New ATA-compatible 2.5-inch solid-state drives target industrial applications

TDK's new SDS1B series of 6Gbps serial ATA-compatible 2.5-inch solid-state drives for industrial applications, feature the NAND flash memory controller chip GBDriver GS1. Recently, the need for fast, high-volume data storage is on the rise, driven by developments such as larger operating system overheads and the trend towards high-definition large-capacity data applications as exemplified by 4K and 8K full high-resolution data broadcasting. As data volumes increase, industrial applications also increasingly call for solid state drives with MLC NAND type memory. In such cases, improved data retention capability as well as high reliability become important considerations along with the regular benchmark test results. To meet such requirements, the new controller not only features the recovery and refresh functions implemented by the existing GBDriver series of controllers, but also comes standard with a highly acclaimed power interruption tolerance algorithm as well as an integrated power supply protection circuit. This assures highly robust data reliability both with SLC and with MLC NAND type flash memory. Without incorporating a DRAM or other type of cache, the new product achieves read access speeds up to 440 MByte/second and write access speeds up to 220 MByte/second*1. The results are SSD products with significantly improved access speeds, reflecting TDK's extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of the realities of industrial applications. Data security has also been enhanced. In addition to the standard ATA security complement, AES*2 128-bit and 256-bit encryption and a TDK proprietary security function are also available. This makes it possible to store data in the NAND type flash memory in encrypted form, to guard against the risk of data leaks and tampering, resulting in highly robust storage security, says the company.