White Paper

Technology Comparisons Reveal That Not

All Storage Products are Engineered Equally
Technology Defines Storage Products — Not Form Factors,
Product Labels, or Data Sheets

Western Digital
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Technology Comparisons of Storage Products White Paper
Table of Contents
Introduction .............................................2
Looks Can Be Deceiving ........................2
It is All About the Technology Inside .......3
SiliconDrive is Advanced Storage
Technology .............................................3
Not All Storage Products are Engineered
Equally ....................................................4
SiliconDrive Increases Performance and
Reliability ................................................9
The Final Analysis ..................................9
WD
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Introduction
In today’s complex storage world, it is
challenging for OEMs to determine which
storage product to design in. Storage
products in the same industry-standard
form factor from a wide variety of
suppliers may have similar sounding
names, such as industrial-grade or
enterprise-class, and may even have
similar looking data sheet specifications.
To accurately determine if similar looking,
labeled, or specified products are indeed
the same, one must conduct an in-depth
technology comparison.
The technology inside a product is what
ultimately determines if an OEM achieves
its performance, reliability, product
lifecycle management, customer
satisfaction, and total cost of ownership
objectives.
Looks Can Be Deceiving
In the not-so-distant past, storage product
form factors in many ways defined the
technology inside the product, but today
that is no longer true. Two storage
products in the same industry-standard
form factor, such as a CompactFlash card
(CF), look the same on the outside but
can be very different on the inside.
For example, a CF card designed for a
consumer product application such as a
digital camera or a MP3 player looks
exactly like a CF product used by an
embedded OEM in an edge router or
mission critical data recorder, but the
technology inside is radically different. To
further complicate the product selection
process, a CF card labeled by one
supplier as industrial-grade or enterprise-
class is likely to use completely different
technology than a similarly labeled
product from another supplier.
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Technology Comparisons of Storage Products White Paper

Finally, to make the product selection process even more confusing, different CF
products may even have similar looking product specifications. Commonalities in such
basic product specifications as form factor, interface, read/write speed, power
consumption, operating temperature range, mean time between failure (MTBF), and
shock and vibration tolerances might fool all but the most highly trained into thinking that
all storage products are engineered equally. In fact, depending on the
comprehensiveness of the storage product qualification testing performed, different CF
products may even operate the “same” during an initial test period.

It is All About the Technology Inside

A thorough examination of the technology inside a product is required to separate
storage products intended for use in retail or consumer applications from advanced
storage technology required in embedded OEM applications, such as netcom, military,
industrial, interactive kiosk, and medical.
By looking beyond form factors, product labels, and data sheet specifications to the
technology inside a storage system, an OEM designer will discover important
considerations that will dramatically affect storage performance and selection criteria,
such as:
• How is the storage system engineered to guard against drive corruption from power
anomalies, which are the number one cause of field failures?
• How is the storage system engineered to guarantee endurance and reliability for
several years of field use?
• What technology is available to monitor storage system useable life to guard against
failures due to wear-out?
• How often is the technology inside the storage product modified, which can result in
costly and forced product requalifications?
• What security options are available to protect data and software IP?
• Is the technology truly scalable across multiple form factors with no loss of
performance or storage product features?

What separates WD’s advanced storage technology from other products in the same
form factor, from products labeled enterprise-class or industrial-grade, or that appear to
have similar data sheet specifications, lies in the answers to the above questions.

SiliconDrive is Advanced Storage Technology

SiliconDrive technology from WD is specifically engineered to exceed the high
performance, high reliability, and multi-year product lifecycle requirements of the
embedded OEM market. SiliconDrive defines advanced storage technology by
leveraging an array of patented and patent-pending technologies from WD to deliver the
industry’s most reliable advanced storage solutions.

WD
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Technology Comparisons of Storage Products White Paper

Not All Storage Products are Engineered Equally

Market Requirement — Power Management Technology
The number one cause of costly storage system field failures is power disturbances. In
the event of an ungraceful power-down, brownout, or power spike, power management
technology is required to maintain a storage system’s reliability and eliminate drive
corruption.

The Solution
All WD’s SiliconDrives come equipped with WD’s patented PowerArmor technology that
prevents data corruption and loss by integrating proprietary voltage detection circuitry
and logic into every SiliconDrive. PowerArmor protects critical data files by latching
address lines to ensure that data is written to the proper location. PowerArmor
technology reduces total cost of ownership by decreasing maintenance, warranty, and
other costs associated with unscheduled downtime and field failures.

To learn more about PowerArmor, refer to the Eliminating Drive Corruption from Power
Disturbances — SiliconDrive PowerArmor Technology White Paper (http://
www.wdc.com/WDProducts/SSD/whitepapers/en/SiliconDrive_PowerArmor.pdf).

WD
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Market Requirement — Enhanced Endurance and Reliability

Endurance and reliability are critical selection criteria for embedded OEMs to guarantee
storage system performance during multi-year end-product use. Endurance is defined as
the number of write/erase cycles that can be performed before a storage product "wears
out.” Wear-leveling and Error Correction Control (ECC) are two important algorithms that
affect endurance.

The Solution
Offering the industry’s highest endurance, SiliconDrives feature 100% static wear-
leveling over the entire drive and a robust, industry-leading error correction algorithm
specifically designed to exceed the requirements of embedded OEM applications.
Static wear-leveling is important to endurance and reliability as it allows data to be written
evenly over the entire storage system. A product with no wear-leveling wears out quickly
because data can be written repeatedly to the same physical block. Products that use
dynamic wear-leveling write data across only the dynamic or free data areas, resulting in
a significantly shorter useable life than storage systems that deploy static wear-leveling.
Also contributing to endurance and reliability is a storage system’s ECC capability.

WD
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Market Requirement — Forecast Storage System Useable Life

Host system uptime, the elimination of unscheduled downtime, and overall system
reliability are paramount in embedded OEM applications, therefore the need to
proactively manage and predict storage system useable life is extremely important.

The Solution
All SiliconDrives are equipped with WD’s patent-pending SiSMART technology, the first
technology in the industry to self-monitor solid state storage system usage and
accurately forecast useable life. SiSMART acts as an early warning system by constantly
monitoring and reporting the exact amount of remaining storage system life. This
technology allows OEMs to build intelligence into host systems that enables users to set
maintenance and data collection thresholds to ensure storage system life.
Traditional storage products run until they fail with no warning to the user that the end is
near, which causes unexpected downtime and emergency host system maintenance to
restore the system. Storage products that run until they fail are a bit like driving a car
without a gas gauge — there is no predictive measure of when the car will stop running.

To learn more about SiSMART, refer to the Eliminating Unscheduled Downtime by

Forecasting Useable Life — SiliconDrive SiSMART Technology White Paper (http://
www.wdc.com/WDProducts/SSD/whitepapers/en/SiliconDrive_SiSMART.pdf).

WD
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Market Requirement — User-Selectable Advanced Security Options

Critical applications require enhanced security options to protect application data and
software IP from theft and malicious or accidental overwrites. Sophisticated storage
management technology is required to overcome the engineering obstacles of designing
robust security into low-power, small mechanical footprints.

The Solution
For applications that require varying levels of advanced security, WD offers SiliconDrive
Secure, a comprehensive suite of user-selectable security technologies that solve the
critical need for robust storage security for embedded systems applications that have a
small footprint and low-power requirement. SiliconDrive Secure protects application data
and software IP from theft, falling into the wrong hands from deployments in high-risk
areas, corruption, and accidental or malicious overwrites.
SiliconDrive Secure provides the following advanced security functionalities:
• Application data and software IP theft prevention
• Confidential data protection
• Access control and permissions selection
• Multiple security zone creation

WD
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Market Requirement — Multi-Year Product Lifecycles

Embedded OEMs need to have true multi-year product lifecycles for all the critical
components in their host system because they deploy their end-products for five-to-ten
years, or even longer. Suppliers who frequently change or end-of-life their products
cause a tremendous financial, technological, and logistics burden for OEMs, resulting in
both costly and time consuming product requalifications that embedded OEMs want to
avoid.

The Solution
WD’s SiliconDrive architecture enables continuous technology advancements while
supporting both current and previous product generations. SiliconDrive architecture
allows embedded OEMs to optimize the timing of new product qualifications to be based
on technology advancements, not product obsolescence. This results in a tremendous
costs savings for embedded OEMs.

Market Requirement — Scalable Technology Across Multiple Form

Factors
To keep pace with dynamic market and standards requirements, embedded OEMs need
to be able to quickly migrate existing end-product designs efficiently and cost effectively.
Embedded OEMs are only able to accomplish this if the critical components used in their
end-products are scalable in terms of both form factor and technology to meet their
dynamic requirements.

The Solution
SiliconDrives were designed from the ground up to be highly scalable and form-factor
independent with no loss of performance or reliability. Regardless of form factor, all
SiliconDrives use the same core technology that saves embedded OEMs engineering
design and architecture time and accelerates their time-to-market with new products.
SiliconDrive is a technology platform, not merely multiple form factors.

WD
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SiliconDrive Increases Performance and Reliability

The following figure shows how SiliconDrive increases performance and reliability and
lowers total cost of storage ownership.

The Final Analysis

The saying “looks can be deceiving” is an understatement when it comes to comparing or
evaluating storage products. One can easily be fooled by products packaged in the same
industry-standard form factor, that are labeled the “same,” and have many of the “same”
data sheet specifications.
To clearly understand how “identical” storage products compare, one must conduct a
thorough evaluation of the technology inside each product. In addition, in-depth product
testing across a wide spectrum of parameters must be conducted to guarantee storage
system compatibility and long-term reliability when deployed in a field application.
Technology defines storage products — not form factors, product labels, or data sheets.

WD
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TECHNOLOGY COMPARISONS OF STORAGE PRODUCTS WHITE PAPER

© 2009 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

Information furnished by WD is believed to be accurate and reliable. No license is granted by implication or otherwise under any
patent or patent rights of WD. WD reserves the right to change specifications at any time without notice.
Western Digital, Inc., the WD logo, SiliconDrive, PowerArmor, SiSMART, and SolidStor are registered trademarks in the U.S. and
other countries; SiSecure, SiKey, SiZone, SiProtect, SiSweep, SiPurge, SiScrub, SiSTOR, and LifeEST are trademarks of Western
Digital Technologies. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. Data reflects products in production as of
June 2009. Not all products are available in all regions of the world. © Copyright 2009 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All rights
reserved.
1 Megabyte (MB) equals 1 Million Bytes; 1 Gigabyte (GB) equals 1 Billion Bytes. Accessible capacity may vary depending on the
operating environment.
Contact Us
Western Digital
Solid State Storage Business Unit
26840 Aliso Viejo Parkway
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
Tel: 949.900.9400
Fax: 949.900.9500
Website: http://www.westerndigital.com
For technical questions, contact: appeng@wdc.com
For Marketing/Sales, contact: salesorders@wdc.com

WD
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