Understanding SandForce's SF-1200 & SF-1500, Not All Drives are Equal
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 16, 2010 11:30 AM ESTWhere Do We Go From Here?
Corsair is under no obligation to ship drives with the 3.0.5 firmware. Assuming there are no other problems with the 3.0.1 firmware, Corsair could presumably keep shipping the higher performing OCZ-like firmware. The problem is that if you ever need to upgrade your firmware, you could lose performance.
As I've mentioned in the past, customers of whatever company or companies work closest with the controller manufacturer will undoubtedly get access to firmware quicker than anyone else. We've seen this work both in favor of and against the best interests of the consumer. Sometimes you get features/performance early (e.g. TRIM support for Indilinx drives) and other times you get early, untested firmware. Your best bet at this point is to hold off on any SF-1200 purchases unless you're willing to accept the risks that comes with.
The case isn’t closed on this issue however, not by a long shot. It’s my understanding that the SandForce/OCZ exclusivity agreement is currently only a short term agreement. While the companies are in the process of negotiating a long term agreement, nothing is final yet.
There are some measures in place to ensure that you can’t flash an OCZ firmware on a non-OCZ drive (and vice versa) but there’s nothing saying that at some point this won’t change either.
We also don’t know what the real world impact of the standard SF-1200 firmware will be. I’m hoping to have a standard SF-1200 drive with production firmware very soon and I will report my findings as soon as possible.
I’ve also communicated to SandForce that this should have never happened. It was well aware that there would be a performance difference between the Vertex 2 and all other SF-1200 drives, and there’s absolutely no reason any company other than OCZ should have had 3.0.1 with that exclusivity agreement in place. It’s simply not right to give your partners performance that you know for a fact will later be taken away. SandForce indicated to me that everyone was aware that performance could change between firmware revisions, but in my opinion this is still not being totally transparent. The moment a review based on Corsair’s Force drive went live, SandForce should’ve had a discussion with Corsair and the reviewer. We weren’t the first to review the Force drive, but it wasn’t until after our review went live that SandForce contacted us.
SandForce is a very young company and this just sounds like a bad case of partner mismanagement. Thankfully there haven’t been that many SF-1200 drives sold, but if you’re considering one you have to keep in mind that you could see performance drop in one metric with a firmware update. Note that the drive will still perform as specified, the SF-1200 controller is only rated for 10,000 sustained 4K random write IOPS.
There’s also the issue of SSD makers shipping drives based on firmware that’s not MP ready. I’ve established a more direct line with SandForce so I’ll at least be made aware of what firmware is ready for shipping and what isn’t. I’ll also be putting more pressure on manufacturers to only ship MP ready firmware. Let this serve as a warning to SSD manufacturers. I haven't been keeping close tabs on shipping firmware revisions since I never recommend any brand new, unproven SSD controller. But clearly I'm going to have to start docking points for not following controller manufacturer guidance. This stuff is serious guys, you're playing with our data here - I can't stress that enough.
As I keep mentioning in my coverage of SandForce and any other new SSDs, if you jump on board you’re assuming a risk. These drives and controllers are largely unproven. While I’m doing my best to put them through their paces, I can’t test every system combination. On top of that, many of these companies are newcomers to the industry and as an early adopter, you might find yourself in the middle of a situation like this.
This is unfolding in real time so I’ll keep you posted as I come across any new developments.
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_Q_ - Saturday, April 17, 2010 - link
Sorry for being a little off-topic (still SSD though)...Are there any news on when is the Indilinx JetStream going to be released in some drive from any vendor?
Cause as far as I know, this was initially going to be out in end of 2009, then there was a delay... but no further info that I could find more recently.
Thanks for any help.
1921Photoelectric - Saturday, April 17, 2010 - link
What this says to me, companies will re-write firmware to get the competitive edge. Also it will spur on hacked firmware to get the most out of the drive and than don't forget cross flashing, being blocked or not it will be circumnavigated. Been doing that with cd\dvd burners for quite some time. The one big downturn in this is, unscrupulous relabeling of the controller chip. This use to happen with CPU's a lot before Intel and AMD started locking the chips.Movieman420 - Saturday, April 17, 2010 - link
SandForce is the sole FW coder...;)shawkie - Saturday, April 17, 2010 - link
I've just posted a comment on the previous article on this subject but I thought it might be worth repeating it here. I've taken a look at the source code for the 2008 build of IOMeter and I don't think it should be trusted to produce realistic benchmarks for SandForce drives. The problem is that the data written to the disk is not sufficiently random and as a result will be very highly compressed by the SandForce controller.velis - Monday, April 19, 2010 - link
I think this deliberate FW throttling is a load of c**p.Sandforce is hurting its own sales by doing this. While before I liked what was said about these controllers, now I only see a deliberately crippled *and* overpriced chip. IMHO this is just as bad a business practice as when Intel decided to lock processor multipliers. With an unimportant exception that Intel could certainly afford it as they were more or less a monopoly then as they are now. SF on the other hand is a startup...
It doesn't really matter that real life performance won't be affected much by this. It's the thought that counts!
They should offer a really good explanation for this throttling or give their customers something in return (an extra SF-1200 only feature). As it is, hacked FW will be all over the net, assuming of course that anyone will be buying these drives at all.
ToeCutter - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
I couldn't agree more. Artificially reducing performance just fails the smell test.And while the performance numbers look impressive, the usable capacity numbers don't.
Oh well, looks like the Intel SSDs are the only reliable game in town.
It has been kinda nice not having to worry about which SSD to buy for the past couple of quarters?
Sometimes it seems that choice, just for the sake of choice, can be a pain in the ass more times than not!
lemonadesoda - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
"Your best bet at this point is to hold off on any SF-1200 purchases unless you're willing to accept the risks that comes with."I agree with you 100%. But I'm sure SandForce never realised that inviting you to their meeting would result in you discovering their mismanagement of firmware, specs and partner relationships.
Not so sure they will be inviting you again. At least, not before you sign some "right to review copy" NDA or somthing. LOL ;)
ToeCutter - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
I'd like to extend a hearty "THANKS!" to Anand for demonstrating his values on this topic. As a storage engineer working for a reputable vendor, I understand first hand how much pressure can be exerted on engineers to "overlook" certain aspects of a products behavior.I can say, with a degree of pride, that I've always played it straight with my customers, even when hurt. And they rewarded me for maintaining my credibility with repeat business and friendship, which is so much more important to me than making a few extra bucks.
Kudos to Anand for keeping everyone honest. While it might seem like "geek drama" to the uninitiated, Anand said it when he explained to these vendors that "this is serious, it's our DATA"!
Well done, Mr. Shimpi.
Hrel - Saturday, May 8, 2010 - link
Basically, SSD's aren' ready for the mainstream yet, there's apparently a LOT of stuff that needs to be worked out before that can happen, not to mention the insane cost per GB. Also, when are people gonna really start making a fuss about companies "artificially" reducing performance. Like disabling cores that are fully functional then selling the CPU at a lower price. The sale price of a product should be based on what it costs to make, I shouldn't have to pay a premium for a chip just because some features aren't locked. Intel does this all the time and it seriously pisses me off. What's the physical difference between an E8400 and and E8600? nothing! They're just clocked different yet one costs more than the other even though they cost the same to make. Same thing with GPU's. It's maddening!TheRealAnalogkid - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
Kudos to Anand and his journalistic talent (not a term frequently used online) to not only discover but to expose this.I've read his site for many years and this is one of the best articles I've seen. Keep up the good work.