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Samsung: it's virtually impossible to wear out a flash chip

Posted Feb 24, 2008 at 01:42PM by Isaac C. Listed in: Cellular News Tags: Solid-State Drives, Samsung Electronics

Samsung defends flash reliability in solid-state drives - Image 1

Some concerns about flash drives circulated some time ago about how they wear out after a few hundred thousand write cycles. Those of us who use our flash drives often on our various gadgetries know that this isn't that huge of a number.

Because of these concerns, some have been led to believe that their flash drives weren't as reliable as they would have wanted, as they might wear out long before they expected it to. But this isn't the case, as Samsung points out.

Michael Yang, flash marketing manager at Samsung, explains that a flash device that is rated at 100,000 write cycles doesn't mean it wears out after as many uses. It means it can write 100,000 times "to every single (memory) cell within the device."

Essentially, the flash drive doesn't write memory on the same cell over and over again. Rather, it spreads out the data to be written over many different cells. This makes it "virtually impossible" to wear out a flash chip.

Yang gives an example: if you take a 64 GB SSD card, completely fill it with data, format it and then repeat the same thing over and over every hour for years on end, this still will not reach the card's threshold.

Yang adds that if a failure occurs, it will occur in the controller of the device, rather than the chip. The device's controller is the one that dictates "wear leveling," which spreads out the data over the flash drive.

When Yang was defending flash drives, he was talking specifically about solid-state drives (SSD), but perhaps the same principle could be applied to other devices to that use flash chips, like SD cards which we use for mobile phones and the PSP.

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by Binary - 2008-02-24

» ..

NES, SNES, N64, Sega and all the old cartage's games got memory flash chip and they still working today.

Even old computer bios. lol

Re: youresam - 2008-02-24

» .

lol
Except you've missed the point. NES, SNES, N64, Sega, and BIOS' are read-only.

Re: Sr_Moska - 2008-02-24

» @yourseam

I got a flash chip... in my pants!

lol just kidding

what Binary meant is that the SNES catridges (like zelda, phantasy star, final fantasy IV and super mario world) had flash chips to save your progress

and those are still working

Re: Foolmonkey - 2008-02-24

» that may be true

but the batteries in the cartridge run out and virtually all my old NES games won't save because of that

Re: J2Jack - 2008-02-24

» No they don't

It's battery backed-up RAM

Re: Binary - 2008-02-24

» oops sorry I mean

I mean the ones that had flash chips to save your progress

Like NBA Jam, when I power up my sega my high score from 15 years still there.

Re: FreePlay - 2008-02-24

» This is battery-backed RAM...

/

Re: xche78x - 2008-02-25

» nelson haha

pawned.

i guess it backfired, too much know what!
and most of the NES/SNES cartridges doesn't even have backup battery, these games uses passwords instead or just plain NO SAVING.

by Advertising -

by raggedjimmi - 2008-02-24

» -

I've replaced my 4 year old powerbook with an SSD Macbook Air. It's good to know that I won't have to replace the drive for a good long time. Also good to know my various PSP cards have got many years left in them.

I don't mind when they cost £40 now (and god knows how few pennies in the future).

All my old GB and NES carts still save and function properly too. Course they don't get used as much as an SSD computer though.

by Binary - 2008-02-24

» .

Even if its read-only or move. The system is heating up the flashcard so its ready for you to save!

by Techni - 2008-02-24

» This is false

Using flash as a PC's main hard drive will wear it out quite quickly, as most OS's are coded to use the hard drive as virtual memory, meaning it can be written to a couple times a second. In the same spot.

Re: superanimefreak - 2008-02-24

» Disable page file

If you have loads of ram like 4-8gb you could disable the page file and get around that even in Vista 8gb of ram you don't need the page file well for all I do that is.

Re: raggedjimmi - 2008-02-24

» -

Disabling the page file works. So does having lots of ram. my MBA has 3gb ram and I only use it for essays/writing and all that kind of stuff.

And then what about the PSP? It's always pulling data off (especially for streaming data like music) the memory stick and they last a very long time. And aren't games also cached onto the memory stick for decreased loading time?

It's nothing to worry about. Evidently.

Re: Techni - 2008-02-24

» And then what about the PSP?

PSP doesn't WRITE to flash every second, it reads from it, and not constantly like an OS. (Unless you're using custom firmware or watching a movie)

So yes, it IS something to worry about.

Re: cory1492 - 2008-02-25

» ...

First, the point is that devices like the SSD mentioned above, as well as the MS duo, all use a controller that deals with wear leveling at a hardware level, meaning even if the same LBA is written a tonne of times it's not getting written to the same block in the flash over and over again too - that is what wear leveling is.
-
And techni - reading isn't going to wear out a NAND like a MS has, it's erase-write cycles (nand must be erased before it can be written) they talk about when discussing the 100,000 number.

Re: raggedjimmi - 2008-02-25

» -

Nope. I've been using a 4gb CF card as a portable scratch disk for years and it never let me down.

"oh no scratch disks aren't written too" blah blah. Just as Samsung said - it isn't anything to worry about.

by infraredguy - 2008-02-24

» IM NOT WORRIED

Nor have I ever been worried by the time that my flash drives take a dump years from now i am sure something new and improved will be out and we will all be saying how old they are kind of like the way that we compare to older technology today

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