NVM Express and NAND Flash Energize Storage Vendors
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NVM Express and NAND Flash Energize Storage Vendors Flash storage has been the darling of the storage market, and innovations in NVM Express and NAND promise better performance. But these technologies are just a harbinger of products to come that will challenge the traditional concepts of memory and storage—such as NVMe over Fabrics and 3D flash. EDITOR’S NOTE NAND FLASH NVM EXPRESS: VENDOR- M.2 SSD FORM TECHNOLOGY IS JUST DRIVEN TECHNOLOGY IN FACTOR APPROACHING THE BEGINNING SEARCH OF A PROBLEM SERVER-READY STATUS IN CAPACITY, SPEED EDITOR’S NOTE Flash Forward: Get a Grip on New Technology Flash memory has revolutionized nearly networked storage pool. HOME every type of technology that touches your The final piece looks at something that EDITOR’S NOTE organization and none more than storage. But might seem an unlikely development in new innovation in the flash memory space hasn’t technology—a new form factor for SSDs. The NAND FLASH TECHNOLOGY IS JUST slowed down despite widespread adoption. We M.2 form factor for solid-state drives is not THE BEGINNING lay out new developments in this Drill Down only much smaller than current SSDs, but it NVM EXPRESS: on drive technologies and standards. has a connector that provides for faster data VENDOR-DRIVEN First up, we will look at the memory tech- throughput and is designed for a PCIe connec- TECHNOLOGY IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM nologies that are on the horizon now that tion. The new form factor alone could double NAND flash has become a common commod- the amount of storage in a single 1U server, and M.2 SSD FORM FACTOR APPROACHING ity. These include 3D memory technologies like M.2 advancements could make that capacity SERVER-READY STATUS 3D XPoint and memory channel storage using increase much larger in the near future. IN CAPACITY, SPEED nonvolatile DIMMs. This Drill Down will give you the core infor- Next, we look at NVMe—nonvolatile mem- mation you need to start planning for the ory express, the specification that allows for coming upgrades your organization’s storage speedy data throughput for flash memory con- system will, without question, face in coming nected directly to the motherboard via a PCIe months and years. n bus. But perhaps the most promising use of NVMe for flash storage is NVMe over Fabrics. Rodney Brown This extends that same speedy connection Senior Site Editor not only past the motherboard but out to a SearchStorage 2 NVM EXPRESS AND NAND FLASH ENERGIZE STORAGE VENDORS NAND FLASH NAND Flash Technology Is Just the Beginning “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” Having significantly revved up storage HOME In those old TV commercials, Ella Fitzgerald performance, storage users wanted—what EDITOR’S NOTE hit a high note that shattered glass—and then else?—more performance. Greater demand and the same note was played back on tape with increased production helped take some of the NAND FLASH TECHNOLOGY IS JUST the same shattering effect. While Memorex is air out of inflated flash prices, and, before you THE BEGINNING little more than a memory now, there are still noticed, all-flash storage arrays were flying off NVM EXPRESS: some paradigm-shattering events grabbing data showroom floors. VENDOR-DRIVEN media market headlines. TECHNOLOGY IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM NAND flash technology has been adopted at a clip far faster than anything else in the pokey, END OF THE SOLID-STATE STORY? HARDLY M.2 SSD FORM FACTOR APPROACHING snail’s pace world of storage technology. As flash quickly developed into an auxil- SERVER-READY STATUS There are a number of reasons for NAND’s iary cache for server DRAM, one thing became IN CAPACITY, SPEED meteoric rise, but it’s mainly because flash clear: In a race with dynamic RAM, as much as technology is showing up in nearly every stor- flash huffed and puffed its way through data, age product sold these days for one reason: it finished a distant second. So, if flash is a lot pure speed. Early on, because it was the priciest faster than hard drives but lumbering compared storage medium on the market, storage vendors to DRAM, there had to be a storage technology found clever ways of tapping a small amount that split the difference, right? of flash to noticeably crank up performance— Now, there is one. Actually, there are sev- enough so, in some cases, to remove storage as eral candidates to fill that gap, all of which the perennial performance bottleneck. have been around for some time—but they’ve 3 NVM EXPRESS AND NAND FLASH ENERGIZE STORAGE VENDORS NAND FLASH mostly been prisoners of R&D labs and more ratio—1,000 times that of NAND flash. like science fair projects than products. For their part, IBM’s brainiacs made a PCM Two key recent developments clearly show breakthrough by finding a way to stuff three there’s solid-state life beyond flash, and it’s not bits of data into a single cell—just as the just a matter of faster, bigger and more durable. NAND flash masterminds did to boost capaci- The Micron-Intel partnership’s recent rollout ties, cut costs and make flash accessible to all. HOME of 3D XPoint technology and IBM’s tweaks to IBM doesn’t tout XPoint-like speeds and feeds, EDITOR’S NOTE phase-change memory (PCM) are evidence but it does say PCM is hundreds of times faster that, while NAND flash technology ushered in than NAND flash for both reads and writes. NAND FLASH TECHNOLOGY IS JUST the solid-state era, it was really just the harbin- And IBM cites an anticipated “10 million write THE BEGINNING ger of products to come that will challenge the cycles” as its anticipated durability. NVM EXPRESS: traditional concepts of memory and storage. Either way you look at it, these new techs are VENDOR-DRIVEN The astounding thing about those two techs making NAND flash technology look like Roger TECHNOLOGY IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM is how what those companies demoed was a Bannister, the guy who broke the four-minute zillion times faster than the NAND flash tech- mile: fast in his day, but slow compared to M.2 SSD FORM FACTOR APPROACHING nology in use today, would last a billion years Usain Bolt. SERVER-READY STATUS longer and could handle a gazillion writes. I IN CAPACITY, SPEED may be exaggerating a bit with those numbers, but you get the picture. NEW CHIPS COIN NEW TERMINOLOGY It’s a little tough to grasp such staggering stats when so many of us are still trying to put THE END OF LATENCY AS WE KNOW IT NAND flash performance into perspective. 3D XPoint’s developers from Intel and Micron But this new stuff is fundamentally different said it will run circles around NAND flash— than the solid-state we’re using today, as it’s about 1,000 circles to every one NAND com- nearly as close to memory as it is to persistent pletes. And they claimed durability of the same storage. That distinction has resulted in a new 4 NVM EXPRESS AND NAND FLASH ENERGIZE STORAGE VENDORS NAND FLASH term for these emerging techs: storage-class pace—and developments such as those from memory. Sort of an odd term, yet it some- IBM and Intel-Micron promise to erase the line how seems a fairly accurate and appropriate between storage resources and memory. Given description. their performance, these emerging technologies The encroachment of storage on memo- will allow tiering and memory expansion—not ry’s turf really started a few years back when at the speeds of DRAM, perhaps, but also not HOME the first DIMM-based solid-state products at the price of current system memory mod- EDITOR’S NOTE appeared. Viking Technology DIMM-slot ules. This will put more processing in memory flash was an interesting product that helped and memory-like resources, reducing the num- NAND FLASH TECHNOLOGY IS JUST bridge the conceptual gap between memory ber of times a server will have to fetch data THE BEGINNING and storage, but it was really flash with a SATA from persistent storage. NVM EXPRESS: interface getting its juice from a DIMM slot. Oddly, the expansion of solid-state’s role is VENDOR-DRIVEN Diablo Technologies took the concept a step likely to be something of a boon to hard disk TECHNOLOGY IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM further with its Memory Channel Storage, manufacturers. After all, all that data will have providing access to flash storage via the to come to rest somewhere, and while the latest M.2 SSD FORM FACTOR APPROACHING server processor’s memory channel. This high-capacity NAND flash devices may fill that SERVER-READY STATUS technology—NVDIMM, or nonvolatile role, spacious hard disks can do it at a fraction IN CAPACITY, SPEED DIMM—had an instant application in mirror- of the cost. ing server memory, which allowed for nearly What do these new solid-state developments instantaneous recoveries of cached data and mean to you? If your current storage configu- applications if DRAM lost power. ration is humming along and keeping up with, or surpassing, your server and network per- formance, these developments mean nothing. TIERED MEMORY AND A NEW STORAGE MODEL But if NAND flash technology hasn’t quenched Solid-state is doing stuff that hard disk drives your app’s thirst for performance, be patient, could never do—at least not at an acceptable help is on the way. —Rich Castagna 5 NVM EXPRESS AND NAND FLASH ENERGIZE STORAGE VENDORS NVM EXPRESS NVM Express: Vendor-Driven Technology in Search of a Problem Last summer, I was on a quest to become WHAT WE KNOW TODAY HOME more knowledgeable about flash memory, Flash memory’s becoming cheaper to own than EDITOR’S NOTE especially memory-based storage products disk (at scale), according to vendors, and prices that seem to be catching the eye of many of continue to fall.