Silicon Motion SM2256 with Toshiba TLC A19 Flash SSD
This may be one of the longest previews you’ve read and it will certainly be the longest I’ve ever wrote. Today, we have one circuit board sporting two new significant parts. Solid state drives are made up of a controller, NAND flash and little bits and pieces that are not as fun to talk about.
The controller is a bridge from your motherboard to the flash. It plays a significant role in the SSD since, as the name implies, it controls everything going in and out, as well as keeping your data safe. The R&D board we are using today has a fresh controller from Silicon Motion (SM2256) that was just publicly announced a few days ago. We’ll cover the new SM2256 in detail on the following page.