of flash, from current use cases to future directions.
Flash technology permeates a multitude of consumer products, from mobile phones to ubiquitous USB memory cards. Enterprise flash, meanwhile, plays an expanding role in data center storage, server and networking technologies. Flash, despite its name, isn't the most visible of technologies -- it's typically embedded in other products -- but flash memory is everywhere.
This flash memory guide covers uses for flash memory, the technology's history and its advantages and drawbacks. The guide also provides an overview of the different flavors of flash, from single-level cell chips to 3D NAND. We'll also look at the current tradeoffs and the foreseeable future of this far-reaching electronic component technology.
What is flash memory used for?
- Flash memory is widely used for storage and data transfer. In the consumer sector, flash memory finds a home in a range of devices, including phones, cameras and tablets, to name a few examples. Flash memory's small size and power consumption advantages make it well suited for use in on-the-go consumer devices. Indeed, consumer applications have helped propel the growth of the flash technology market.
- Flash storage, a term often used interchangeably with flash memory, refers to any drive, repository or system using flash memory. At the consumer level, storage devices using flash include USB drives -- often referred to as thumb drives. In computer systems, flash-based SSDs, so called for their lack of moving parts, are prevalent in notebook computers and can also be found in many desktop PCs as a hard drive option.
Flash and the digital enterprise
The rise of digital businesses also has contributed to flash storage adoption. In such enterprises, machine learning workloads and high-level analytics are among the developments requiring faster data access. Almost any read-heavy workload -- even database applications, such as SQL -- can use flash storage to accelerate response times, speed data processing and improve user experience.
Also, the price of flash has come down, making the storage technology feasible for a higher percentage of workloads in a higher percentage of companies, including digital businesses that were already inclined to invest in flash storage.
Matching the capabilities of the technology to workload needs and expectations seems to be the greatest flash issue for today's enterprises. Organizations will typically embrace flash for some workloads while relying on traditional HDD storage systems for others. The result is often the establishment of a storage tiering initiative that deploys several storage systems or types within the infrastructure:
- Tier 1. The highest tier is used for mission-critical workloads and data and is most appropriate for flash storage systems.
- Tier 2 and 3. Midrange tiers are used for noncritical or general business workloads and can typically back up mission- and business-critical data. This can involve a mix of low-end flash and high-end HDD storage systems.
- Tier 4. The lowest tier is used for backups and even archival storage tasks comprised entirely of low-cost HDD storage.
Advantages of flash memory
Ultimately, a modern enterprise expects five principal benefits from flash storage devices and systems:
- High performance. It takes time to access storage and move data between a workload and storage resources. Modern flash systems, such as the HPE 3PAR StoreServ, tout up to 3 million IOPS with latencies as low as 0.3 milliseconds. This is far faster than traditional magnetic hard drives.
- Resiliency. Modern flash storage devices are more durable than HDDs -- particularly in read operations -- because there are no moving parts and they use combinations of hardware and software to enable redundancy and facilitate transparent failover between devices in a storage array. Some flash storage systems denote up to 99.9999% availability.
- Scalability. Enterprise workloads are increasingly storage-hungry, and comprehensive flash storage systems can typically provide high levels of scalability to hundreds of terabytes or more.
Flash and the digital enterprise
The rise of digital businesses also has contributed to flash storage adoption. In such enterprises, machine learning workloads and high-level analytics are among the developments requiring faster data access. Almost any read-heavy workload -- even database applications, such as SQL -- can use flash storage to accelerate response times, speed data processing and improve user experience.
Also, the price of flash has come down, making the storage technology feasible for a higher percentage of workloads in a higher percentage of companies, including digital businesses that were already inclined to invest in flash storage.
Matching the capabilities of the technology to workload needs and expectations seems to be the greatest flash issue for today's enterprises. Organizations will typically embrace flash for some workloads while relying on traditional HDD storage systems for others. The result is often the establishment of a storage tiering initiative that deploys several storage systems or types within the infrastructure:
- Tier 1. The highest tier is used for mission-critical workloads and data and is most appropriate for flash storage systems.
- Tier 2 and 3. Midrange tiers are used for noncritical or general business workloads and can typically back up mission- and business-critical data. This can involve a mix of low-end flash and high-end HDD storage systems.
- Tier 4. The lowest tier is used for backups and even archival storage tasks comprised entirely of low-cost HDD storage.