The second metric is called virtual RPM. It would measure the speed of SSDs versus conventional hard drives by averaging the faster read times with slower write times.
That's because SSDs working with most PC operating systems, such as Windows, tend to read and write data in a 50:50 proportion, Barnetson said.
SanDisk is also supporting the adoption of a third industry metric that would bolster LDE by helping SSD makers give real-time wear data to users.
While LDE is like the tire's rated number of miles, this would be like "taking a coin to see how much tread is actually left on the tire," Barnetson said.
It would be similar to the SMART spec used by conventional hard drives to measure the health of spinning hard drives, Barnetson said. SMART has been criticized as unreliable because it cannot predict when a drive might suddenly fail due to mechanical problems or shock. But since SSDs are known to be less vulnerable to such types of failures, this specification would be far more accurate, he said. And it could be very helpful for IT managers who have thus far been shy about replacing spinning drives with SSDs due to failure fears, he said.
SanDisk is proposing this specification to the T13 technical standards committee, Barnetson said.
Stephen Weinger, marketing manager for NAND Flash products at rival Samsung Electronics, declined to comment on SanDisk's proposals.
Samsung last month pulled its unsolicited US$5.85 billion offer to buy SanDisk, citing a lack of progress and worsening business conditions.