Samsung acquires SSD caching software developer Nvelo

[Jos]

Samsung has announced the acquisition of Santa Clara, California based Nvelo. The latter has been operating for two years and is a leading vendor of caching software, with solid-state drive manufacturers OCZ Technology, Corsair and Crucial all bundling its Dataplex software with their products.

Dataplex is designed to increase the performance of the system it’s installed on by using 'intelligent caching algorithms' that monitor the way you use your applications and data. In a nutshell, it caches frequently-used 'hot' data on a traditional hard drive to the SSD, allowing fast read and write performance combined with the high storage capacity of HDDs, all without user interaction or training. In our tests, aside from some installation issues that were later ironed out, we’ve found it an excellent job of enhancing system performance without you knowing it’s even there.

Financial terms of the deal and other specifics were kept under wraps, although the South Korean firm did confirm that all technology and staff at Nvelo will be transferred to Samsung. It’s unclear if Dataplex will continue to be available to other SSD vendors or become exclusive to Samsung products.

“The acquisition of Nvelo will enable us to extend our ability to provide SSD related storage solutions to customers. We are pleased with this transaction as the employees of Nvelo share our vision to take SSD storage into the next-generation of performance and reliability,” said Young-Hyun Jun, executive VP of flash product and technology for Samsung’s device solutions business.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/51108-samsung-acquires-ssd-caching-software-developer-nvelo.html

 

[Guest]

Still don't really see the point in SSD-caching. You can buy a small-ish SSD for a decent price nowadays, install your OS and main programs on that, then have a regular HDD for all of your other data. All of the benefits, with none of the drawbacks, compared to a cache drive which relies on having a warm-up time the first time something is loaded. And the whole point of having an SSD is to make things load quickly.

 

[Guest]

Yep, you don't really understand SSD caching. It have it installed and it is here to stay. Performance is amazing and at a much lower cost point. Apple is doing it with Fusion Drive, Intel has it with SRT, UltraBooks are shipping with it, now Samsung ... This is the new frontier in storage technology.

 

[Guest]

Actually, SSDs are the new frontier. Caching is not. Using an SSD as a cache drive is an interim solution to the problem, while people wait for SSDs to become cheap enough per GB that they can fully replace their HDD. But that argument's validity is dwindling, as the price of decently sized SSDs continue to drop. And if the cost of having an SSD drive for the OS/programs and a normal HDD for data is comparable, then why you would use a cache? It isn't saving much money, doesn't get you as much performance, and it still relies on you having two different drives inside the device, so can't be argued that it saves you or manufacturers space either.
So... no. Caching isn't that great (anymore). Yeah of course it will be a great improvement over just a standard HDD, but why have less performance when you can have more, when it actually costs you very little more.

 

[ahamling27]

Actually, mechanical hard drives aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Sure an all SSD world would be great, but it's just not feasable yet, or anytime soon. It might take 10-20 years but I'd bet that they'll still be selling mechanical hard drives after that.

But, a mechanical hard-drive with some SSD cache will always outperform a mechanical hard drive. It's very common for people to have terabytes worth of data these days, and SSD's aren't even close to being ready to fill that gap. Why would you want something like your movie or music collection on an SSD anyway? Hard drives, especially in raid-0 can sustain 200 MB/s, that seems quick enough for me, and I've got an SSD for my boot drive and frequently used software/games.

I think we'll see more hybrid, cached, mechanical drives that will perform just as well as SSD really soon. Apple's Fusion Drive is just that, it stores everthing on the SSD first, so there is no "warm up" time.

SSD's are still pricey, sure they've come down a lot, but price per GB is still incredibly more expensive.

 

[Guest]

I never said or meant imply you would ever need to store movies or alike on an SSD. In fact, that was exactly my point. The ONLY things of any real significance you would really want to install on an SSD are your OS and the main applications you use fairly regularly. And SSDs are cheap enough now that it's affordable for people to do that. And if you can do that, why cache?

Caching movie files is pointless (how many times you gonna watch the same movie in a row?), caching song files is pointless (they're too tiny to incur significant load times), caching pictures is pintless (same reason as songs), games is largely pointless (unless you're playing small games which won't fill the cache drive [in which case you don't need to cache them since their small size would allow them to load quickly anyway], or you pay for a large cache drive [thereby not saving you any money], or you only play one game ever [in which case you could probably squeeze it onto an SSD anyway]). So what's left that is useful to cache? OS files that get used fairly frequently, and your main programs.

But having just made clear that there are perfectly affordable SSDs out there which can hold the OS and programs on its own, with better performance than caching, and just dump the 'raw' data onto an HDD, why cache?

I consider myself a techy person, I work in a software engineering profession, I know a lot of techy people, and have a lot of techy friends. NONE of them would or have chosen to waste their time with a cache drive. It's all SSD + HDD combo. (Just trying to give my argument some validity here).

 

[Guest]

One advantage is price - it's in the middle on the price/performance curve, between pure hdd and sdd+hdd combo

another advantage is automation and flexibility - you don't have to think hard what to put on ssd and what to put on hdd, system makes that decision for you

 

[captaincranky]

Still don't really see the point in SSD-caching. You can buy a small-ish SSD for a decent price nowadays, install your OS and main programs on that, then have a regular HDD for all of your other data

IMO, 256GB is entry level for a system drive. That allows you to work from the desktop with large files, such as camera SD & Flash cards, store temporary images, and such.

The 5xx series Intels seem to be the only ones, "guaranteed" not to blue screen because of firmware/ controller issues. (Yeah, I know there's plenty of room for debate there).

With that said, a "small, cheap, SSD", (64, 80, or 120GB), really isn't going to cut it with the size of Windows and program installations these days.

So, with the 256GB Intel 520(?), you're in for about $230.00 min.

Then too, with each of my yearly, "Christmas present to myself builds", the capacity of the system drive has increased each year also

Not being prone to being obsessed with, or bragging about boot times, I just sprang for a 600GB Velociraptor @ "The Egg", for a buck ten, to use as a system drive. I'm sure that will keep me amused for quite a while.

I consider myself a techy person, I work in a software engineering profession, I know a lot of techy people, and have a lot of techy friends. NONE of them would or have chosen to waste their time with a cache drive. It's all SSD + HDD combo. (Just trying to give my argument some validity here).

Although I'm a HDD, (system), HDD, (storage), person, I agree with the need to have at least two drives in the system. And that's from the moment it's built. I avoid using ANY Windows" user" folders whatsoever.

You'd think that would make me an ideal candidate for SSD. But oddly, (and again), I don't feel the need for a 10 second boot time to make me feel good about myself.

...[ ]....another advantage is automation and flexibility - you don't have to think hard what to put on ssd and what to put on hdd, system makes that decision for you

Once upon a time, computers were expressly for people who enjoyed "thinking hard". Then came Apple and ruined everything for that elite.

But seriously dude, if you have that much trouble with decisions, there are deeper issues in play.