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SSD controllers are just ASICs. I'm not sure why you want to go from a chip tailored for a specific task to a general purpose one that already has way too much
by Sakos 3y ago
SSD controllers are just ASICs. I'm not sure why you want to go from a chip tailored for a specific task to a general purpose one that already has way too much on its plate. Then there's things like latency and how the controller abstracts away the details of how an SSD works internally. All that complexity doesn't go away by putting it on your CPU. You're just moving it from one place to another for no benefit, and adding other complexities.
Could ask the same thing about all the extra silicon in GPUs that adds hardware acceleration for video encoding/decoding.
- jeffbee 3y agoThe point of doing it in software on the host kernel would be to allow the flash layer and the filesystem to co-evolve, instead of being agnostic at best and antagonistic at worst.
- Sakos 3y agoWho's going to write the code for it? Microsoft? Does every manufacturer write their own kernel-level driver? What happens to Linux/Unix? I don't want any of these manufacturers anywhere near the kernel, or even doing any more in software than they already do. Samsung isn't exactly known for code quality. This is a fantasy with questionable benefits at best that don't outweigh the downsides.
- jeffbee 3y ago> Microsoft? Yes. That seems ideal to me. Microsoft, Apple, open source contributors. Today what you have is a closed-source translation layer written by the kinds of people who write PC BIOSes, i.e. the biggest idiots in the software industry. I would be much happier with an OS vendor flash storage stack. For all I know, I am already using something like that from Apple. And I assure you that large-scale server builders like Amazon and Google are already doing it this way.
- mistrial9 3y agocalling those layers of people idiots is doing them a favor, excusing the de facto practices as being simply dumb. The truth includes a different layer, the business of business, who pays, who gets to do what. Booting your own hardware is the subject, and the actors there are not the ones that come to mind, thinking of consumer advocacy. The largest companies have other alignments that are not often discussed openly.
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- zokier 3y ago> don't want any of these manufacturers anywhere near the kernel, or even doing any more in software than they already do. Samsung isn't exactly known for code quality. That seems such a bizarre take. You think it's better that the crappy code is given to you as blackbox firmware with no oversight rather than in the open written to kernels quality standard where it can at least hypothetically be improved?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]