SSD is the acronym for Solid State Drive. SSD’s are highly reliable storage devices that use solid-state memory to store data. An SSD emulates a hard disk drive and is available in the typical interfaces IDE, SATA or SCSI.
Solid State Drives can withstand extreme shock, vibration, temperature, altitude and harsh environmental conditions while operating without compromising on data integrity. Since there are no moving parts involved, data access time occurs as quickly as 0.1ms compared to typical consumer hard drives with spinning disks that can take 10-15ms, on average.
Standard models operate in temperatures of 0 – 70° C. and special industrial models can withstand operating temperatures of -40 – 85° C. SSD’s are the same size and shape as traditional desktop hard drives (available in 1.8-inch, 2.5-inch, and 3.5-inch form factors) and utilize the same connectors making them easy to install in traditional PC based equipment.
What is the difference between SLC and MLC Solid State Drives?
There are two types of NAND Flash chips available in Solid State Drives. Single-level cell (SLC) and multi-level cell (MLC). Both are similar in design and even look the same but their differences are quite significant.
What is SLC?
Single Level Cell (SLC) flash outperforms Multi Level Cell (MLC) flash.
What is MLC?
Multi Level Cell (MLC) flash has low cost benefits, but performs at slower speeds.
Advantages of SLC over MLC
Advantages/Disadvantages of SLC and MLC based Solid State Drives
Features | SLC | MLC |
High Density | Lower Capacities |
Higher Capacities |
Low Cost per Bit | Higher than MLC |
Lower Cost |
Endurance |
100,000 cycles |
10,000 cycles |
Operating Temperature Range |
(industrial, more rugged) |
(commercial, less rugged) |
Low Power Consumption |
Low Power Better Performance |
Not as efficient as SLC |
Write/Erase Speeds |
Best Performance |
Not as good as SLC |
Write/Erase Endurance |
Best Performance |
Not as good as SLC |
Density | 16Mbit | 32Mbit/64Mbit |
Block Size | 64Kbyte | 128Kbyte |
Architecture | x8 | x8 / x16 |
The above performance factors make SLC based Solid State Drives an excellent fit for mission critical and important applications where reliability, performance and long term support are desired. MLC based Solid State Drives are ideal for applications that are not as critical and where saving costs is a tradeoff for a bit less performance and long term reliability.
* Images courtesy of Toms Hardware
Solid State Drives (SSD) both MLC and SLC are optionality available in all our Stealth Computer products, click below to view products or contact us for more information.
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