AMD Drops StoreMI Software; Developing New Software for Later This Quarter
by Ryan Smith on April 6, 2020 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Hybrid Drive
- StoreMI
In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, AMD quietly dropped distribution and support for the company’s StoreMI software at the start of this month. The technology, launched back in 2018, was AMD’s answer to Apple’s Fusion Drive and other hybrid drive programs that allow a SSD and a HDD to be merged into a single logical volume. However it looks like AMD has decided to take a different direction with their hybrid drive efforts, as the company has dropped the software in favor of another program that’s expected to be launched this quarter.
In a product change advisory published to their website last month (but only noticed recently), AMD announced that they would be halting the distribution of and support for the StoreMI software. The software itself would continue to work, but starting March 31st, but AMD wouldn’t be providing the means for any new installations after that date, nor would they be providing support.
A relatively clean break like this is rather uncommon for most CPU vendor software, but given what we know about StoreMI, it’s not too surprising. StoreMi came out of an existing relationship between AMD and Enmotus, a software developer who had already created their similar FuzeDrive software that AMD was, for a time, recommending for use with their systems. So while it’s ultimately an internal matter for AMD, it looks like the company has decided to wrap up their relationship with Enmotus – which would mean that AMD would no longer have the rights to distribute the software.
In its place, the PCA reveals that the company is “focus[ing] its internal development resources on a replacement solution,” which is set to be released this quarter. The fact that AMD is explicitly noting the use of “internal” resources, in turn, strongly suggests that whatever the company is working on, it’s an in-house solution rather than a licensed solution like StoreMi. Which means AMD has presumably started from scratch here, but it would also be a lot cleaner with respect to ownership and all the associated issues that come with it (StoreMi famously only allowed SSD partitions up to 256GB, in order to not undermine Enmotus’s commercial software).
At any rate, barring any delays, we should be seeing the fruits of AMD’s software labors in the next couple of months.
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Billy Tallis - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
I really don't think this has anything to do with console storage. AMD's not going to be bringing the decompression offload functionality to their retail CPUs anytime soon, and that's the only part of the console storage stack they have contributed to.brucethemoose - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
Maybe not, but a cache heirarchy (on systems with some spare RAM or SSD swap space) could partially compensate for the storage bottleneck on PC. There are still folks who run expensive rigs with their games storied on spinners.MASSAMKULABOX - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
Never rile the ayer base , they are vociferous in their ayers, and will make deny you any access to further ayers.StoreMI was an attraction .. could it be used internal ssD + external usb HDD ??
wolfesteinabhi - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
I think licensing cost and that the limitation with 256GB ssd with enormous (due to competition with their own enterprise solution).. where SSD have really grown into TB range in recent years might be the primary motivations behind this decision.And i guess AMD might even roll it out to its enterprise customers if the software is successful(and stable enough) in consumer market.
mikegrok - Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - link
In 2013 they had a partnership with sandisk, and selling the software with a 32g sandisk ssd. I used the software then, on a work PC, where anything I put in it I could not take out except to discard. The SSD cache sped up one of my daily tasks by about 20x. Unfortunately, it wore out the sandisk ssd every 3 months, at which time the ssd went read only, and I would have to sync write events, which took 1.5 to 4 days. I could still use the computer while it synced, but disk was quite slow. I would only consider using this technology with an slc ssd, or an xpoint disk.Heamose - Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - link
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