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Mtron MOBI-1000 Series MLC Flash Solid State Disks with MFT

Mtron has delayed the world wide general release of the 1000 series pending further testing with customer applications.  Their concerns revolve around the slower write performance and lower drive life spans that are inherent in all MLC Flash SSDs.  We agree with Mtron that MLC drives require careful deployment with applications that are designed specifically for MLC Flash drives.

EasyCo has made arrangements to distribute the Mtron 1000 series drive with immediate availability when this drive is used with EasyCo's MFT software layer.  Mtron and EasyCo have done extensive testing of the 1000 series drives with the following results:

  * Random writes are accelerated 100x to 350x
  * Overall random IOPS performance is increased 60-fold
  * Real-world life span is extended over 50-fold

This positions the 1000 series drive squarely as an ideal solution for laptop, workstation, and even mainstream server usage.  It also allows for direct replacement of 15,000 rpm SAS arrays with Flash SSD with:

  * 27% lower cost/GB
  * 15x faster aggregate read/write IOPS

The MOBI-1000 with MFT also dramatically outperforms any other Flash drive. Though only about half the cost, it outperforms premium-performance SLC drives by between 7:1 and 12:1. Similarly, it offers a 10-fold longer wear life at about half the cost. When contrasted with other MLC drives running without MFT, the MOBI-100 with MFT outperforms these by between 25:1 and 400:1, and extends useful write life by between 50:1 and 400:1 depending upon the model tested.

Mtron 2.5" MOBI-1000 MLC SATA Drives with MFT 1-drive Workstation and 1 Year Warranty
Part Number Product Description Cap
GB
Format Size Flash
Type
Case
Type
Price
MFTW-SATA1025-032 MOBI-1000 32gb MSD-SATA1025-032 with MFT Workstation 32

SATA

2.5" MLC Plastic $399
MFTW-SATA1025-064 MOBI-1000 64gb MSD-SATA1025-064 with MFT Workstation 64 SATA 2.5" MLC Plastic $639
Mtron 2.5" MOBI-1000 MLC SATA Drives with MFT Server License and 1 Year Warranty
Part Number Product Description Cap
GB
Format Size Flash
Type
Case
Type
Price
MFTS-SATA1025-032 MOBI-1000 32gb MSD-SATA1025-032 with MFT Server 32

SATA

2.5" MLC Plastic $399
MFTS-SATA1025-064 MOBI-1000 64gb MSD-SATA1025-064 with MFT Server 64 SATA 2.5" MLC Plastic $699

The following graph shows the throughput of the Mobi 1000 drive both as a bare drive, and with the same drive MFT-enabled. 15,000 rpm and 7,200 rpm hard disk performance is shown for comparison purposes.

Mobi 1000 Performance Graph

The following table demonstrates the point that the random read rate of a Mobi-1000 is extremely fast. A 15,000 rpm hard drive performs only about 250 random reads a second, and a 7,200 rpm hard drive only delivers 70. As a result, the Mobi's random read is literally 100 times faster than that of a Laptop hard drive. But the table also shows that the Mobi's native random write capability is literally as much as 400 times slower than its random read. The table also shows how MFT's linear method of random writing improves random write speed almost to the random read rate.

Projected Performance Results for Mtron MOBI-1000 with MLC
Block
Size
Random Read Tests:
Random Write Tests
Random Write with MFT
1 Thread
10 Threads
1 Thread
10 Threads
1 Thread
10 Threads
IOPS
BW
IOPS
BW
IOPS
BW
IOPS
BW
IOPS
BW
IOPS
BW
4k 9,666 38.7M 12,151 48.6M 25 100.0K 25 100.0K 7,499 29.3M 8,090 31.6M
8k 7,107

56.9M

8,366 66.9M 24 192.0K 24 192.0K 3,996 31.2M 4,359 34.1M
16k 4,542 72.7M 5,052 80.8M 23 368.0K 23 368.0K 2,147 33.5M 2,248 35.1M
32k 2,642 84.5M 2,817 90.1M 22 704.0K 22 704.0K 1,114 34.8M 1,135 35.5M
64k 1,436 91.9M 11,495 93.5M 21 1,344.0K 21 1,344.0K 558 34.9M 559 36.6M
256k 374 93.6M 378 94.6M 20 5.0M 20 5.0M 141 35.1M 153 38.3M
1mb 95 95.0M 95 95.0M 20 20.0M     35 35.1M    
Aggregate IOPS without MFT 78 Higher is better. A single 15,000 rpm SAS drive has a value of 250, and a 7,200 rpm SATA drive rates at 70. Click here for explanation of calculation methodology.
Aggregate IOPS with MFT 4,776
MFT Overall Performance Multiplier 61

The following graph shows the projected daily erase life capability based upon data size written. Clearly, when MFT enabled, the Mobi-1000 can accept more than one and a half overwrites of the entire drive on a daily basis, no matter what the data size, and still be expected to last five years. Given that the vast majority of servers overwrite less than 20% of their surface a day, it is clear that an MFT enabled Mobi-1000 is an ideal solution for a broad spectrum of Servers and Workstations.

Mobi-1000 Wear

The following table compares the Mobi-1000 both MFT enabled and bare with the reasonable write throughput of different hard disks. It also looks at the duty cycle to complete the work shown. This, in another way, makes the point that when MFT enabled, the Mobi 1000 is just a lot faster than hard disks.

Mtron MOBI-1000 Random Writes Permissible for 5-Year Drive Life
  7,200 rpm
SATA HDD
15,000 rpm
SAS HDD
32gb
Drive
64gb
Drive
Maximum write throughput per day without MFT 19GB 69GB 1GB 2GB
Maximum write throughput per day with MFT n/a n/a 52GB 104GB
Hours per day needed to finish read/write activity 24.00 24.00 0.29 .57
Drive Utilization Percentage 100% 100% 1% 2%
Thruput per day is based upon an average data size of 10.66kb and a read/write mix of 70% reads and 30% writes. The values shown for the 7,200 and 15,000 rpm Hard Disks are the maximum possible attainable values if these drives are run at 100% duty cycle 7x24. Values for the flash media are calculated as described here. Here, the limit to throughput is not time, but rather the number of safely available write cycles based upon a goal-life of at least five years.
Mtron MOBI-1000 with MLC Technical Specification
Mtron Mobi-1000 MLC Flash Drive  Host Interface Interface SATA 1.0a Standard
Transfer Mode PIO mode (0~4), DMA mode (0~2), Ultra DMA mode(0~6)
 Capacity (GB) 32, 64(GB)
 Form Factor 2.5"
 Performance Average Access Time*  0.1 msec
Sustained Read**  100 MB/sec
Sustained Write**  40 MB/sec
IOPS*** (Sequential/ Random)  76,000/13,000
 Power Input Voltage 5VCC±5%
 Endurance Write Endurance  >28 years @ 50GB write per day****
Read Endurance  Unlimited
Wear-leveling algorithm  Dynamic and static wear-leveling
Data Retention  10 years at 25℃
 Reliability MTBF  TBD
ECC  7-bit Error Correction Code (ECC)
Bad Block Management algorithm  
 Environment Operating Temperature 0~70℃
 Test Environment  1. Test Item : MSD-SATA1025 ( 2.5 , 32GB, SATA1 )
2. Test PC : AMD Athlon™ 4800+ Dual Core (2.4GHz) 1GB RAM, NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP (UDMA133/SATA2), Window XP SP2
* HD Tach 3.0.1
** ATTO Disk benchmark 2.02
*** IOMeter July 30. 2004
**** Sequential Write, 32GB