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5.5 Power Failure Management

Power Failure Management plays a crucial role when power supply becomes unstable. Power

disruption may occur when users are storing data into the SSD, leading to instability in the drive.

However, with Power Failure Management, a firmware protection mechanism will be activated to scan

pages and blocks once power is resumed. Valid data will be transferred to new blocks for merging

and the mapping table will be rebuilt. Therefore, data reliability can be reinforced, preventing damage

to data stored in the NAND Flash.

5.6 TRIM

TRIM is a feature which helps improve the read/write performance and speed of solid-state drives

(SSD). Unlike hard disk drives (HDD), SSDs are not able to overwrite existing data, so the available

space gradually becomes smaller with each use. With the TRIM command, the operating system can

inform the SSD which blocks of data are no longer in use and can be removed permanently. Thus, the

SSD will perform the erase action, which prevents unused data from occupying blocks all the time.

5.7 Over-Provisioning

Over-Provisioning (OP) is a certain portion of the SSD capacity exclusively for increasing Garbage

Collection (GC) efficiency, especially when the SSD is filled to full capacity or performs a heavy

mixed-random workload. OP has the advantages of providing extended life expectancy, reliable data

integrity, and high sustained write performance.

5.8 Hyper Cache Technology

Apacer proprietary Hyper Cache technology uses a portion of the available capacity as SLC (1bit-per-

cell) NAND flash memory, called Hyper cache mode. When data is written to SSD, the firmware will

direct the data to Hyper Cache mode, providing excellent performance to handle various scenarios in

industrial use.

5.9 SMART Read RefreshTM

Apacer’s SMART Read Refresh plays a proactive role in avoiding read disturb errors from occurring to

ensure health status of all blocks of NAND flash. Developed for read-intensive applications in

particular, SMART Read Refresh is employed to make sure that during read operations, when the

read operation threshold is reached, the data is refreshed by re-writing it to a different block for

subsequent use.

5.10 NVMe Secure Erase

NVMe Secure Erase is an NVMe drive sanitize command currently embedded in most of the storage

drives. Defined in NVMe specifications, NVMe Secure Erase is part of Format NVM command that

allows storage drives to erase all user data areas. The erase process usually runs on the firmware

level as most of the NVMe-based storage media currently in the market are built-in with this command.

NVMe Secure Erase can securely wipe out the user data in the drive and protects it from malicious

attack.