Internals Continued

Once we remove the PCB from the bottom of the case, we note that the PCB does not rest directly on the surface of the case. There is a gap between the PCB and the bottom of the case as well. This allows the entire case to be injected with silicone gel, which will encapsulate the PCB and all vital components. This protects it from any type of water or dust hazards.

There is also the option of silicone, urethane or polymer conformal coating to round out the various forms of protecting the internals and the external case itself.

The rear of the PCB holds eight packages of Micron 25nm SLC NAND. The NAND, 29F128G08AJAAA, reveals that this is asynchronous NAND. SLC is utilized because of not only its excellent wear characteristics, it can withstand 100,000 P/E cycles compared to 5,000 cycles from premium MLC, but also the performance in high heat conditions. SLC has much better data retention performance at higher temperatures, along with lower bit error rates and superb latency. For this capacity of drive, it could tolerate a rough estimate of 35 Petabytes in transfers.

Finally, we get to the front of the PCB, which contains the Indilinx Barefoot controller. This controller, utilized for years now, is as stable as they come. Most commercial and enterprise SSDs released today are obsolete within a year. For the Militarized segment, the design and testing phase alone for these SSDs takes roughly a year. This approach guarantees 100% reliability.

The choice to use a SSD controller with such low specifications might be surprising to many. The key here is the reliability.

In the militarized and industrial segments performance takes a back seat to reliability. Lives can literally be on the line so it is crucial for the SSD to have reliable and predictable performance. Coupling this controller with SLC is going to provide for more than enough speed for its application in deployments.

Blue BGA underfill surrounds both the Indillinx controller and the 64MB cache chip. This allows for a higher resistance to shock and temperature changes over the life of the device than solder alone can provide. This underfill adds additional rigidity to ensure the solder points do not fatigue significantly, limiting the risk of additional failure. For further protection, there is also the option for each component to have staking applied.