SanDisk CEO says Vista "not optimized" for SSDs

SSDs have been quite the hot topic of late, with conflicting power usage reports and free-falling (almost) prices being the two angles most commonly yapped about. Now, however, we have a completely different reason to mention 'em in passing, as SanDisk's dutiful CEO let loose some questionable comments during its Q2 2008 earnings call. Noting that Windows Vista would present unique challenges for SSD manufacturers, he stated that "as soon as you get into Vista applications, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk." Furthermore, he proclaimed that the "next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls," and finished things up by asserting that "SSD performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs." It seems all those statements were just used to deflect blame for it being behind schedule, but we're a bit curious about how it intends on defending said statements with real-world numbers. Hmm?

[Neeko @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:06AM]

What an assclown. Iv never heard any complaints from consumers that Vista isnt optimized for SSD.

STFU and let you engineering dept handle the development.

[shawnmos @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:14AM]

I agree. Yet another hardware manufacturer trying to blame their shortcomings on Vista.

[LondonConsultant @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:23AM]

Vista isn't optimised for HDDs either! LOL...

[NNTPgrip @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:42AM]

Vista is optimized for two things, the latest in DRM and case studies in how to change an interface to take more clicks to do less.

[Blackstar @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:57AM]

No, Vista just isn't optimized for anything.

[Reid @ Jul 22nd 2008 10:57AM]

LOL @ London!!!

[kccboy2004 @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:44AM]

Wow, what a load of crap comments below and above.

Using the same logic as Apple afficionado's:

Why should Microsoft optimise its OS for the HDD that make up a TINY (Nanoscule) proportion of the market. Microsoft, unlike the protectionistic policy of Apple does not go as far as Apple in dictating exactly what hardware its software should run on.

Does Sandisk say that Apple is optimised for SSD's ? I think frickin' not. But lets wait until Tom tests these claims out (which they will). BE CAREFUL Apple afficionado's, you girls are gonna have to stick with your statements, coz if Tom comes back with the conclusion that OSX isn't optimised for SSD's, since Apple ACTUALLY prescribes and makes the hardware OSX is to be run on, then you girls will look really stupid, coz that conclusion will show that Apple screwed up.

Microsoft just makes the tires for the vehicle. You decide which vehivcles to put the tires on.

You girls are on shakey ground.

[Tony @ Jul 22nd 2008 12:52PM]

@ kccboy

Tom's Hardware has an excellent reptutation around the internet. But am I the only one who finds it ironic, that you based your whole argument about SDD's on Tom's when their last SDD test was debunked as false.

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 22nd 2008 3:05PM]

Yes, because we all know you are the expert.

[Aaron @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:07AM]

He may be talking about the very old, outdated way the Windows uses to work with a swap file. It writes all over the drive (if you look at the sector mapping) which causes activity in many of the flash cells. This is quite slow for SSDs and causes premature cell wear.

[Mike10010100 @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:29AM]

It may not make sense to write all over the drive in an SSD, but for an HDD, it makes perfect sense. Why waste all that time waiting for the platter to swing around again just to add another bit of data on the same area. Instead, just put the data wherever the head is on the platter at that given point in time.

You can't blame Microsoft. for the 4 (more?) years they were working on Vista, SSDs seemed far off and in the future. Windows 7 maybe will be able to detect whether or not it's on an SSD and format accordingly.

[PeterF @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:37AM]

get lots of ram and turn off the pagefile!

[Joe @ Jul 22nd 2008 2:15PM]

That's not how SSDs and flash memory work. Both ensure that writes are balanced throughout the entire memory space. You can't write to what you think is the same spot of memory over and over and think it will wear it out.

[nikster @ Jul 22nd 2008 10:55PM]

@peterf you can't turn off the page file, it totally kills performance. I read an explanation somewhere too but it's rather technical and involved so the details escape me. It's not as simple as "this is just like RAM only on the hard drive", as one would think. There's a lot more to it.

As an aside, I found it very annoying that Vista constantly rattled away on my HD. On a notebook, that can't be good for battery life. I got rid of it now, back to XP - at least I know what it's doing most of the time.

[BobTurbo @ Jul 23rd 2008 12:16AM]

"You can't blame Microsoft"

The hell I can't. If they didn't design an OS that handled the VERY likely scenario that SSDs could be popular during Vistas lifetime, they are a bunch of incompetent fools.

Of course.. this will all probably be debunked a few posts down right?

[r3loaded @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:07AM]

His statements seem to be notably short on details. How exactly does he mean by "Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk". And what are the "Vista shortfalls" with regard to flash memory?

[Leerlaufprozess @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:43AM]

As far as I know SSDs can handle big amounts of data better when it comes in one chunk and not in small pieces. So if your OS is constantly writing small changes to the disk you probably won't take advantage of the SSDs speed. (Just afaik).

I would like to know which OS is optimized for flash memory. OS X obviously isn't either if you look at the speed "advantage" of an SSD over the normal HDD in the MBA.

[Balam Herrera @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:07AM]

Vista is crap. No need to defend anything.

(yes, im an apple fan boy. and proud of it)

[Luigi193 @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:43AM]

I am too an Apple Fan, but your comment has been...

VOTED DOWN

[thatrotierkid @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:45AM]

admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery

now you need to believe in a higher power

[Aaron @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:08AM]

He may be talking about the very old, outdated way the Windows uses to work with a swap file. It writes all over the drive (if you look at the sector mapping) which causes activity in many of the flash cells. This is quite slow for SSDs and causes premature cell wear.

[Traycer @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:35AM]

How is Vista's VM outdated in terms of disk I/O? Swap file vs swap partition? Every major OS today uses some sort of disk-backed VM, so the CEO's comment should apply to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised to see tuning parameters appear to cluster or limit write I/O when an SSD is detected. There's probably already something like that in the Linux kernel.

I'm eagerly anticipating the Core OCZ or new Ridata SSD's to show up at the local computer shops so I can see how well my "non-optimized" Vista laptop will perform with one.

[Lein @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:10AM]

Sounds like bullshit to me, what with OCZ's Core SSD performing nearly at the level of 10,000 RPM hard-disk drives.

[MadMike @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:12AM]

Vista is not optimized for shit.
(no I am _not_ an apple fanboy)

[CanisMinor @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:45AM]

Why would you optimize anything for "shit", other than a toilet?

[MadMike @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:59AM]

Hahaha funny. However, this should be under the CEO Oh No category.

You do not optimize hardware to work on software. You build the hardware to optimize tasks and then the software should be optimized to run on the hardware. It's not up to the hardware makers to fix Microsoft's faults. Microsoft released a software product that was substandard and wrought with problems. Surprise, Surprise. It took 7 years for XP to get as stable as it is now, and that's not a compliment.

CEO's need to start to STFU and get back to work. Not about to have Moores law broken because some CEO decided to talk out his ass more than actually getting frigging work done.

[Nate @ Jul 22nd 2008 2:31PM]

Vista has great power management for laptop users. Balanced power management for CPU is pretty impressive.

[SSS @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:22AM]

Vista is not optimized for anything much less functioning as an OS...It is Windows ME all over again.

[Chris Macdonald @ Jul 22nd 2008 12:25PM]

that joke wasn't even funny the first time.

[Andrew @ Jul 22nd 2008 1:02PM]

Yes, it WAS funny the first time. Predictable, but funny.

[Chris Macdonald @ Jul 22nd 2008 1:08PM]

Was it really? okay then i guess i was wrong.

[Decoy @ Jul 22nd 2008 6:12PM]

Mobile ME is the new target.

[Fred @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:22AM]

AFAIK, Vista (or -any- OS) just talks to the SATA controller. It really doesn't care if there's platters, SSD's, punchcards or a monkey and a roll of papyrus behind that controller. It's up to the controller to deal with the attached hardware.

That, and the lack of actual numbers, substituted by wild claims, makes me call BS.

[zargon @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:30AM]

No, there is a lot more to the picture that you can't see.

One example is the file system. Why is it that Windows based file systems need to be defragged, yet other more advanced file systems (ext2, ext3, resier, xfs, etc...) do not. The way the data is stored on the drive can be a very big factor on performance.

[tcc3 @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:30AM]

Ahh the good ole days of Monkey/Papyrus disk arrays.

[Fred @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:39AM]

@Zargon: since we're dealing with SSD here (where data can be read instantly no matter where on the drive it is), there is no need to defrag, regardless of the filesystem. So I fail to see what that has to do with anything.

[zargon @ Jul 22nd 2008 10:18AM]

If you would actually read what you post, you mention that OS's just talks to the controller, you didn't specifically mention anything about SSD other than it being one device it can be talked to. The point is that there is a lot more than your narrow explaination of the OS just talking to the controller, one example is file systems. It is just not the controller to deal with the drive, it is in fact also the OS.

[Fred @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:04AM]

"It is just not the controller to deal with the drive, it is in fact also the OS."

Sorry, but you're simply wrong. The OS doesn't deal with the drive. It deals with the controller. The file system determines how the OS writes the files to the disk... -through the controller-.

"The point is that there is a lot more than your narrow explaination of the OS just talking to the controller, one example is file systems."

No, file systems are not that one example. The fact that NTFS fragments is irrelevant because fragmentation doesn't have negative consequences on SSD. So what are the other many examples? List a few.

[kevin.gilchrist @ Jul 22nd 2008 4:35PM]

@Zargon. What you describe is only relevant to platter based media.
For every disk read, the magnetic head must move to the right spot on the platter.
Optimally the the data to be read is all close together which is why defragging is useful. Different filesystems organize data differently some better some worse, all with trade-offs depending on file sizes, how often read/write etc.

This does not apply to solid state memory. The cost to read one memory location is the same to read another. There is no machinery that needs repositioning.

[traycer @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:29AM]

In fact, none of the mainstream OS's are "optimized for SSD's"... it isn't just Vista. Most SSD's tend to perform well only with larger block sizes for writes, for instance. You might also want to consolidate your write I/O's to an SSD, something that was never an issue with traditional hard drives.

@Balam: I would argue that OS X is similarly ill-suited for an SSD. You know how OS X and HFS+ automatically defrags files? Wait, you're a fanboy, so you don't concern yourself with technical details like that. Anyway, there is a lot of writing going on in the background under OS X, to keep files defragged. That's a great way to run down the limited number of write cycles your SSD memory cells can handle before failing.

Too bad the CEO also did not concern himself with any actual technical details. Are we talking about performance problems, or wear levelling issues? I suspect he is just throwing out a red herring to draw the spotlight away from deficiencies in SanDisk's SSD products.

[Ray-- @ Jul 22nd 2008 1:18PM]

its trendy to blame Vista these days... get with the program man!

for instance:
"the app could have been done by now if it weren't for Vista!"
"our graphics card would be *really* fast if it weren't for Vista!"
"my comments would be a lot funnier if it weren't for Vista!"

and so on....

[gcc @ Jul 22nd 2008 2:07PM]

This really isn't rocket science. The guy is right, Vista isn't optimized for SSDs and isn't likely to be in the near future, because NTFS was written with normal drives in mind. Things like journaling and a huge emphasis on locality of reference make geat sense on a traditional drive, but are just terrible ideas when your number of writes is very limited. Most Linux distros offer you options like ext2, which is not a journaling FS, and setting the noatime option, which reduces the number of writes by not writing file modification times. Both of these help to extend the life expectency of SSDs, but the thing these makers are really waiting for is for a FS that distributes writes as evenly as possible across the disk, and locality of reference be damned.

[OneLove @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:34AM]

everyone's an expert.

[MEAT! @ Jul 22nd 2008 10:06AM]

+1. That's exactly what I was thinking.

Does anyone here even know what the fuck they're talking about? The challenge against Vista is a technical one (perhaps from a credible source), and we need to know the technical details in order to come down on one side or the other.

Broad allegations like, 'well, all OSes aren't optimized for SSDs,' or 'it doesn't matter to the OS--it's the job of the SATA controller,' are absolutely worthless without proof. This is not another thread where hearsay can pass for valid argument.

[Josh L @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:37AM]

@both of you

Did you guys just stumble in here by accident or what?

This is a tech forum. A lot of people here ARE experts: we work in the IT field with this sort of hardware/software interaction every day.

And since you are so worried about solid facts instead of 'hearsay', where is Mr. CEO's facts? He didn't provide any specifics, just throwing out vague allegations. Like others have said here, this smacks more of a red herring attempt to divert attention from his company's problematic products than any real, educated assessment of OS/hardware interaction backed by real evidence.

[Mike10010100 @ Jul 24th 2008 12:14PM]

Amen, JoshL.

A lot of people are experts in the field, or (like me) wish to become one in the near future. It is very interesting to see which people are right and which are wrong in this sort of situation, because when someone is wrong, they will be debunked by someone who knows his stuff so fast that their keyboard will fry.

This kind of knowledge you can't learn from a classroom, as you are gleaning other people's experience as well as knowledge.

[Galley @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:34AM]

Vista: not optimized for use by human use

[PeterF @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:42AM]

Gallery: Apple fanboy

[Mark Anderson @ Jul 22nd 2008 3:57PM]

@Galley

How would you know? You're a bloody snake.

[andres @ Jul 22nd 2008 4:50PM]

@ mark
snake?! snaaaaake?!?! snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!!!!!!