Solid State Disks Limited to Supply NATO

Solid State Disks Limited (SSDL) is to supply the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force (NAEW&CF) with health monitoring software for use with its new solid-state-based removable media assemblies (RMAs) that are being used on its Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft.

SSDL is a designer and a manufacturer of form-fit-function replacements for obsolete storage devices. The company supply modern memory products for industrial and harsh environment applications.

Whereas the original AWACS RMAs used electromechanical HDDs, that were more than 20 years old and no longer produced, the new RMAs (supplied by SSDL) use removable NAND-based CFast cards for storage.

“Although solid-state memory is inherently more reliable than rotating disk technology it will eventually fail, largely as a result of memory wear,” comments Brian McSloy, CTO, SSDL. “Specifically, NAND memory will only support a finite number of Program-Erase, or PE, cycles.”

The software to be supplied to NAEW&CF is Windows-based and will monitor the number of PE cycles executed as well as the number of remaining spare blocks. These contribute to an overall percentage, with 100% denoting healthiest.

Card health is also denoted through a colour scheme the software’s GUI uses, with green indicating healthiest. As the card’s remaining life shortens the GUI’s colour changes, with amber reflecting wear but that no immediate action is required. Red indicates that the monitoring frequency should be increased and that a replacement card procured. Black warns the user that the card has either failed or is about to.

“Helping prolong the life of the CFast cards is the fact that they employ single-level cell NAND Flash technology,” adds McSloy. “This means up to 100,000 Program-Erase cycles should be possible. The cards we supply err on the side of caution though and we state up to 60,000 PE cycles. However, for important applications it is wise not to be overly reliant on theoretical or even advised PE cycle limits, and our software enables users to retire wearing cards in plenty of time.”

The CFast health monitoring software developed by SSDL builds on self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology (SMART) that was developed for computer HDDs in the 1980s, and which was subsequently expanded to cater for SSDs and their failure modes.

“The monitoring software we developed for NATO provides a view into the health of the solid-state memory that the operator never had with their old HDD-based RMAs,” concludes McSloy, “Also, our software can be repurposed and made user-bespoke for many other high security applications in which solid-state memory is relied upon.”

SSDL is to supply the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force with CFast memory card health monitoring software for use with its new removable media assemblies, as used on its AWACS aircraft

SSDL is to supply the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force with CFast memory card health monitoring software for use with its new removable media assemblies (RMAs), as used on its AWACS aircraft. The card will be ejected from an RMA (above) and placed in a card reader connected to a laptop running SSDL’s health monitoring software. Health will then be indicated as a percentage of remaining life and a colour coding scheme.