For a long time, data centers have been using mechanical drives to store high volumes of data. The demand for better performing storage and the technological advances that have resulted in better performing computers has spurred the need for better and faster storage mediums. Solid-State Drives (SSD) have emerged as the new-tech solution to storage limitations previously felt by data centers, enterprise storage facilities, data warehouses, data miners, and individual gamers with a need for fast and reliable high-volume data storage and transfers. PCIe and its impact on SSD The rapid evolution of storage has indeed received a further boost from the advances in Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) technology. PCIe is a high-speed format for expansion cards that connects multiple peripherals to a computer’s motherboard. PCIe uses point-to-point computer architecture and this means that every peripheral device connects to the computer system using its own serial link and therefore devices do not have to share buses. Each peripheral device has its own dedicated bus. This makes PCIe SSD a better option in terms of performance compared to using Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Fiber Channel (FC) technology, or even the relatively new Serial Advanced technology Attachment (SATA). Benefits of PCIe SSD The biggest benefit in using PCIe SSD is the significant gain in performance levels. With previous storage methods, users had to consider the mechanical performance matrices such as the Revolutions per Minute (rpm) of conventional Hard Disk Drives (HDD). With SSDs users no longer have to take into account any moving parts or rotation speeds. With PCIe-based SSDs, there are no SATA-based interfaces that tend to limit the data transfer capacity of the bus. This is because PCIe technology has dedicated data transfer lanes for each device and unlike SATA, these data lanes allow for data transmission in both directions at the same time and not just one direction at a time. The primary reason for PCIe SSDs better performance is in the number of data channels a vendor can run data packets through. In the current market, the fastest SSD running on SATA is the 10-channel controller from Intel. An ordinary PCIe-based SSD device such as the one by Fusion-io has 25 internal channels, that is more than double the fastest SATA SSD. Another advantage of PCIe-based SSD devices is that their higher speeds make them well suited for caching and buffering applications. Most vendors are currently increasingly promoting video use in customer applications. For instance, Cisco, OCZ Technology, Texas Memory Systems, and LSI have wide-ranging products that promote the use of videos and this has led to an increased demand for PCIe-based SSD solutions. Enterprise data storage facilities have been using PCIe-based SSD database-loading technology to substantially increase the performance. PCIe technology includes error-handling capabilities that make them ideal in maintaining data integrity thus allowing the rapid transfer of data to RAM over dedicated lanes. Limitations of PCIe SSD The programming of PCIe is difficult and complicated due to the fact that it is a bus designed for carrying all types of data to a computer system’s processor. This creates a lack of specialization which results in storage commands that aren’t defined, much the same as the storage commands of SATA-based storage controllers’ interfaces. This will in effect increase interoperability and compatibility problems occasioned by the extra speed provided by the PCIe buses via the PCIE riser/PCIE Extension Cable connections. It is expected that soon the storage commands will find standardization and be incorporated into the PCIe SSDs but in the meantime, vendors have to work on a fine balance between performance and interoperability. The lack of standardized storage commands for PCIe buses means that each vendor has to create their own controllers. In time, you will have different controllers from many different vendors that cannot work together even though they are working over PCIe buses. Actions such as running the computer OS or booting from particular media may get complicated due to this lack of standardization. Another challenge for PCIe SSDs is that being a new technology, their overall performance still remains largely unknown. Vendors still largely prefer tried and tested storage mediums such as SATA-based HDDs, DRAM, and HBA interfaces. PCIe SSD Market Outlook While the technology exists for the better-performing PCIe-based SSDs, the question of standardization and interoperability has users and vendors adopting a wait-and-see attitude. The demand for PCIe has been described as still being in the early-adopter stage though it has shown consistent growth. Nonetheless, pundits expect an increased changeover by established firms to PCIe technology and this will result in a rapid rise of adoption and demand for PCIe-based devices and PCIE riser/PCIE Extension Cables. Conclusion PCIe SSD technology offers flash-storage which is faster than conventional HDD storage. With SSD there are no moving parts and optical or magnetic media. Instead, the SSD uses semiconductor memory in integrated circuits and use standard card form factors which include PCIe technology that provides for better performance.
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