Data Matters - A blog about flash memory » flash file system

Datalight Chosen for Blackboard Campus Card Reader Systems

michele — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:26:23 +0000

Blackboard is the standard-bearer for student ID systems around the world. Their contactless cards serve as campus ID, building access, and point-of-sale accounts for meals and other services, and are rapidly replacing the old magnetic stripe systems. The cards and readers use a Windows Embedded CE-based platform. When Blackboard’s BSP provider learned that the systems would be responsible for keeping track of sensitive financial transactions, they recommended Datalight software to make certain that the system will function with bullet-proof reliability. To read more about our work with Blackboard, check out the full success story.

Press Release: Latest Datalight Flash File System Brings 20 Millisecond Mount Times to Linux through Kernel Versions 2.6.33

michele — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:02:56 +0000

Bothell, WA, – May 5, 2010 – Today Datalight announced support for Linux kernel versions up to 2.6.33, the most recently released Linux versions available. FlashFX Tera, the file-system independent flash memory manager and Reliance Nitro, the highly-reliable, high-performance file system offer much faster mount times than UBIFS, YAFFS, or JFFS2. In addition, the Datalight products boost write speed over the standard file systems and provide out-of-the-box support for over 300 different flash memory parts from all the leading suppliers. Linux is finding its way into more devices such as smart phones, automotive infotainment, and industrial equipment which require both responsiveness and 100% data reliability.

“With the growth in adoption of Linux for data-intensive embedded devices, OEMs need a flash file system that better supports their reliability and performance requirements.” said Roy Sherrill, Datalight CEO. “By supporting the most recent kernel versions of Linux we’re filling that gap in the market with a robust, commercial-grade solution backed by our reputation for responsive, high-quality support.”

FlashFX Tera supports the full range of flash technologies including NAND, NOR, and MLC NAND flash in a single driver. Its patented wear-leveling and bad block management extend the useful life of devices using flash. While FlashFX Tera can be used with virtually any file system, pairing it with Reliance Nitro provides an optimized data storage software stack to simplify system development.

FlashFX Tera 1.2 and Reliance Nitro 1.2 are available immediately from Datalight and the Datalight worldwide network of channel partners. Please visit us at http://www.datalight.com/partners/worldwide-sales-partners to find a reseller near you.

The Reliance family of file systems and FlashFX family of flash media managers comprise the Datalight flash file system solution. Reliance was designed from the ground up for high reliability applications. Dynamic Transaction Point™ technology gives developers full control over performance and data protection characteristics, protecting users from file system corruption, even after unexpected system interruption. Embedded applications can benefit from faster boot times that remain consistent for the life of the product, regardless of disk size. FlashFX™ Tera features pre-written support for over 300 flash parts, works with virtually any NAND controller, and features wear leveling, bad block management, and background compaction for unrivaled performance.

For information, contact:
Kerri McConnell, Director of Marketing
425.686.1069
kerri.mcconnell@datalight.com

About Datalight

Datalight, Inc. headquartered just north of Seattle, Wash., develops technologies to enable risk-free mobile data. Datalight file system and device driver software ensures reliability, performance and flexibility, and is used worldwide on many of today’s most well-known devices. For more information, visit http://www.datalight.com/, call 800.221.6630 or visit blog at http://blog.datalight.com

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DATALIGHT, Datalight, the Datalight Logo, FlashFX, FlashFX Pro, FlashFX Tera, Reliance, Reliance Nitro, ROM-DOS, One-Boot, One-Boot+File, and Sockets are trademarks or registered trademarks of Datalight, Inc. All other product names are trademarks of their respective holders. Specification and price change privileges reserved.

Reliability on Windows CE 6.0

michele — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:48:23 +0000

Watch Rob Hart demonstrating the Datalight flash file system on the Beagle Board with Windows CE 6.0

Reliance Nitro Makes an Impact

michele — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:55:04 +0000

Last week one of our customers sent the following evaluation report in an email to Datalight support staff:

“Right now we are in the process of testing the impact of Reliance Nitro in our application. Apparently, we noticed some boost in the performance: faster write speed, significant speed increase of transaction point creation, faster read speed, and significantly faster directory read (we typically have 1000 files in the directory). So, in conclusion, the overall performance of the system is boosted quite significantly.”

Another real world example of how Reliance Nitro boosts performance in directories with a large number of files. To learn how Reliance Nitro does it, check out the whitepaper.

Reliance and Reliance Nitro

michele — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:26:46 +0000

Ever since we announced our high performance file system Reliance Nitro, we have been getting questions on how it compares to the original Reliance file system. Below is a quick-reference table noting some of the differences between the two. For a more detailed comparison (including performance benchmarks), please contact us.

Attributes	Reliance	Reliance Nitro	Recommendation
High performance on large number of files (100+)		√	If your device stores a large number of files in a single directory, Nitro will perform much faster than Reliance.
High performance on large files		√	Nitro’s extent based design allows it to perform faster on larger files. For sake of this comparison, files can be considered large if they are 10+ times the block size of the device
Frequent transaction points		√	Nitro introduces a new structure called Delta transactions which speed up the time taken to conduct transaction points. Depending on how often you conduct transactions points, Nitro can provide significant advantage
Random I/O performance most critical	√	√	Reliance’s block based design provides an advantage on random I/O on small files. On large files both Reliance and Nitro perform equally well on this metric
Sequential I/O performance most critical		√	Nitro outperforms Reliance on sequential I/O due to its extent based design
Support for Windows Mobile		√	FlashFX Pro 4.0 for Windows Mobile enables a new discard interface that allows Nitro to have much faster write speeds on flash memory
File-size limit	32-bit	64-bit	Nitro uses 64-bit variables for file size limits allowing for very large file sizes.
Read-only version	√		Reliance currently provides a read-only version called Reliance Reader. Nitro currently does not provide a reader application – this is scheduled for v2

I HEART Reliance Nitro

michele — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:51:29 +0000

With the release of our new file system this week, Reliance Nitro, we asked our Account Managers what they liked most about our new product. Their answers of course included reliability and high performance. Wes Johns and Phillip Allison were so excited they decided to make a video… watch the youtube video

Reliance Nitro Demo Video

michele — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:04:36 +0000

We’re totally psyched about Reliance Nitro, our newest file system (yes, we’re file geeks), and we’re always on the lookout for opportunities to show off the performance and reliability attributes it adds to Windows Mobile and Windows CE. When we discovered the relatively-new Beagle Board, it occurred to us that a small, low-cost platform might be just the thing to demonstrate Nitro’s amazing benefits. As you’ve probably heard, the Beagle is making waves with its low cost (around $150) and diminutive size. It uses an OMAP 3530 processor and 256MB of NAND. Though they are most commonly used with Linux, we lucked out in having a partner (MPC Data) who has already developed a Windows CE BSP for it. After a few phone calls, the wizards at MPC Data were able to develop a slick video playback demo app, and presto, the Reliance Nitro Beagle Demo was born! Amateur videographers that we are (ok, REALLY amateur), we recently videotaped John Burnham, who has been working on this project on the Datalight side (and who is a really good sport, btw) showing what happens when power is interrupted during a file write and the extra reliability factor of Reliance Nitro on Windows CE. Be sure to check it out here.

File System Tuning using Dynamic Transaction Point Technology

michele — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:27:45 +0000

Datalight Reliance includes unique technology called Dynamic Transaction Point ™ which provides the flexibility and control device manufacturers need to tune the performance of their device. It enables multiple configurations that can run simultaneously to provide scenario-specific performance optimization. To highlight this technology, we have added a section to Datalight’s website to describe some common embedded devices and the corresponding file system tuning attributes for each of them

www.datalight.com/filesystemtuning

Why Raw NAND Flash with Hardware-based ECC is the Way to Go

michele — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:21:14 +0000

5 Reasons for Ditching Managed NAND
Everyone knows that NAND has challenges: from factory bad blocks and spontaneous bit failures to endurance limits, etc. That’s why a few years ago managed NAND (NAND flash plus an integrated controller) seemed to be the answer, offering the density of raw NAND, while mitigating many of its inherent limitations. What many device manufacturers may not realize is that the management hardware comes with significant costs, both in terms of dollars per part as well as design limitations. In the world of tradeoffs in which every system designer lives, there are solid technical reasons to consider using raw NAND and leaving the management to software instead. While there are clear commercial advantages for Datalight (as a provider of vendor-neutral software-based flash management) to advocate this approach, we also believe that there are strong technical reasons that flash silicon vendors would do well to embed ECC capabilities into their NAND flash devices rather than relying on ‘total hardware’ solutions such as eMMC or other complex and costly controllers. Beyond the benefits outline below, this approach would allow the flash manufacturers the ability to continue to differentiate their products from others in the industry.

1. Cost
The cost of managed NAND parts is coming down, but the stuff still sells at a premium over its raw NAND brethren.

2. Flash Optimization
There are many new features of NAND available to us today. Performance features such as cached reads, multi-plane operations, concurrency, and others are becoming invaluable to keep performance at the ever-increasing demands of portable media. The Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) has defined a standard method to query the capabilities and characteristics of NAND flash which can be put to use by both software and hardware systems. A software media manager offers the flexibility to take advantage of the most current flash memory features and put them to use efficiently, or to avoid certain features that may be unproven or problematic. A software solution will allow a developer to take full advantage of the media’s characteristics and features unburdened by the indirection or inability for the hardware to expose them.

3. Visibility/Flexibility
Software (in general) is easily inspected and validated. Features such as wear-leveling move data around the flash device to optimize its life expectancy. Without the ability to inspect source code, a managed NAND solution makes it difficult to validate wear-leveling operation and/or characterize its effect on performance and reliability. Hardware implementations are often generalized to suit a majority of use cases, while a software solution is easily tailored to the specific use case during development.

4. Performance
Speaking of use cases, there are many system features that are not available to hardware that may make a generalized hardware solution less advantageous to a specific use case. For example, system idle time can be used to improve the media performance by scheduling background cache operations and compaction to occur then. Coordination between the file system and flash media manager can further optimize operations by freeing space when it will no longer be needed and having the media manager code cache certain regions of the flash where meta data might be held. Migrating flash management features to hardware removes this ability to coordinate with other components of the software stack, such as file systems.

5. Reliability
Lest you think we believe that everything is better left to software, consider error detection and correction (EDC). Error rates are increasing substantially as flash manufacturers push the limits of physics. Errors can be introduced externally by heat or other radiation, during writes or reads of data, and even to data that was successfully written at a different time. Historically SLC NAND flash required only a single bit error detection and correction (a hamming code is usually sufficient), while MLC parts require minimally four bit EDC. As the die sizes continue to shrink, error rates will continue to increase, even for SLC flash.
Calculating the codes to detect and correct such errors is getting increasingly complex and solving such a solution in software for higher-bit EDCs (above 4-bit) is time consuming and often unacceptably slow. Hardware ECC is a necessary requirement for systems with high EDC requirements and where performance is a concern.

Many of the processors on the market today are incorporating EDC in their NAND controllers. Choosing one of these processors (e.g. TI OMAP 35xx) in combination with raw NAND flash and software management can give you the high-performance EDC to handle next generation flash while maintaining the design flexibility that a software manager provides.

Flash manufacturers have much to gain by adding ECC code into their NAND flash parts. They know better than anyone what kind of ECC is necessary for a specific part and by adding just that one piece of hardware to their offerings, rather than the jack of all trades, master of none approach of complete flash management, they will better serve the markets.

In short, features should reside where they can be handled most efficiently; ECCs belong in hardware, other flash management functions belong in software. While managed NAND certainly has its place and its appeal in the market, we believe the best combination of value, performance and flexibility lies in using a combination of raw NAND and hardware with built-in ECC capabilities.

Migrating from mDOC: Options, Challenges and Benefits

MayurKamat — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:42:07 +0000

SanDisk recently announced that it is end-of-lifing several flash parts in the mDOC family and OEMs who were using these parts in their devices are now looking at viable alternatives. In order to help these affected customers make informed decision, we have published a new whitepaper on options for migrating from Sandisk mDOC flash family.

The paper is available at http://www.datalight.com/mdocwhitepaper/