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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Threska - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
Shouldn't this be something that the storage vendors implement, hopefully in a transparent manner? That would also mean it would be a cross-platform solution.yankeeDDL - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
If part of the SW can be designed to take advantage of specific HW acceleration, then it would make sense that the HW manufacturer would include it as part of the offering. I'm not sure if this is the case, but give that this supports 4** chipsets and above, it appears to be.Rocket321 - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
StoreMi was a purely software solution. You could install it on older chipsets, but a license purchase was required.linamking9 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
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Ideally it would be implemented by the OS. MS did have the ReadyBoost feature and should have continued development so it could also use SSDs to boost mechanical drives instead of just flash drives and memory cards. They don't seem to have any interest in continuing development though so it's basically the same as it was when first released with Vista.descendency - Wednesday, April 8, 2020 - link
Excuse my ignorance, but isn't this basically Windows Storage Spaces?LiKenun - Monday, April 13, 2020 - link
That’s what Linux’s upcoming bcachefs would do. Windows for the average joe is unlikely to get these features.WaltC - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
I looked at it briefly but didn't see a need for it.mjz_5 - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
I wouldn’t mind using this for my server but the software didn’t work with my dynamic raid. Also. Don’t know if I could have trusted it with important files. But maybe AMD’s own solution will be better.brucethemoose - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
I bet this is related to the custom storage stacks and super SSDs in the XSX/PS5. There's nothing even close to that on PC for a sane price, much less something the majority of the ayer base will use, and thats going to be a problem for PC ports.