SSD Controllers as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
899 words · ~4 min read
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If you're in the market for an SSD or solidstate drive, chances are that
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you're thinking about things like capacity and speed. But if you've ever
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read a more in-depth review of an SSD, you've probably seen talk about drive
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controllers and how they have the potential to make or break a drive's
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overall performance. But what exactly is a drive controller? Well, think of it
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this way. If you were to go to the local hardware store and just buy a toolbox,
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it's not very useful unless you're putting stuff in it. And while it's
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possible to use your toolbox just by dumping stuff in it willy-nilly, you'll
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get a lot more out of your general toolbox experience by sorting your
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pliers and nails and whatnot into the little compartments. So, it'll be easier
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to find stuff when it comes time to tackle your next big project. This
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process of sorting your stuff in a storage container is very similar to
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what an SSD controller does. Just like a toolbox can't sort the tools itself, the
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flash cells on your SSD that store data need something that can fill them up
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sensibly with ones and zeros and talk to
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the rest of your computer. The SATA data connector on your SSD is wired directly
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into your SSD's controller, which processes the data and then sends it to
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your drive's flash memory. So, because the controller is responsible for
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actually putting data onto the SSD, lower-end ones can create a bottleneck
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or even be less reliable due to hardware
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and/or firmware differences. Unfortunately, the reasons behind why
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one controller is better than the other aren't always clear because
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manufacturers treat controller designs like trade secrets. So, it's a little
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hard to analyze Sandforce's signature blend of 11 herbs and spices compared to
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Samsung's secret sauce that actually just turns out to be Thousand Island.
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But what we can tell you is that nicer controllers in higherend drives are
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connected to many memory cells at once
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for faster throughput. A little bit like how GPUs contain many compute cores that
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work in parallel to help you get higher frame rates. But what are some of the
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other important ways a controller keeps data flowing smoothly? Well, one of
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these is wear leveling. Unlike a traditional mechanical hard drive that
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will generally last until the moving parts wear out, SSD flash cells can only
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be written and rewritten so many times. So, imagine a shelf. Instead of always
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putting data on the lowest, easiest to reach one, the controller will try to
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write all cells evenly to extend the usable life of the drive as a whole.
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Controllers also handle a couple very important features called garbage
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collection and trim. Unlike hard drives
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where data can just be overwritten at will, SSDs store data in blocks that
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must first be erased before new data can be written. Garbage collection handles
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this by marking certain parts of data within the block as stale if they're
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okay to be replaced with newer data. Moving the remainder of the still good
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data to a new block, then finally erasing the old one. The problem with
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this is that when you go to delete a file, garbage collection doesn't mark
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the deleted data as stale. So, garbage collection actually keeps copying this
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data to new blocks, needlessly using up
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write cycles. This is where trim comes in. An operating system command that
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tells your SSD controller which pieces of data within a block are actually
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parts of deleted files so they won't stick around. both improving performance
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and increasing the lifespan of your drive, which is critical if you want
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your SSD to last the four years it needs
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