What is write cycle? - Definition from Whatis.com

Definition

write cycle

A write cycle is the process of recording data on a NAND flash solid state storage device. Write cycles are also called program/erase (P/E) cycles.

Once flash solid state storage media has reached a steady state, blocks of unnecessary data are erased automatically when new data is written. This clean-up process, which makes room for new data, is called garbage collection. Because garbage collection is invisible to the end user and cannot be suppressed, the erase operation is dropped from every day speech and the cycle is simply identified as a “write cycle.”

There are a finite number of NAND flash write cycles.

Related glossary terms: solid state drive (SSD) capacity, stand-alone solid state storage (SSS), solid state module (SSM), RAM-based solid state drive (SSD), client solid state drive (SSD), queue depth, flash cache appliance, floating gate, tunnel injection, solid-state storage

This was last updated in January 2012

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