Technology

Open Compute Project (OCP)

Develop Open Solutions That Shape The Future

The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) was founded to help accelerate innovation around open source hardware solutions for hyper-scaler data center environments.

NVMSentry™

Advanced Firmware for Customized Requests

SMART proprietary firmware architecture forms the basis for innovative and cost-effective SSD products to meet customers’ unique needs. NVMSentry provides the full package of advanced firmware features for specific customization requirements and optimized product performance.

Data Integrity

SafeDATA™

SafeDATA technology combines unique power loss detection and hold-up circuitries with an advanced controller firmware algorithm to flush in-flight data from volatile cache to NAND Flash memory in order to safeguard data against corruption and/or loss during the sudden power loss.

SafeStor™

SMART’s DDR4 NVDIMM features proprietary SafeStor engine which employs multi-channel NAND Flash and high-speed switching circuitry to provide robust backup and restore capability, all while functioning as a JEDEC standard DDR4 RDIMM during normal operation.

SEU Mitigation

A Single Event Upset (SEU) is an inadvertent change in bit status occurring in a digital system when a high energy neutron or alpha particle randomly strikes causing a memory bit to flip states. These high-energy particles can originate from terrestrial or extra-terrestrial sources such as cosmic rays.

Advanced Error Detection & Correction

SMART’s Advanced Error Detection & Correction technology reinforces the ECC (Error Code Correction) engine and utilizes RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) mechanism. Data is reconstructed by the prior stored parity in other pages. The recovered data will be stored in a new block, and the prior stored block will be refreshed.

End-to-End Data Protection

End-to-End Protection ensures data is correctly transferred at every data transfer point within an SSD by utilizing Error Correction Code (ECC) and additional protection mechanisms, such as Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC), to detect and rectify errors.

Background Scan and Refresh

Background Scan and Refresh can count the times of block read and relocate cold data to fresh blocks to ensure the data is always stored in the healthy blocks.

S.M.A.R.T.

S.M.A.R.T. is a self-monitoring system that prevents risks from unscheduled downtime by monitoring and displaying critical drive information. The indicators includes the drive’s health, status, usage info and potential disk problems.

Security

AES-256 Encryption

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a hardware-based encryption method for converting data from an unencrypted into an encrypted format. 256 bits encryption key length makes it virtually impossible to decrypt the data without the original key.

TCG Opal 2.0

Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Storage Work Group created the Opal Security Subsystem Class (SSC) as one class of security management protocol for storage devices. It is the most recognized standard for self-encrypting drives (SEDs). SMART offers TCG Opal 2.0 compliant self-encrypting SSDs incorporating AES encryption for rock-solid data protection.

Write Protection

Write Protection prevents drives from unauthorized data write via a hardware switch/pin or software command. With the write protection feature, users are guaranteed that their data cannot be over-written on the Flash device by triggering the write-protect function.

Secure Erase

Secure Erase is an action to completely erase user’s data from the SSDs. This feature will entirely reset all the SSD storage blocks to empty and prevent any important data from leaking.

FIPS 140-2 Level 2

All U.S. government systems require FIPS 140-2 validation since this standard sets a high security benchmark. Since SMART has been cooperating with the U.S. government, organizations and private enterprises that manage sensitive or confidential data, it has developed FIPS inside SED (self-encrypting drive) products that contain cryptographic component(s) that has been validated to NIST FIPS 140-2 Level-2 standard criteria.

Reliability

Industrial Temperature (-40°C to +85°C)

Specifically designed for harsh environments, SMART’s industrial-grade products with industrial wide-temp ICs and components ensure the highest reliability and stability in extreme operating environments.

Anti-Sulfur Resistor

Exposure to sulfur dioxide causes a corrosive reaction when silver alloys encounter sulfur gasses or liquid. This typically decreases resistor conductivity and thus increases failure risks. SMART uses ASRs (Anti-Sulfur Resistors) when needed for SMART-built products, allowing them to operate reliably in harsh sulfur-rich environments to meet the highest industrial standards.

Conformal Coating

As industrial devices have to survive exposure to harsh environments, conformal coating improves product ruggedness when applied on the module surface area. It enhances product reliability and safeguards against damage from dust, high humidity, salt water air, solvents, chemicals and other harsh materials.

Underfill

Underfill is a polymer or liquid epoxy that is applied underneath the perimeter of key components on a module to strengthen the solder joints and reinforce the product’s resistance against shock, vibratory stress, gravitational acceleration.

Retention Clips

SMART’s patented retention clips highly improve reliability resistant to vibration, shock and sudden movements. As industrial and ruggedized customer equipment is exposed to severe vibration situations, module retention clips can be mechanically secured to the sides of memory socket to prevent the latches from popping open.

Durability

Thermal Throttling

Thermal throttling is a safety feature if a drive gets too hot. Thermal sensors monitor the operating temperature of critical components. Firmware thermal throttling algorithm is activated when necessary to prevent the temperature from exceeding maximum thresholds by reducing the performance of I/O transactions until the operating temperature declines to a safe level.

Pseudo-SLC

Pseudo Single-Level Cell (pSLC) is the new technology of using Multi-Level cell (MLC) or Triple-Level cell (TLC) NAND Flash in a way that reduces the number of bits stored in each cell to one. Reducing the amount of stored bits in each cell to one increases the reliability and lifetime of the NAND Flash memory.

Wear-Leveling

Wear-Leveling refers to the practice of ensuring certain NAND blocks aren’t written and erased more often than others. By preventing the overuse of particular blocks which could lead to device failure or data loss, Wear-Leveling therefore improves the life expectancy and endurance of Flash products.

Garbage Collection

Flash-based storage devices are different in the way they deal with previously deleted data compared to traditional disks. Data must be erased first before new data can be written to the same block in SSDs. Garbage Collection copies in-use data to a new block, and then deletes all data from the old one.

TRIM Command

TRIM is a command with the help of which the operating system can tell the SSD which blocks are no longer needed and can be deleted, or are marked as free for rewriting. With the TRIM command, it not only reduces the Write Amplifier Factor (WAF) but also boost the data access speeds.

Over-Provisioning

Over-Provisioning is a technology where a certain portion of the physical capacity of the memory is reserved for carrying out garbage collection, wear-leveling and bad block management. It effectively reduces the attribute of write amplification and extends the lifespan of an SSD.

Service

Zefr™

Eliminating Over 90% of Memory Reliability Failures

In our information-driven age, powerful High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms are processing massive amounts of data in an effort to unlock its value. To yield the insights necessary to move humankind forward, HPC solutions constantly evolve. Optimizing the reliability of the memory sub-system for maximum uptime is critical to success.

SMART Memory Test Labs (SMTL)

Memory Test, Failure Analysis & Design Support

SMART's SMTL ensures that its products are compatible with Intel®-based and AMD®-based servers from concept to production. SMART has a broad range of comprehensive system test process, an Engineering Failure Response Team (EFRT) for failure analysis, and an extensive design support for customers.