Some SSDs are not as energy efficient as you think

I was talking to a storage expert the other day and he mentioned a customer that I have worked with has chosen to go all SSD in its data center.  I would assume the logic is SSDs are the most efficient solution and given their purchasing power they can get prices that few others can get, therefore the cost differential vs. HDD can become a non-issue.  I heard this and think I know some of the people behind this and I questioned their assumptions to use SSDs as storage solution that eliminates HDD.

Digital Ocean has a lot of hype with their all SSDs environment and the idea that SSDs are the future can be a “false positive."

Doing a bit of research I found StorageMojo recently posted on SSDs - hot, hungry and slow.

High performance SSDs: hot, hungry & sometimes slow

by ROBIN HARRIS on FRIDAY, 25 JULY, 2014

Anyone looking at how flash SSDs have revolutionized power constrained mobile computing could be forgiven for thinking that all SSDs are power-efficient. But they’re not.

In a recent Usenix HotStorage ’14 paper Power, Energy and Thermal Considerations in SSD-Based I/O Acceleration researchers Jie Zhang, Mustafa Shihab and Myoungsoo Jung of UT Dallas examine what they call “many-resource” SSDs, those with multiple channels, cores and flash chips.

...

The price of performance
Each flash die has limited bandwidth. Writes are slow. Wear must be leveled. ECC is required. DRAM buffers smooth out data flows. Controllers run code to manage all the tricks required to make an EEPROM look like a disk, only faster.

So the number of chips and channels in high performance SSDs has risen to achieve high bandwidth and low latency. Which takes power and creates heat.

Bottom line here are some insights.

Key findings
The many-resource SSD exhibits several characteristics not usually associated with SSDs.

• High temperatures. 150-210% higher than conventional SSDs, up to 182F.
• High power. 2-7x the power, 282% higher for reads, up to 18w total.
• Performance throttling. At 180F the many-resource SSD throttles performance by 16%, equivalent to hitting the write cliff.
• Large write penalty. Writes at 64KB and above in aged devices caused the highest temperatures, presumably due to extra overhead for garbage collection and wear leveling.

And here is the kicker, a SSD can consume 2X the power of a HDD.

The StorageMojo take
This appears to be the first in-depth analysis of the power, temperature and performance of a modern high-end SSD. The news should be cautionary for system architects.

For example, one new datacenter PCIe SSD is spec’d at 25w – higher than the paper found on slightly older drives. That’s twice what a 15k Seagate requires.

The paper StorageMojo refers to is here.

This paper closes saying many-resource SSDs are 4-5X more power intense than conventional SSD and HDD.

Conclusions

In this paper, our empirical analysis reveal that dynamic power consumption of many-resource SSDs are respectively 5x and 4x worse than conventional SSD and HDD. Many-resource SSDs generate 58% higher operating tem- perature, which can introduce SSD overheating prob- lem and power throttling issues. Based on our analysis, HW/SW optimization studies are required to improve en- ergy efficiency of modern SSDs in many user scenarios. 

Will DC market get a boost from a new chip and WS2003 end of life?

Saw this Barron’s post on how the data center market could get a boost.

The two catalysts are: 1) Intel's (ticker: INTC ) new Grantley server platform and 2) the [Microsoft ( MSFT )] Windows Server 2003 expiration. Intel, Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ ), Western Digital ( WDC ), Seagate Technology ( STX ), SanDisk ( SNDK ), F5 Networks (FFIV ) and A10 Networks ( ATEN ) could benefit.

Data-center spending last year declined for the first time since the 2009 banking crisis, falling by 1.4% to $152.8 billion. The appetite for data-center equipment through Intel's lens has been robust for cloud, high-performance computing and telecom customers, with these segments combined growing 20%-plus over the past two years. However, demand from enterprise customers has been underwhelming, declining by 1% on average. Life cycles on enterprise equipment have clearly been stretched, pointing to a large, aging installed base of information-technology (IT) equipment that could be ripe for modernization.

I am bit skeptical on whether this will impact the data center market, and will check with some other people I know.  On the other hand, most of the data center people I talk to are open source linux type of people.  The point of this Barron’s article is the large 32-bit Windows Server 2003 market that will have have reached end of life.

With industry estimates of roughly 10 million servers that are still running 32-bit applications on WS2003, the installed base is sizeable enough when combined with Grantley power/performance benefits to drive a cyclical recovery even if 35% of these legacy workloads migrated to cloud alternatives.

Apple's Acquisition of Beats may be beyond sound

Remember when people were wearing bluetooth ear pieces.  I have a couple that I haven’t used for years.  Why?  Sound Quality, battery life, and connectivity.  I have enough problems keeping a cell connection, let along worrying about battery life and bluetooth. So, I always use a hardwire headset.  It’s probably greener too because you eliminate the use bluetooth.

Now that Apple has officially announced the acquisition of Beats, the media and analysts are asking why?

Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley: Apple beats the service drum."Subscription music service could make the deal a home run, with every 1% penetration of Apple's 800M account base equating to $960M of revenue. Apple believes Beats offers the right strategy for streaming music as it leverages both algorithms and 200 human curators to create playlists, which differentiates it from competitors."

Scott Craig, Merrill Lynch: Expensive acquisition. "The $3bn price tag sounds high, especially given Carlyle Group's investment in Beat Electronics in September 2013 valued the company at ~$1bn. This seems out of character with Apple's track record of acquisitions which are typically more tuck-in types with focus on IP/technology, rather than brand. Apple would also be acquiring high end, high margin headphones which according to NPD, account for 27% of the headphone market and 57% of premium headphone market ($99+)."

William Powers, Baird: Technology portfolio light. "We would note that the recently launched Beats Music streaming service is reported to have a mere ~250,000 subscribers and only has two awarded patents. Beats Electronics has 20 awarded patents, most of which are for ornamental design, vs. Harman's 868 patents and Bose's 558."

Given the pervasive use of headsets it is a standard accessory.  My daughter demanded a Beats headset, I have Klipsch earbuds and use Apple’s standard ones.  It is time to change what a headset is.  You can embed sensors for heart rate.  It’s stuck in your ear.  Probably can read body temperature.  Put in motion sensors and you can figure out what way people are looking.  Put in a small camera and you can do point of view.

If Apple wanted to change the headset into an extension of the iPhone what company should it buy? an established company in sound?  Or someone who is creating new business models, like Beats?

I laugh when people only see what is in front of them.  Beats is a headphone and streaming music company.  No, Beats is a company that has successfully done things with headsets and has created a must have accessory for actors, athletes, and other high visibility people.  It’s not about sound, it’s about looking good.

Imagine if the high performing athletes used Apple/Beats headphones as their training routine, then sell 1,000x more to amateur athletes.  Could be why Nike decided to get out of the fuel band business.

Could Beats create a sunglasses with a headset and sensor technology?  Oops, this beats Google Glasses and it is cool.   Wearing shades inside, while watching video  is going to look so much better on an Apple/Beats glasses than on Google glasses.

Fuji's 154 TB vs. Sony's 185TB, Tape Back-up gets new life

Sony made all kind of news with its 185TB capacity tape.

Sony develops tech for 185TB tapes: 3,700 times more storage than a Blu-ray disc

Fujiflim announces a 154TB capacity tape.

UJIFILM ACHIEVES NEW DATA STORAGE RECORD OF 154TB

ON ADVANCED PROTOTYPE TAPE

Proving the current tape format will satisfy the requirements of tape storage well into the future

VALHALLA, N.Y., May 19, 2014 – Citing its use of proprietary NANOCUBIC™ and Barium Ferrite (BaFe) particle technologies,  FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc., a subsidiary of FUJIFILM Corporation, the leading global manufacturer of data storage media, today announced that in conjunction with IBM, a new record in areal data density of 85.9 billion bits per square inch on cost-efficient linear magnetic particulate tape has been achieved. This breakthrough in data density equates to a standard LTO cartridge capable of storing up to 154 terabytes of uncompressed data, which is 62 times greater than today’s current LTO6 cartridge capacity.

People thought tape was long dead, but with these latest offerings it looks like Tape is around for a bit longer.

Forget the Rice when Drying A Wet Phone/Kindle/Tablet, use desiccant

My Kindle Paperwhite got wet when my water bottle leaked on my travel pack.  Luckily nothing else got web except the Kindle Paperwhite.  The Kindle was locking up and the backlighting wasn’t working.  There is a common advice to put the wet device in rice.  Being Japanese-American I have plenty of rice to put the device in, but also being an engineer it didn’t make sense that putting a wet electronic in rice which has been exposed to air is an effective desiccant and the smart particles in rice could cause more damage.  Popular Mechanics has a post on this topic. 

Finally, use a desiccant to wick away any leftover moisture. The most convenient choice is uncooked rice. Just leave the phone (and its disconnected battery) submerged in a bowl of grains overnight. If you're worried about rice dust getting inside your phone, you can instead use the packets of silica gel that often come stuffed in the pockets of new clothes. But acting fast is far more important than avoiding a little dust, so don't waste time shopping if you don't already have a drawer full of silica gel. 

The most important thing to remember is to avoid heat. That means no hair dryers, ovens, microwaves or extended periods in direct sunlight. While heat will certainly evaporate the moisture, it could also warp components and melt adhesives. Those fragile glues are also why you'll want to avoid dunking the phone in rubbing alcohol (an oft­prescribed tip on the Web). Alcohol is a solvent and can dissolve the internal adhesives. (If you drop your phone in the toilet, it's okay to wipe the outside with alcohol to disinfect it.)

Fortunately, I have bags of desiccant to put in bags when I think my camera gear is going to be exposed to moisture.  Cameras (Lens, little motors, and electronics) tend to have much more problems with moisture than phones/tablets.

24 hours later the Kindle Paperwhite works fine.