OCZ Announces New Indilinx ''Arowana'' Flash Translation Layer for SSD Suppliers

[btarunr]

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today unveiled the Arowana Flash Translation Layer (FTL) from Indilinx. Supporting both existing and upcoming Indilinx controllers, this firmware subset dramatically improves performance and enterprise capabilities and enables SSD suppliers to deploy cost-effective 2xnm NAND flash memory.

"We are always driving to add more value for our clients, and the exciting new Arowana Flash Translation Layer delivers both major performance and feature-set enhancements," commented Daryl Lang, VP of Product Management at OCZ Technology Group. "Arowana not only boosts IOPS performance by up to 500%, but does so with the support of the industry's latest 2xnm flash technology, making Indilinx solutions now more competitive than ever."

The revolutionary new Arowana FTL enhances performance of Indilinx controllers with HyperQueuing, which significantly increases sequential write speeds and random IOPS over the previous generation FTL. In addition, Arowana's support of 2xnm flash provides SSD suppliers with the ability to offer end users a more attractive product with lower cost NAND components. The new Arowana FTL also maximizes the life of low endurance flash with INXtend Technology.

Arowana will continue to offer Indilinx's proprietary Ndurance Technology to extend the lifespan of flash devices with sophisticated wear-leveling algorithms, reduced write amplification, and advanced over provisioning. Furthermore, the new FTL supports TRIM along with superior idle time garbage collection that requires no operating system interfacing as well as the innovative Indilinx Wiper tool for non-TRIM systems.

Arowana will be made available immediately in new firmware updates to current Indilinx SSD controller customers as an upgrade package, and will be deployed in future Indilinx products.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

Cool. So if i understand this right, existing Indelinx based drives users will get these improvements for free on existing drives (from OCZ).

 

[araditus]

If someone could help me understand the words in this article:

Is this the news I have been waiting for to finally buy an SSD, a while ago I said to myself, I will wait till a true 2nd generationg of SSD's comes out becuase right now I dont trust them for various reasons and they need to iron out a few issues.

Example: When the Venice cores of AMD came out in 2004 or whatever it was HOT stuff, man they killed pentium 4 right? But then 4 months later or what have you the DUAL CORE came out, 2 anthlons!! So I bought a 4800+ x2.


Second Question:
"Furthermore, the new FTL supports TRIM along with superior idle time garbage collection that requires no operating system interfacing as well as the innovative Indilinx Wiper tool for non-TRIM systems."

Does this mean that as of right now when RAID is applied you cannot used TRIM with SSDs right? With this new controller has this problem been eradicated as well? If so I am sure many SSD user around the world will rejoice.


Is this that news I have been waiting for to buy an ssd?

 

[fullinfusion]

Cool. So if i understand this right, existing Indelinx based drives users will get these improvements for free on existing drives (from OCZ).

thats what it said

 

[RejZoR]

@araditus
This means that Indelinx based drives will become interesting again. For those who already own one and for those who are planning to buy one.

 

[buggalugs]

Is this that news I have been waiting for to buy an ssd?

I doubt it. There are already much better options than an indilinx drive with some caching gizmo. Looks like a way for Ocz to get better performance out of crappy cheap nand and a slower controller.

I doubt it will come close to sandforce drives....

 

[largon]

this will support 34nm only

link

That rules out many Barefoot drives afaik.

 

[Ross211]

Interesting... I've got an old cheap OCZ Solid 2 60GB that uses the Indilinx Barefoot controller. Apparently this drive uses 34nm flash -

From Andandtech -

OCZ recently announced the Solid 2, a horrible name (the old Solid was based on a JMicron controller) but similar approach to the Agility.

The first Solid 2 drives are being built now and they use the same Indilinx controller as the Vertex and Agility. The difference? Once again, it’s the flash. These drives use Intel’s 34nm flash.

The initial Solid 2 specs were very low and I’ve received confirmation that they were simply conservative. Performance is changing on a daily basis now and OCZ simply made the announcement to get pre-orders started. Apparently there are issues getting the Indilinx controller working with Intel’s 34nm flash but OCZ is making progress.

Anyways, I've enjoyed this drive for over a year now. It certainly performs beyond the specs OCZ announced for it. It's going to be put in my second rig when I upgrade to a bigger and faster SSD in my main rig soon.