Innodisk iRetention

The flash memory represents a non-volatile memory (Non-Volatile Memory). It means that data remain on the solid state drive (SSD) even in the absence of a power supply. However some factors can lead to loss or aging of data.

High temperature and frequent accomplishment of cycles of rewriting can have a strong negative impact on integrity of data. Each cell a flash memory stores the negative charge representing binary value (for example, 01, 10, etc.). These cells usually well hold such charge, however from time to time there can be partial leaks. In this case hardware function of error correction (ECC) usually effectively reveals a similar problem and eliminates it.

Under the influence of high temperatures the number of such leaks significantly increases. As show results of testing, degree of safety of data in standard the flash memory of MLC decreases by 168 times at temperature increase from +40 °C to +85 °C. It means, for example, that failures in processes of preserving and data reading, instead of normal 2 years, will begin in 5 days. This problem will be aggravated, also due to increase in cycles of rewriting. Thus, the SSD disks used at adverse conditions of operation with frequent cycles of rewriting of record are especially vulnerable.

The Innodisk company in the spring of 2018 released iRetention technology which solves the aforesaid problem with the help of optimization of a program code and the built-in temperature sensor. On the basis of the analysis of the current temperature and number of a cycle of rewriting calculation of that how often to update data is made. These all processes are executed by a SSD disk independently with the subsequent self-adapting to changes of the environment.

The iRetention technology is suitable for the devices which are affected by extreme temperatures and to sharp temperature drops. SSD with this technology can be applied on transport, automation, the space and defense industries, etc.