NAND Speeds Up the PC Hard Drive

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Introduction: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
• About Disk Caching
  • Is this Really a New Idea?
  • Why Is this Happening Today Rather than Five Years Ago?
  • Why the Change from Existing Technology?
  • The Critical Role of Software
• What Disk Caching Brings to the Party
  • Fast Boot
  • Lower Power
  • Increased Reliability
  • Ruggedness
• What Are the Alternative Technologies?
  • HDD and SSD
  • ReadyDrive
  • Hybrid Hard Drives
  • Intel' s Turbo Memory-NAND on the Motherboard
  • ReadyBoost
• The Technology
  • How Disk Caching Works
  • Why Write Caching Has Not Been Used Until Now
  • How NAND Suddenly Became Attractive
• Potential Pitfalls With Write Endurance
  • An Introduction to NAND Wear
  • How Wear-Leveling Approaches the Problem
  • Ramifications for the User
  • Likely User Perceptions of NAND Wear
• The Key Players
  • Microsoft-The Prime Mover
  • Samsung-The Early Adopter
  • Other HDD Makers-Reluctant Followers
  • Intel-A Fresh Approach
  • Issues: Separating Hybrids from Turbo Memory
• Density and Cost Trends for Each Technology
  • Comparing Costs: HDD vs. NAND
  • How Capacity Concerns Determine Which Storage to Use
• Conclusions
• Methodology
• Glossary
• Related In-Stat Reports
• Appendix

List of Tables

• Table 1. NAND and DRAM Average Price per Gigabyte
• Table 2. System Cost for Mass Storage of Various Capacities
• Table 3. Progression of Crossover Point over Time
• Table 4. NAND-Cached HDD Unit Shipments Forecast by PC Type
• Table 5. Forecast of Disk Sales by Type Into the PC Market

List of Figures

• Figure 1. NAND-Cached HDD Unit Shipments Forecast by PC Type 1
• Figure 2. Typical HDD with DRAM Cache
• Figure 3. Adding a NAND Write Cache to the HDD
• Figure 4. Reading “Pinned” Data from the NAND
• Figure 5. NAND and DRAM Average Price per Gigabyte
• Figure 6. Cross Section of Floating Gate Memory Bit Cell
• Figure 7. Electrons Trapped in Tunnel Oxide Layer
• Figure 8. Historical Price Progressions for NAND, DRAM, and HDD
• Figure 9. System Cost for Mass Storage of Various Capacities
• Figure 10. Progression of Crossover Point over Time
• Figure 11. NAND-Cached HDD Unit Shipments Forecast by PC Type
• Figure 12. Forecast of Disk Sales by Type into the PC Market