A breakthrough in solid state drive processing means current drives can be boosted 300 per cent faster with 60 per cent better energy efficiency.
Current flash drives can't overwrite data on the same memory area. That means data must be written in a new area before the old is invalidated. The result is fragmented data on the memory. A Japanese research team at Chuo University has cracked the problem for drastically faster write speeds and lower power consumption.
The team has overcome the issue by changing the middleware that controls storage for database applications. The new method uses a "logical block address scrambler" which basically stops data being written to a new page and places it in a block to be erased in the next sweep. That means fewer pages, less copying and ultimately a better drive.
Current NAND flash drives can be adapted to work in this way meaning 55 per cent fewer write and erase cycles, extending the device's life. Since the changes are so small but have such a huge effect we'd expect to see them appear very soon.
Join the Prediction League 
