CES 2016: Silicon Motion Updates SM2246EN for 3D NAND, Teases TLC and PCIe

Subject: Storage, Shows and Expos | January 6, 2016 - 06:00 AM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: tlc, SM2260, SM2258, SM2256, SM2246EN, slc, SK Hynix, silicon motion, mlc, micron, Intel, imft, CES 2016, CES, 3d nand

Silicon Motion has updated their popular SM2246EN controller to support MLC 3D NAND from IMFT and SK Hynix:

The SM2246EN acts as a gateway for third parties to make their own SSDs. Adding support for 3D NAND is good news, as it means we will be able to see third party SSDs launch with 3D flash sourced from Intel, Micron, or SK Hynix. Another cool tidbit is the fact that those demo units in the above photo were equipped and operating with actual 3D NAND from Intel, Micron, and SK Hynix. Yes, this is the first time seeing packaged MLC 3D NAND from a company other than Samsung. Here are some close-ups for those who want to read part numbers:

Another question on non-Samsung 3D NAND is how does its performance stack up against planar (2D) NAND? Silicon Motion had a bit of an answer to that question for us:

Keep in mind those are results from pre-production firmware, but I was happy to see that my prediction of IMFT 3D NAND speeds being effectively equal to their previous 2D flash was correct.

To knock out some other info overheard at our briefing, Silicon Motion will also be making an SM2258, which will be a TLC 3D NAND variant of the SM2256. In addition, we saw the unreleased SM2260:

...which is Silicon Motion's PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD controller. This one is expected to surface towards the middle of 2016, and it is currently in the OEM testing stage.

Lots more storage goodies coming later today, so stay tuned! Full press blast for the updates SM2246EN after the break.

PC Perspective's CES 2016 coverage is sponsored by Logitech.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!

AData sets a new benchmark for low cost SSDs with their Premier SP550 line

Subject: Storage | December 29, 2015 - 01:48 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Premier SP550 240GB, adata, SM2256

At a current price of $67 the AData Premier SP550 240GB is one of the least expensive SSDs on the planet.  One has to wonder what kind of quality one would get at such a steep discount which is one of the reasons Hardware Canucks published this review of the drive.  The controller is Silicon Motion's talented SM225 which can interface with 1x/1y/1z nm TLC NAND from any manufacturer on the market, in this case 16nm SK Hynix 128Gbit TLC NAND.   As to performance, read speeds are very competitive at least until the 256MB DDR3-1600 cache fills at which point the speed does decrease, unfortunately read speeds are strangely slow even for TLC.  The three year, 90 TB written warranty is not spectacular but should give you at least some confidence in the reliability of the drive.  At the price you do make some sacrifices, but what a nice price.

"With a price of just $80 and performance numbers that -on paper at least- look extremely competitive, is the AData Premier SP550 the budget SSD to get?"

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• Kingston SSDnow V300 240GB SSD Review @ NikKTech
• Toshiba 16GB TransMemory U201 Mini USB 2.0 Flash Drive Review @ Madshrimps
• Kingston CompactFlash Ultimate 600x 64GB Memory Card @ eTeknix
• Western Digital Black 6TB HDD Review @ Hardware Canucks
• ASUSTOR AS1002T 2-Bay Entry-Level NAS @ eTeknix
• Synology DiskStation DS1515+ NAS Review @ OCC

FMS 2015: Silicon Motion SM2260 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe Controller Spotted

Subject: Storage | August 14, 2015 - 04:44 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: FMS 2015, silicon motion, SM2260, SM2256, SM2246EN, pcie, NVMe, ssd, controller

We’ve reviewed a few Silicon Motion SSDs in the past (Angelbird | Corsair Force LX | Crucial BX100), and I have always been impressed with their advances in SSD controller technology. Their SM2246EN SATA controller was launched two years ago, and strived to be a very efficient and performant unit. Based on our reviews that turned out to be true, and this allowed Silicon Motion to slide into the void left by SandForce, who repeatedly delayed their newer developments and forced the many companies who were sourcing their parts to look elsewhere.

The many SSDs using Silicon Motion’s SM2246EN controller.

Silicon motion pushed this further with their SM2256, which we first saw at the 2014 Flash Memory Summit and later saw driving SLC/TLC hybrid flash at this past Consumer Electronics Show. While the SM2256 makes its way into more and more products, I was glad to see an important addition to their lineup at this year’s FMS:

Finally we see Silicon Motion doing a PCIe controller! This is the SM2260, seen here in the M.2 form factor…

…and here in SATA Express. While the latter will likely not be as popular due to the more limited PCIe lanes present in SATA Express, I’m sure we will see this controller appearing in many PCIe devices very soon. The stated performance figures may be a bit shy of currently comparing SSDs like the Intel SSD 750 and Samsung SM951, but with the recent introduction of Z170 motherboards and RST PCIe RAID, it is now easier to RAID a smaller capacity pair of these devices, increasing the performance of slower units. Further, the point of the SM2260 is likely to get a low cost NVMe PCIe SSD controller into the hands of SSD makers, which can only mean good things for those looking to make the move away from SATA.

I’ve included Silicon Motion’s FMS press blast after the break.

Meet Silicon Motion's new flash agnostic controller

Subject: Storage | March 3, 2015 - 06:16 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: tlc, ssd, SM2256, slc, silicon motion

You may remember the Silicon Motion SM2256 SSD controller that Al reported on during CES this year, even if you do not you should be interested in a controller which can work with 1x/1y/1z nm TLC NAND from any manufacturer on the market.  The SSD Review managed to get a prototype which uses the new SM2256 controller, Samsung’s 19nm TLC planar NAND flash and a Hynix 440Mhz 256MB DDR3 DRAM chip.  In benchmarking they saw 548MB/s sequential reads and 484MB/s writes, with 4K slowing down to 38MB/s for read and 110MB/s for write.  Check out the rest of the review here as well as keeping your eyes peeled for our first review of the new controller.

"Controllers are the heart and soul of every SSD. Without one, an SSD would be a useless PCB with some components slapped on it. It is responsible for everything from garbage collection and wear leveling to error correction and hardware encryption. In simple terms, all these operations can be quite complicated to implement as well as expensive to develop."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• Crucial's BX100 and MX200 @ The Tech Report
• Crucial MX200 250 GB @ techPowerUp
• Crucial BX100 SSD @ HardwareHeaven
• OCZ ARC 100 480GB SSD Review @ NikKTech
• Thecus W4000 WSS NAS @ Kitguru
• WD My Cloud DL4100 Business NAS Review @ Techgage
• ASUSTOR AS7010T NAS Server Review @ NikKTech
• SilverStone TS431S 4-Bay miniSAS DAS Storage Tower @ eTeknix

CES 2015: Silicon Motion SM2256 seen in action, capable of hybrid TLC/SLC caching

Subject: Storage, Shows and Expos | January 8, 2015 - 01:17 AM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: CES, ces 2015, silicon motion, SM2256, ssd, tlc, slc

We first saw the Silicon Motion SM2256 controller at Flash Memory Summit, but now we've seen it live, in action, and driving several different types of TLC NAND.

Silicon Motion had this live demo running on a testbed at their suite:

The performance looked very good considering the 2256 is designed to efficiently push TLC flash, which is slower than MLC. As their representative was explaining that the SM2256 is currently being tested with Samsung, Toshiba, and SK Hynix TLC flash, I noticed the HDTune write trace:

Those familiar with HDTune and Samsung SSDs with Samsung's TurboWrite cache (from the 840/850 EVO) will recognize the above - the SSD begins writing at SLC speed and after that cache is full, the SSD then drops to writing at TLC speed. I specifically asked about this, as we've only Samsung flash provisioned with an SLC portion of each die, and the answer was that Toshiba and SK Hynix TLC flash also supports such a subdivision. This is good news, as it means increased competition from competing SSDs that can accomplish the same SLC burst writes as the Samsung EVO series.

We heard from a few vendors that will soon be launching SM2256 equipped SSDs this year, and we eagerly await the opportunity to see what they are capable of.

PC Perspective's CES 2015 coverage is sponsored by Logitech.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!