Silicon Power

SMART & SP Toolbox

About SMART

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology; written as SMART)

SMART is a system for the monitoring and early detection of errors on Flash storage media such as SSDs. Because NAND flash is a semiconductor that operates through movement of electrons, the architecture of NAND sets a limit on write endurance.

The write endurance, and therefore the lifetime of an SSD, can be accurately estimated. The estimation can be done using SMART attributes, which provide various indicators of drive health and reliability.

Factors for SSD Endurance

SSD Endurance is estimated by Total Bytes Written (TBW) and Drive Writes per Day (DWPD). Equations for the two factors are as follows:

Total Bytes Written (TBW) = (Physical capacity x NAND P/E cycles) / (Write Amplification Factor x Wear Leveling Factor)

Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) = (Total Bytes Written in GB/Usable capacity in GB) / (Warranty in # of Years x 365)

Specifically developed for our industrial Flash products, SP SMART Toolbox is an intuitive utility application with a range of powerful features. This application provides all the tools needed for users to easily change settings and efficiently monitor product health.

All of SP Industrial’s SSDs with assumption Wear Leveling factor=2 to calculate TBW and show health and usage via SP SMART Toolbox.

SP SMART Toolbox also shows the details of SMART Attributes for further offline analysis.

Linux command line version is also available per customer’s request.