The answers came by way of leveraging the use of the standard STEC ZeusIOPS advanced recording technology, capacity provisioning, and wear-leveling technology. From the data recording perspective, consumer use of flash memory uses multilevel cell recording technology (2 bits or more per cell). STEC enterprise-class drives use single-level cell recording technology (1 bit per cell). SLC provides longer-term bit reliability and higher performance.
The STEC flash drive caters for capacity by over-provisioning of actual capacity (i.e., a 73 Gigabyte flash drive actually contains 146 Gigabyte of memory space). This over-provisioning technique is ideal for providing more write space. Combining SLC with over-provisioning of storage assists in bringing the write capabilities to the hundreds of thousands of write operations capable in this instance of flash drive technology.
Topping it all off, EMC optimizes the way it accomplishes I/O to the drive to take advantage of the STEC drive attributes and its configuration within the Symmetrix platform.
In combination, SLC recording, extra capacity, a unique wear level algorithm, and I/O optimization have enabled EMC to prove the reliability and resilience of enterprise-class flash drives within the Symmetrix storage platform.
What about the market acceptance factor I mentioned early on in this blog (by way of avoiding flash drives due to higher costs)? Well, we are nearly six months into EMC shipping flash drives, and, while EMC does not provide unit shipment numbers or penetration rates (flash drives per Symmetrix shipped), I have spoken to users who have the flash drives installed -- they are blown away by the performance, and they feel that the drastically reduced response time was well worth the additional cost for the application users. EMC has indicated to these users that the price of the drives will come down over time, and I believe there has already been a slight decrease in purchase price since introduction.
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