Better Computers with Tiered Storage

Tom Coughlin www.tomcoughlin.com Outline

• Background for new caching and tiering in computers • Dual drive storage in computers—new caching and performance approaches • Hybrid drive approaches • Conclusions

100000 Average Retail Prices of Storage 10000 DRAM/Flash DRAM Desktop Enterprise

Enterprise HDD Flash Mobile 1" 1000 1 " HDD

100 Mobile HDD 6 GB Microdrive

, Dollars Dollars , 10 300 GB Server Drive 15K 32 GB Flash

1 Desktop HDD GByte 250 GB Mobile Drive 0.1 750 GB Desktop

Price/ Ed Grochowski, 2010 1.5TB Desktop 2TB Desktop 0.01 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year © 2010 Coughlin Associates 3 Historical Symbiotic Relationship Between Flash and HDDS in Comsumer Apps • Almost all consumer flash applications 60 6.0% require HDDs Flash Supporting HDDs – Music and video 50 Percentage Total HDD Shipments 5.0% players – Cameras 40 4.0% • Consumer flash applications have 30 3.0%

created greater units)(M) demand for HDDs 20 2.0% – Downloads – Uploading photos 10 1.0% and videos – Backup of Consumer Flash Consumer HDDs Supporting 0 0.0% HDDs Total of Shipped Percentage Content 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

White Paper: Flash and HDD: Symbiosis or Survival of the Fittest? (Coughlin Associates & Objective Analysis, 2009)

© 2010 Coughlin Associates 4 Symbiotic Combination of Flash Memory and HDDs in Computers Magnetic Hard Disk Drive Access Time 100 Enterprise HDD Access/Seek Time • HDDs suffer from a Performance Increase latency issue, storage Rotating Accessing capacity has grown much 10

faster than data access Seeking Time, milliseconds

speeds (GB/IOPS) have 1/3 2/3 seek time ~(inertia/power) x (data band) rotational time ~ (RPM) -1 (latency) declined. 1 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 • However flash memory is Availability Year

much more expensive 10 GHz Magnetic Hard Disk Drive Internal Data Rate 1000 Data Channel ($/GB) than HDDs. Performance

• Can the two be combined MBytes/s 1 GHz 100 Server Products together to give better 2.5 inch Mobile performance at lower Products 100 MHz cost than a pure SSD? 10

Datarate =. Linear x RPM x Disk Density Diam. 10 MHz

© 2010 Coughlin Associates 6 Using Flash for Faster System Performance • Flash most used in consumer applications and USB sticks • Flash is less expensive than DRAM but a bit slower—a new cache layer? • Is it better to use some flash or more DRAM for caching?

Enterprise SSD S. Hetzler, IBM, Diskcon 2008

Enterprise HDD

Take Away © 2010 Coughlin Associates Two Chasms: DRAM – SATA, SATA – Tape 8 Dual Drive and Hybrid HDD Approaches • Dual Drive/Storage Tiering – Marvell HyperHDD – Hitachi-LG HyDrive – Intel dual drive – Other companies potential dual storage products • Hybrid solid state HDD – Seagate Momentus XT

– HDD for capacity Intel® SSD

SATA • Software Configuration SATA – SSD: Operating System and key applications

® – HDD: General applications and user Intel PCH personal data HDD

Shahed Ameer, Intel, IDF 2010

• Application-common files, Updates, and Page & Hibernate files grow boot-drive capacity

Dual-Drive Single-Drive C: SSD D: HDD C: SSD Microsoft Windows* 7 64-bit 13.5 13.5 (Ultimate)

Page file 4GB (4GB DRAM) 4GB (4GB DRAM) Hiberfile 3.2GB (4GB DRAM) 3.2GB (4GB DRAM) Updates 1.5 – 6 1.5 - 6 Drivers 0.2 0.2 Office* 2007 0.9 0.9 1.8 Adobe Photoshop* 1.3 1.0 2.3 iTunes* 0.8 0.8 Total Disk Space used 25.4–29.9 GB 1.9 GB 27.3-31.8 GB

40GB is the min size for dual drive s/w and DRAM scalability

Shahed Ameer, Intel, IDF 2010

© 2010 Coughlin Associates 11 Implementing Dual Drives • Dual Drive software solutions coming to market – Spans the drives to provide one drive letter – Dynamically allocates data to the SSD based on usage models to maintain performance

• Configure Libraries in Windows* OS – Move user data folders to HDD (Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos) – Once configured, seamless for end-users even with multiple drive letters – Maintains many performance benefits of SSDs • Faster boot times • Faster application launches • Fast access to OS and Common Files – No need for third party software or special drivers

Shahed Ameer, Intel, IDF 2010

* System Power Intel SSD SSD 2 SSD 3 9.8 9.6 9.7 9.4 9.2 9.2 9 Watts 8.8 8.6 8.7 8.4 8.2 HDD HDD+SSD SSD

• Power needed to complete a workload = • In dual drive configuration, HDD spin Power efficiency down increased to ~97% of system • Higher performance allows workload to run time complete faster • SSD only configuration provides • Allowing platform to enter low power additional power savings states faster

System power claim as measured by MobileMark* 2007 workload with Intel® 80GB Shahed Ameer, Intel, IDF 2010 SSD and 5400rpm HDD

© 2010 Coughlin Associates 13 Other Possible Dual Storage/Storage Tiering Products for Computers • Marvell HyperDrive (Software) • SanDisk iSSD – BGA SATA SSD, very small form factor – Targeted at tablet and other mobile applications • Other SSDs from Samsung, many others • PCIe products (esp. for desktops and workstations) LSI Flash Product

TM Adaptive MemoryTM Learns Quickly • Adaptive Memory PCMark Vantage – HDD Score – Algorithms monitor data access 8,000 transactions – Qualified data is placed in the SSD 6,000 – Maintains frequently used data vs. not used data Second user 4,000 experience: • Dynamically improves response "the next level" time and application load times 2,000 First user based on usage experience: "like 7200" • Customizes system performance to 0 the user 1 2 3 4 5 • Maximizes the performance and Number of Iterations minimizes the amount required

Seagate Momentus XT Introduction Presentation, 2010

Flash Cache Module Seagate & Solid State Drive Solid State Hybrid Dual-drive: SSD + HDD w/Adaptive MemoryTM

Software Required No Software Required No Software Required $$ / $$$ $$$$$ $$ Seagate Momentus XT Introduction Presentation, 2010

16 © 2010 Coughlin Associates System-Level Benchmarks SYSmark 2007 Preview – Provide better model of end-user activity 150 – Scoring is highly sensitive to specific PC hardware, OS, and device drivers 145 o Data presented in the chart was taken on Dell E6400 notebook, running MS Vista, with Intel graphics hardware. 140 – A handful of percentage points between SYSmark scores is noticeable to an end 135 user

System Score, SysMarkScore,System 2007 Preview 130 – Performance Comparison o The gain from 5400-to-7200 is similar to 7200-to-SSD 125 o SSH brings a similar system performance 2.5in 5400 2.5in 7200 2.5in SSH Client SSD score as SSD

SM07p w/ 4GB System DRAM – System-Level Benchmarks show SSH delivers the next tier of storage performance Seagate Momentus XT Introduction Presentation, 2010

© 2010 Coughlin Associates 17 Hitachi-LG HyDrive (Another Hybrid Drive) • Combines an optical disk with flash memory drive for dual storage laptops • Released in August 2010 • Future plans are to slim the HyDrive down and possibly shove it within a netbook, set- top box or tablet Photo from EnGadget at Computex 2010

© 2010 Coughlin Associates 18 Conclusions • There are latency issues with HDDs that could benefit from caching or potential dual storage approaches – But should this be more DRAM or flash memory? – Flash memory is establishing new levels in the storage/memory hierarchy • Intel and other are promoting products that would combine some flash memory and hard disk drives to give a better user experience • Seagate has launched a new generation of “hybrid” HDDs using flash with the HDD for adaptive memory caching • A new generation of computers and mobile devices (e.g. tablets) will likely use dual storage or hybrid storage for better user experiences