ExtremeFSS

6. November 2008 by David Peterson.

This blog post deals with the speed of your USB flash memory. I have mentioned in previous blog posts that not all USB flash memory devices work as additional ReadyBoost memory. The reason is that some flash drives are just too slow. 

The main culprit appears to be the “random write” speeds of the devices vs. the “sequential write” speeds. ReadyBoost needs a fairly high random write speed. Most current 2.0 compliant flash drives have fairly quick sequential speeds. Sequential writing speeds occur when the data being written is tied to a logical location on the physical drive. This also means that some spots on the drive are used over and over again, possibly creating extra wear and tear on that particular spot on the device.

ExtemeFSS will improve random write speeds by placing data on any space that is available on the USB flash memory device. By doing this Sandisk claims that random write speeds will increase by over 100x that of a current SSD (Solid State Drive –i.e. Flash Memory). 

If ExtremeFSS works and becomes a reality then flash memory may become faster than current HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). I saw one article that said it would become 6x faster than a current 2.5” Hard Drive.

Now that SanDisk has created this process of handling non-sequential memory writing speeds it wants to compare its’ flash memory to traditional Hard Drives. To do that you would need to know how fast a SDD writing speed translates into current HDD rpms. The company conquered this problem by creating a new measurement process called vRPM or Virtual RPM.

Keep an eye out for this new flash memory arriving sometime in 2009. The press release for ExtremeFSS was on 11-5-2008. It can be found here: http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4427

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