New technology emerges from Silicon Motion, the FerriSSD®. FerriSSD is designed for a wide range of embedded applications requiring faster access, small form factor and reliable SATA/PATA storage. By combining industry proven controller technologies, NAND flash and passive components into a single BGA package with 1.0mm ball-pitch size, FerriSSD simplifies design, reduces time-to-market while protecting from NAND technology migration concerns. FerriSSD also comes with advanced firmware features as well as the provision for customized firmware. Speed-wise FerriSSD is comparable with 5,200 RPM hard disk drive.
Silicon Motion believes their new FerriSSD can fit into: Vehicles, Servers, Medical Devices, Industrial Handheld Devices, Multi-function printers, Gaming consoles, Surveillance, POSs, Test Instruments, etc.
FerriSSD features technologies such as:
- Plug & Play (only requires format prior to use)
- Small footprint for space-limited design
- Rugged & Reliable Design (no moving parts)
- Supports self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology commands (S.M.A.R.T.)
- Field programmable firmware available
With AES it supports AES-256bit full disk encryption with Secured Password Protection it can also instantly delete all data by push of a button! It has a hardware data flush pin to trigger data flush during sudden power failure. From the data retrieval perspective in case firmware breaks data will likely remain inaccessible? It is not clear at this point did Silicon Motion placed techno pads (like JTAG pins) on this package or not. Although SM uses an Advanced Field FW Update Runtime or remote firmware update it is not clear what will happen to data if firmware gets corrupted!?
FerriSSD has build-in temperature sensor to monitor the SSD temperature for heat throttling and SSD protection handling and intelligent background garbage collection for optimal performance.
Great technology if there is a backdoor for data recovery purposes.
