If there is something that both SONY and NVIDIA have made sure that users know is the fact that they have or will have (depending on the case) a system that they have called as unified memory . In the case of SONY it is implemented by its new generation PS5 and in the case of NVIDIA, although it is only a rumor, it is said that it will arrive with Ampere through a feature called NVCache . Will this wear down our SSD at a higher speed?
It looks like the future of gaming is going to be in so-called “unified memory,” at least according to SONY and NVIDIA . But although we know some of its benefits for this technology, little is said about the cons as such, especially due to the fact that SSDs write at increasingly higher speeds, and durability does not advance at the same rate.
Unified memory, a technology that has not been seen yet and much less proven
We do not speak of course of business units, but of desktop or consumption level. Today’s products in NVMe SSDs are quite durable, but unified memory technology can change the perception of data that manufacturers supply us.
This has set off alarms for many users, where using our SSD as a cache tool between GDDR6 and system RAM in true Intel Optane style could reduce the useful life of our disk, right?
The system seems to work as an extreme pagination for certain files in particular where it is the GPU that can dispose of the system RAM or the SSD as an extension of its capacity for the GDDR6, that is, it is a more advanced RAMCache . We say it seems, because at the moment there is not a single test of such a system on the market.
SONY says it includes it on its PS5, but there are no tangible samples or data to claim that feature, and NVIDIA only seems to have tested it internally on their Ampere GPUs, but how would it theoretically work? Does it influence the life of the SSD?
Will PC and console SSDs endure everyday use for years?
In case we had not noticed, the degradation of an SSD does not occur in reading, but in writing, so the useful life of the SSD will depend on how this technology works and how much the writing takes precedence over the reading.
The idea of both companies seems to go through a DMA system that is directly connected to PCIe, something that is believed necessary to alleviate the high latency of using unified memory, where VRAM will delegate to RAM and SSD pieces of information that it cannot work or be widely accessible to the CPU.
What is attempted is that the access times are negligible, so the SSD is the best positioned here due to the speed of its cells in changing state. Although we take it for granted that you will have to write to the solid state device, the question kit is how much each system will do.
NVIDIA and SONY are going to prevail the readings for obvious reasons, but the writings will be there and they are really the ones that will tell us how much percentage of life the SSD will have. If it is used as an extension of VRAM, then we are talking about premature wear and tear of the storage system as such, but if it is used as an information exchanger then it should not be a TBW-per-year problem .
Everything is really in the air due to the lack of information, the approach of both technologies is the one that will decide if, indeed, there is a lot of wear and tear on each SSD, or if on the contrary it is a more or less normal use of it with the consequent deterioration usual.