Wikipedia:Peer review/Write amplification/archive1

Write amplification

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I am working toward FA status if at all possible. We brought this article to GA status last year and have made a few additional improvements since then. I would appreciate any feedback or comments that other editors think we need to do to make it through a FA review.

Thanks, § Music Sorter § (talk) 01:31, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

 Doing... --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Resolved comments

In the second paragraph of Basic SSD operation, it would be helpful to give a rough estimate of the maximum number of P/E cycles on a typical device. Are we talking hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Brazillions?  Done - Added data to the paragraph. Why does Calculating the value use the future tense? Wikipedia ain't no time machine, bro.  Done - Good catch. Fixed. "On the theoretical side, the simplest formula..." This implies that there are more complicated formulas. What are they?  Done "Once every block of an SSD has been written one time, the SSD controller will need to return to some of the initial blocks which no longer have current data (also called stale blocks). The data in these blocks were replaced with newly written blocks and now they are waiting to be erased so that new data can be written into them." These sentences gets a gold medal in the Most Inconsistent Tense competition. Present perfect "has been written", future "will need", passive preterite "were replaced", and present progressive "are waiting". Ya'll need to pick a consistent time frame for discussing garbage collection.  Done - Rewrote section to simplify. The two paragraphs were actually trying to say similar things. Let me know if it makes more sense now. It does! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:39, 18 August 2011 (UTC) "All SSDs include some level of garbage collection. The only question is when and how fast it will operate." Our goal is to build an encyclopedia, not a children's story. Suggested rephrasing: "All SSDs include some level of garbage collection, though the frequency and speed at which it operates varies widely." or something like that.  Done - Rewritten. "If the data in some of the pages of the block are no longer needed, all of the other pages with good data in that block must be read and re-written into newly erased blocks." This sentence seems to have been written under the assumption that the SSD has already been filled, which may not always be the case. I suggest replacing "newly erased blocks" with "empty blocks" or "available blocks".  Done - Rewritten. "The result is that the data is rewritten to another location in the Flash memory increasing the write amplification and at some point the host will tell the controller to delete that data (or TRIM it)." Perhaps this would be obvious to someone with more knowledge of memory systems, but how is the second part of this sentence relevant? I suggest either shortening to "The result is that the data is rewritten to another location in the Flash memory, thereby increasing the write amplification." or adding a bit more explanation of how TRIM relates to WA.  Done - Rewritten. See if that helps. § Music Sorter § (talk) 06:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• In the second paragraph of the lead, I have literally no idea what the numbers 1 and 0.5 refer to. Obviously there is some sort of metric for quantifying write amplification, but what kind of metric is this? Could be a percentage of some total, a ratio, or a totally arbitrary scale. Whatever the system is, it should not be used in the article until it has been fully explained.

 Done - Good catch. Intro sentence modified to better define the term. Let me know if that helps.

So write amplification is a phenomenon that represents a ratio...? I think there's too much going on the first sentence now. I've rearranged the content with this edit; let me know what you think. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:39, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that edit results in a better description. I think you had a very good initial comment that the intro sentence does not explain what it is. Moving the clarification of it being a ratio to the second paragraph is too far away. I disagree that the edit I made had too much going on, but if you feel strongly about that I recommend we move something else from the first paragraph. Maybe we need to break it into two paragraphs, or keep the ratio in the first sentence and lets move the "undesirable phenomenon" to another spot further down. § Music Sorter § (talk) 06:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The first sentence of any article should answer the general question "What is this thing?", which I believe is adequately answered with or without the ratio information. The ratio stuff answers the question "How is this thing measured?" which, although important, does not stand out in my mind as something that needs to be shoved into the first sentence. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

• Why is Over-provisioning included in this article? It seems clear to me that this is an entirely separate topic that should have its own article. While I haven't read through the entire article yet, it seems that there are several sections that are only tangentially related to WA. I think some of these could be consolidated to paragraphs under the Factors that affect the value heading.

 Done - Oops. I did not realize I left out the description of the connection to Write Amplification. § Music Sorter § (talk) 06:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The additional stuff definitely helps to clarify the relevance of the topic, but it still seems like there is a lot of superfluous detail that would be better suited to a separate article. The second paragraph in particular ("The first level of over-provisioning...") seems to be unnecessarily specific for this article. Surely there must be enough information that is specific to over-provisioning that it can stand as its own article, yes? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Let me know if you find these types of comments helpful. I would be happy to continue reviewing the article. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:01, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

This is great feedback. Having written much of this myself, I recognize I cannot see the forest for the trees. I believe your fresh perspective is adding great value and I would love to get more feedback. Having reviewed a number of articles for others in the past I recognize the significant time it takes to provide this feedback and I really appreciate it. Also let me know if you ever need any feedback on any articles and I would be happy to help. § Music Sorter § (talk) 06:16, 17 August 2011 (UTC)