There is already a succesor for the SSD:

CAM to be the next big thing after SSD?

We just started to see the power of the SSD, and they already started working on a new medium that will be a thousand times as quick, more responsive and will consume less power than the current SSD. It is likely that it will take some time before this new medium will become mainstream, but that it will be coming sooner or later is a fact. This is if the news that is released about these so-called CAM chips is based on the truth. The chips are considered to be the next big thing after SSD.

CAM stands for Content Addressable Memory and has a read speed that is comparable to today’s internal memory chips eg DDR memory. There is also one big advantage in comparison with standard RAM memory, the chips no longer need power running through the memory to save the data. This technique makes it possible to use them as a fast storage medium. The CAM system only needs to be powered when you want to change file system, reading data doesn’t require any energy of the chip making it ideal for use in laptops like the MacBook Air.

NEC and Japan’s Tohoku University develop the CAM system. Later this week they will be showing their latest results in a presentation.

via http://www.yourdailymac.net/2011/06/cam-to-be-the-next-big-thing-after-ssd/

I read CAM memory will be cheaper than SSD on the German CHIP newspaper. they presented it a year ago, will see when comes to the market..

Unfortunately I have not technically very thorough knowledge on the subject, I have to believe what the newspapers write. They make for every smallness the new imminent big thing.

Find a way to store in deinococcus radiodurans matrix... 500 million years!

Interesting SSD endurance test

We started with six SSDs: the Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, Intel 335 Series 240GB, Samsung 840 Series 250GB, Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, and two Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB. They all exceeded their endurance specifications early on, successfully writing hundreds of terabytes without issue. That's a heck of a lot of data, and certainly more than most folks will write in the lifetimes of their drives.

The casualties didn't die in vain. They showed little performance slowdown toward the ends of their lives, suggesting SSDs can keep up the pace until the very end. And they showed us that drives can expire in different ways. The Intel 335 Series checked out voluntarily, at a predetermined cycle limit, while the Kingston HyperX 3K tried to squeeze every last drop out of the flash. Both provided ample warning of their demise and enough headroom for users to back up their data.

The Samsung 840 Series died suddenly, but the writing had been on the wall for a while in the form of mounting block failures. Some of those failures may have been responsible for the uncorrectable errors that struck during the drive's life. The 840 Series' error correction apparently wasn't strong enough to overcome a few hurdles, albeit ones that didn't arise until after hundreds of terabytes of writes.

Given our limited sample size, I wouldn't read too much into exactly how many writes each drive handled. The more important takeaway is that all of the SSDs, including the 840 Series, performed flawlessly through hundreds of terabytes. A typical consumer won't write anything close to that much data over the useful life of a drive.

http://techreport.com/review/26523/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-casualties-on-the-way-to-a-petabyte

News are not very good

TLC memory with tiny amount of writing cycles and overall resource is winning.

You can see 60% or greater drop in read speeds. Expect to see this issue back in the news when samsung releases a second firmware/software "fix" and it does not improve the issue. There will be large public outcry.

Well, it is first bird. I think it is EVO as Samsung use defective chips (with mapped out bad parts) for it to keep margins good.

If you’re in a panic because the Internet told you that your shiny new SSD may lose data in “just a few days” when stored in a hot room, take a chill pill—it’s apparently all a huge misunderstanding, according to the man who wrote the original presentation all the fear is based on.

In a conversation with Kent Smith of Seagate and Alvin Cox, the Seagate engineer who wrote the presentation that set the Internet abuzz, PCWorld was told we’re all just reading it wrong.

“People have misunderstood the data that they’re looking at,” Smith said.

Cox agreed saying there’s no reason to fret.

“I wouldn’t worry about (losing data),” Cox told PCWorld. “This all pertains to end of life. As a consumer, an SSD product or even a flash product is never going to get to the point where it’s temperature-dependent on retaining the data.”

For the rest of the artice, go to: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

Btw state of flash memory actually improved, as 3D TLC cells are significantly larger compared to planar TLC.

But QLC follows soon

Toshiba announced the world’s first QLC — quadruple-level cell — 4-bit flash memory in a 3D flash device.

QLC allows even greater storage capacity by dividing each cell into 16 charge levels for four bits of data in each cell. For a while, it looked like reaching that level from TLC would be difficult; the level of precision in manufacturing needed to be able to accurately differentiate between charge levels increases exponentially. But Toshiba has pulled it off for its latest 3D NAND memory, which features 64-layer stacked QLC cells.

The QLC method allowed to reach 768 gigabit die capacity, a dramatic improvement over the earlier 512 gigabit TLC dies. New QLC dies can be stacked in a 16-die package to create a single chip device with 1.5TB of storage.

Interesting things:

First is electrons per one level difference (SLC has two levels, MLC - 4, etc)

As you can see in 8nm and QLC memory it becomes one electron :-)

So, industry actually required 3D

QLC 3D NAND coming

Micron Technology and Intel announced joint production and shipments of industry's first 4bits/cell 3D NAND technology. Leveraging a proven 64-layer structure, the new 4bits/cell NAND technology achieves one terabit (Tb) density per die.

"With introduction of 64-layer 4bits/cell NAND technology, we are achieving 33% higher array density compared to TLC, which enables us to produce the first commercially available 1 terabit die in the history of semiconductors".

Theyannounced development progress on the third-generation 96-tier 3D NAND structure, providing a 50% increase in layers. Both NAND technology advancements - the 64-layer QLC and 96-layer TLC technologies - utilize CMOS under the array (CuA) technology to reduce die sizes and deliver improved performance when compared to competitive approaches.

Micron slides about 96 layer memory and their 4th gen chips

Speed is not so bad

Check more - https://www.anandtech.com/show/12944/next-gen-storage-we-found-a-prototype-4-tb-intel-qlc-ssd-500-cycles

Chipmakers are encountering low manufacturing yield rates of 3D 4bits/cell (QLC) NAND chips, and substandard chips due to the poor QLC NAND yields may cause disruption to the market and further confusion in the memory pricing during the first half of 2019, according to industry sources

At least some delay.