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The NAND Flash Summit in Santa Clara started off on the right foot today with a pre-session lecture package by none other than Chuck Sobey entitled ‘An Introduction to SSDs’. Chuck spoke to a sold out audience and, prior to commencing the lecture, asked all to introduce themselves in an effort to identify the level of knowledge of the room. I was absolutely floored when many of these introductions identified, not only high level executives from some very prominent companies, but also, architects, engineers and implementation managers from many companies all to familiar in the SSD world as we see it today, many having flown all too many hours to attend the lecture and Summit. What a great opportunity to establish contacts!
Understanding that solid state drives are somewhat foreign to many attending the conference, coupled with many who were there to hone their expertise on SSDs, it was great to see Chuck start at the most basic level and build step by step in a very understandable fashion. To add to this, he encouraged the expertise of the forum in order to allow an environment of participation which allowed a very clear understanding to all.
A great example of this was seen in the explanation of the difference between a cached SSD versus that of a SSD alone as we would see it ultrabooks today. Key members of SSD companies, as well as companies promoting SSD caching, were utilized by Chuck to provide a complete answer that, quite frankly, could not be equaled in any other forum short of the FMS Expert Sessions, not accessible by many at the NAND Flash Summit. All in all, Chucks largest challenge was keeping the lecture at a level understandable to all, and moderating the evolving discussion found in many of the questions and I have to say, he pulled it off very well. The Introduction To SSDs FMS pre-session lecture was able to provide a solid state knowledge much higher than anyone would have expected. Great lecture Chuck and great start Flash Memory Summit!