Mushkin says no to 25nm SSDs

Here's a bold move, which I can appreciate for sure. Mushkin announced it will not switch its solid state disks from 34nm to 25nm NAND flash due to the reduced lifespan of the smaller NAND flash memory. The company says it will continue to stick with 34nm NAND flash memory until it's convinced of the effectiveness of 25nm NAND flash memory:

The Solid State Drive (SSD) market is one of the most exciting and fastest-growing segments in computer components today, and for good reason. SSDs offer a host of advantages over traditional platter-based Hard Disk Drives, with many of these advantages already known to seasoned computer enthusiasts.

Mushkin, Inc. has been very eager to release SSDs with the best specifications and quality control standards that exist. Our “Io” and “Callisto deluxe” SSD series have been enjoyed and recognized the world over by end users and enthusiasts alike. However, as the SSD segment continues to grow and manufacturers adapt to the latest technologies, some irregularities and performance issues have arisen.

NAND manufacturers are currently undergoing a shift in the die size of their chips. To remain as competitive as possible, manufacturers continually strive to shrink their process technology. 2008 saw the dominance of 50nm Nodes; during 2009-10, 34nm became the most widespread die. Today, manufacture is shifting to 25nm die.

While the process reduction to 25nm reduces cost both for manufacturers and consumers, there are intrinsic drawbacks to the 25nm which give rise to problems that have not yet been solved. Because of the manner in which 25nm NAND chips interact with controllers, capacity is noticeably reduced. In addition, 25nm chips have far fewer available program erase cycles, thereby reducing endurance of SSDs with 25nm NAND.

We here at Mushkin, Inc. have always strived to deliver the best hardware that has gone through the most strenuous quality control process. We feel that consumers will not yet enjoy the benefits of 25nm Flash memory because of the capacity-reduction issues involved. We will continue to provide SSDs utilizing 34nm Flash memory chips to ensure that our customers get the quality product they’re expecting and what they very well may have ordered before. As soon as we are convinced of the effectiveness of 25nm Flash memory, we will release products that meet our standards which are accurately described as being different than their 34nm counterparts.

OCZ moves to 25nm NAND flash, customers are not happy

OCZ Technology today announced it is the first solid-state drive manufacturer to complete the transition to 2Xnm NAND flash-based storage solutions. Specifically, the company is using 25nm NAND flash chips from Micron, which take up less space and allow for (eventually) larger capacity SSDs than current 34nm chips, while also costing around 10-15% less.

The smaller chips began to appear in Vertex 2 and Agility 2 drives last week, but so far there hasn't been any significant price cuts from retailers that we know of nor OCZ is making a clear distinction between 25nm and 34nm SSDs. What some unsuspecting buyers did find out, however, is that usable capacities on the newer drives have actually dropped.

Storage Reviews explains the reason behind this in a recent article and essentially it all comes down to the lifespan of 25nm chips. You see, 25nm NAND is 'good' for 3,000 write cycles, while the older 34nm NAND reaches 5,000 cycles, so to account for this drop in individual cell lifespan OCZ needs to increase the amount of reserve capacity that replaces worn sections as the drive degrades. As a result, newer drives are getting around 4-5GB less of usable storage space compared to the same models equipped with 34nm -- which is pretty critical when you are getting a 40GB boot drive.

Besides the reduction in usable storage space, the problem would get even more frustrating for customers looking to setup a RAID 0, 1 or 5 array only to find out that they have drives with mismatching capacities.

We should note that this issue is not exclusive to OCZ, and as other manufacturers start releasing 2Xnm drives we will likely see a similar drop in usable storage space to allow for warranties and expected life spans to stay the same. However, there is something to be said about the lack of transparency when it comes to usable capacity and OCZ's failure to clearly label which version you are buying -- after all, customers are getting less space for the same price and performance, while OCZ presumably nets higher profits with the reduced cost of the smaller 25nm flash.

We hope OCZ takes serious issue with this but so far the only solution offered is for displeased buyers to ship back their 25nm drive and "receive a credit towards the more expensive 32 Gbit die‐based drives.