Hybrid Hard Disk And ReadyDrive™ Technology: Improving Performance And Power For Windows Vista Mobile PCs

1. Hybrid Hard Disk AndReadyDrive™ Technology: Improving Performance And Power For Windows Vista Mobile PCs Ruston PanabakerArchitectWindows Hardware Innovation Group

2. Session Goals • Attendees should leave this sessionwith the following • An understanding of the Hybrid Hard Disk technology benefits to the end user • An understanding of the configuration control for the H-HDD including OEM benefits such as pinning applications • PC system design considerations whenusing Hybrid Hard Disks

3. Focus on Mobile HDD • Mobile PCs growing rapidly (20-30%) • Top Mobile PC User Concerns • Performance • Battery life • HDD consumes 8-10% of power in a laptop • HDD seek latencies create PC performance bottleneck

4. Windows PC Accelerators Reducing the mobile HDD performance impact Windows ReadyDriveTM Windows SuperFetchTM Windows ReadyBoostTM • Use available main memory more effectively • Optimized based on user behavior • More main system memory is better in Vista to avoid memory pressure and disk contention • Use Flash devices to cache additional memory pages • Optimized based on user behavior • Enhances system performance during memory pressure • Use Hybrid Hard Disks to save power, increase reliability and performance • Optimized based on user behavior • Enhances system performance during disk contention

5. What Is A Hybrid Hard Disk (H-HDD)? DRAMCache All disks havea DRAM cache ATA Interface NVCache A H-HDD also hasa non-volatile cache

6. Hybrid Disk Drive Benefits Disk comes ready in less than 1 second Up to 90% Power Saving when powered down DRAMCache Read and Write instantly while spindle stopped ATA Interface NVCache Read instantly even while spindle spinning for higher IO rate

7. Windows ReadyDrive™ • Technology in Windows Vista which usesH-HDD hardware to deliver user benefits • Performance • Faster boot and Resume from Hibernate • Faster and more consistent application launch • Reduced disk contention • Saves battery power • Increased system ruggedness and reliability • Works with all SKUs of Windows Vista onany Hybrid Hard Disk enhanced for Windows ReadyDrive

8. Windows Vista OS DRAM ATAController Motherboard NV Cache Hard DiskController Hybrid Hard Disk Boot And Resume • During shutdown or hibernate all the disk sectors needed to boot or resume are pinned into the NV cache • On next power on the BIOS POST runs and the disk is powered on but the spindle won’t be ready for 2-4 seconds • BIOS can read data from the NV cache and all boot process IO can be read from the NV Cache • Once the rotating media is ready IO can be satisfied by both NV Cache and rotating media for optimized read performance 2.5” HDD

9. ReadyDriveTM System Startup • Hybrid HDD comes ready faster and fast BIOS POST reads from disk earlier • LBAs needed to start boot process are read fromNV Cache before the magnetic spindle is ready • No seek times for data in NV Cache for the remainder of startup BIOS andDisk spin-up Std HDD Read disk Hybrid HDD Read NV Cache Read disk and NV Cache time

10. Standard HDD CPU is underutilized during much of boot while waiting for IO Many small sequential read IOs early in boot using BIOS driver resultin high IO/s Read IOs During most of boot the IO/s and resulting data rate is quite low Write IOs Typical max IO/s

11. Prototype H-HDD CPU is kept much busier throughout boot with higher IO rate Eliminating seeks by satisfying IO from the NV Cache allows for much higher IO/s Typical max IO/s Read IOs Write IOs

12. Standard HDD Read IOs Write IOs

13. Prototype H-HDD Read IOs Write IOs

14. Standard HDD Shows when processes are started and stopped as boot progresses Additional processesstart in future For example, note LogonUI.exe start time with std HDD

15. Prototype H-HDD H-HDD handles the random IO created by many services issuing IO much better then std HDD LogonUI.exe started much earlier withH-HDD system

16. Windows Vista OS DRAM ATA Controller Motherboard NV Cache Hard Disk Controller Power Saving Mode • SuperFetch buffers disk data in system DRAM to fulfill reads • Write IOs buffered in NV cache while disk is spun down • Disk spins up only when • Read cache miss • NV cache full • The disk spins-down and continues to use the NV cache 2.5” HDD

17. Power Savings • Depends on usage and ability to reduce reads/writes to the platter • More RAM is better • More NV Cache is better • Less user activity is better

19. Power Savings Examples Active Use Example: 1.5W HDD spun-up 0.5W HDD spun-down 15W typical laptop Spun down 60% of time 4% battery saved or 12min on 5 hour battery Idle Example: 1.3W HDD spun-up 0.3W HDD spun-down 8W typical laptop Spun down 95% of time 12% battery saved or 36 min on 5 hour battery

20. NV Cache Power ModeAnd Power Policies

21. Increased RuggednessAnd Reliability • Ruggedness • When drive is spun down it is much more resilient to damageThe resulting behavior of a hybrid hard disk is to write less data with fewer seeks to the magnetic platter with a reduced duty cycle and should increase the MTBF of the HDD • Reliability • Lower operating temperature and key component use could lead to significantly better mean time before failure • Warranty and support savings could potentially cover some or all of the cost of NV Cache

22. OEM Pinning For Faster Application Launch • Offsets within files and/or specific LBAs can be specified by the PC OEM in registry for pinning in the NV Cache • Consistently fast Windows HotStartTM experiences • Consistently fast application launching • Only supported when sufficient NVCache size is available

23. System Design for ReadyDriveTM • Only requirement is H-HDD enhanced for ReadyDriveTM • Optional: BIOS should exit POST rapidly • Fast memory check • Fast Chipset initialization • Fast Video initialization • Initialize HDD early • Recommended Main memory – 1GB • More main memory or Windows ReadyBoostTM device will allow drive to stay spun-down longer

24. H-HDD Considerations NV Cache Size • 50 MB minimum supported NV Cache size for Windows Vista • 120-256 MB currently recommended as minimum to get significant performance and power savings benefits • Greater than 100MB required for OEM pinned data Min Max OEM pinned data,or Superfetch pinned data Boot, Resume,Power Savings 2048GB 50 MB 0 100 MB 240 MB 1GB 2GB 4GB

25. H-HDD ConsiderationsPerformance • Performance gains in Windows are nearly linearwith NV Cache performance gains! • Minimum Read/Write IO throughput Minimum Read/Write IO latency

26. ReadyDriveTM Futures • Larger NV Cache sizes for the same cost • Enables new scenarios • Faster NV Cache access and throughput • NAND Flash interface performance doubling every year • Directly translates into Windows performance • Additional form factors • 1.8”, 3.5”

27. WinHEC Partners

28. Call To Action • Determine if H-HDD is appealing solution for your products • Contact HDD vendors for roadmaps, samples and product information • Experiment with pinning your own applications using Windows Vista betas • Contactwith any questions MSHybrid @ microsoft.com

29. Questions?

30. Performance: What do users see? Slow state transitions Boot, hibernate, resume Increased disk access under memory pressure Reduces performance Program launch can be slow Cold memory Competing I/O

31. © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.