Early SSDs
Solid-state drives originated in the 1950s with two similar technologies, magnetic core memory and Charged Capacitor Read-Only Storage (CCROS), an early form of read-only memory. These supporting forms of storage appeared in the era of electron tube computers, but were then abandoned by the advent of less expensive drum storage.
In the 1970s and 1980s, SSDs were implemented in semiconductor memories of the early supercomputers from IBM, Amdahl and Cray, but were rarely used due to their very high price. In the late 1970s, General Instruments introduced Electrically Alterable ROM (EAROM, another form of read-only memory), which had close similarities to later NAND flash technology. However, since the lifespan of this memory was less than ten years, the technology was abandoned by many companies. In 1976, Dataram started selling a product called Bulk Core, which delivered up to 2 MB of solid-state memory compatible with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Data-General (DG) computers. In 1978, Texas Memory Systems introduced a 16-kilobyte RAM solid-state drive to be used by oil production companies to record seismic data. The following year (1979), StorageTek developed the first RAM solid-state drive.
The Sharp PC-5000, introduced in 1983, used 128-kilobyte solid-state cartridges that used magnetic bubble memory. In 1984, Tallgrass Technologies Corporation introduced a 40-MB backup unit with an integrated 20-MB SSD that could alternatively be used as a disk drive. In September 1986, Santa Clara Systems announced the BatRam: a 4 MB mass storage system that could be expanded up to 20 MB. The system included rechargeable batteries to provide power to the chip when the power supply was interrupted. In 1987, EMC Corporation installed SSDs in mini-computers for the first time, but discontinued this development in 1993.
flash-based SSDs
In 1983, the Psion MC 400 Mobile Computer shipped with four slots for removable memory in the form of flash-based solid-state disks. These slots were of the same type used on the Psion Series 3 for flash memory cards. These modules had the major disadvantage that they had to be formatted each time in order to free memory from deleted or modified files. Old versions of files that were deleted or edited continued to take up memory until the module was formatted.
In 1991, SanDisk introduced a 20MB solid-state drive that sold for $1000. In 1995, M-Systems introduced for the first time a flash-based solid-state drive that did not require batteries to retain data. However, it was not as fast as DRAM-based solutions. From that point on, SSDs were successfully used as HDD replacements by military and aerospace organizations.
In 1999, BiTMICRO introduced several products in the field of flash-based SSDs, including an 18 GB 3.5-inch SSD. In 2007, Fusion-io introduced a PCIe-based SSD with a performance of 100,000 IOPS in a single card with a capacity of up to 320 GB. In 2009, OCZ Technology unveiled a flash SSD at Cebit that had a maximum write speed of 654 MB/s and a maximum read speed of 712 MB/s with a capacity of one terabyte (using a PCIe-x8 interface). In December of the same year, Micron Technology announced an SSD that would use a 6 Gigabit SATA interface.
enterprise flash memory
Enterprise flash drives (EFDs) are designed for applications that require high IOPS performance, reliability and efficiency. In most cases, an EFD is an SSD with a richer set of specifications compared to a standard SSD. The term was first used by EMC in January 2008 to identify SSD vendors that provided products with these higher standards. However, there are no standards or rules that distinguish EFDs from SSDs, which is why in principle any manufacturer can state that they produce EFDs.
In 2012, Intel introduced the SSD DC S3700 - an EFD designed to deliver consistent performance. This field had previously received little attention.
