Revention, Inc., a maker of high-performance point of sale (POS) terminals for the restaurant industry, decided in 2009 to switch from hard disk drives (HDDs) to solid-state drives (SSDs) to differentiate its terminals from competing products. Samsung SSDs dramatically improved the reliability of Revention’s POS terminals.
Samsung Solid-State Drives Enable Ultra-Reliable Point of Sale Terminals for Restaurants and Bars
1. CASE STUDY: REVENTION, INC.
Samsung Solid-State Drives Enable
Ultra-Reliable Point of Sale Terminals
for Restaurants and Bars
OVERVIEW
Customer Need
Revention, Inc., a maker of high-performance
point of sale (POS) terminals for the restaurant
industry, decided in 2009 to switch from hard
disk drives (HDDs) to solid-state drives (SSDs)
to differentiate its terminals from competing
products. But its initial experience with other
manufacturers’ SSDs resulted in unacceptable
failure rates.
Samsung Solution
After extensive testing, Revention selected
Samsung’s 470 Series SSDs for use in its
R2310 POS terminals. They proved so
successful that the company upgraded to
Samsung’s newer 830 Series SSDs in 2011.
And when Revention introduced its next-
generation R3310 POS terminals in 2013, it
again chose Samsung SSDs, selecting the
new 840 Series SSDs as standard equipment.
Results
Samsung SSDs dramatically improved the
reliability of Revention’s POS terminals.
Previously, up to 25 percent of other suppliers’
SSDs failed, often during initial assembly.
Since switching to Samsung SSDs, however,
Revention’s SSD failure problem has virtually
disappeared, while customers’ complaints
have become almost non-existent.
2. 2
THECUSTOMER
Revention,Inc.
Revention,Inc.,amakerofhigh-
performancepointofsale(POS)
terminals,hasbeenridingthegrowth
waveinrestauranttechnology.
Foundedin2003,theHouston,TX-
basedcompanyhasgrownrapidlyto
nearly$16millioninannualsales.Its
intuitive,easy-to-usesoftwareand
high-performancePOSterminals
provideacompleterestaurant-
managementsolution,whichhas
attractedaloyalfollowingamong
multi-unitchainsandindependent
pizzeriaoperators.Now,theprivately
heldcompanyisexpandingitsproduct
offeringstoservethefastcasualand
quick-servicerestaurantmarkets,as
wellasbarsandnightclubs.
Revention is known for its customer-
friendly, yet technologically advanced
POS terminals, which allow restaurant
staff to create and print guest
checks, relay orders to kitchens for
preparation, and process credit cards
while simultaneously tracking sales,
labor and inventory data in real time.
Smaller restaurants may require only
one or two terminals, while larger
operations with multiple ordering
locationsmayrequireadozenormore.
Jeff Doyle, Revention’s CEO and
founder, says his company tries to
differentiate itself from competitors
by being the first to offer the latest
technologies. “We like to challenge
our competitors by keeping the
standards of technology and
expectations at a high level,” says
Doyle. “If there’s a better component
that’s available, we’ll go to
production with that component.”
Sixyearsago,Reventionwasone
ofthefirstrestaurantPOSterminal
supplierstoofferbiometricfingerprint-
recognitionscannerstoidentify
users.Itwasalsoanearlyadopterof
integratedpaymentcardreadersand
high-resolutiontouchscreendisplays.
Sowhenthecostofsolid-statestorage
felltoaffordablelevels,Doylesays,
“doingthesamethingwithSSDswasa
naturalmoveforus.”
SSDs are making increasing inroads into
the mainstream data storage market
primarily because of their impressive
speed and reliability. By using NAND
flash memory chips, rather than spinning
magnetic disks, to store and retrieve data,
SSDs allow computer users to boot their
systems, load software applications and
copy and transfer files much faster than
with conventional HDDs. And because
they have no moving parts, SSDs also are
far more resistant to shock, vibration and
accidental physical damage than HDDs,
while using significantly less energy.
Revention was primarily seeking better
performance in 2009 when it began
equipping its POS terminals with SSDs
from two manufacturers. Yet even though
the performance benefit of some of those
drives was immediately noticeable, a
disturbing number of these early SSDs
simply didn’t work. “The biggest problem
we were having was SSDs that were DOA
(dead on arrival),” says Doyle. “We’d get the
drive, put it in place and it was just dead
out of the box.”
Although most of these failures were
remedied before the drives reached the
company’s customers, Revention also
received occasional reports of power
irregularities corrupting data stored on
the SSDs.
Doyle says his company installed more
than 3,000 SSDs from its initial suppliers
in its early generations of SSD-equipped
POS terminals. During that period it
increased the drives’ capacity from 8 to 16
gigabytes (GB), then to 32, as SSD prices
steadily declined. But with failure rates
as high as 25 percent for some batches
of drives, their unreliability was simply
unacceptable. Even after Revention’s
suppliers attempted to make corrective
changes, Doyle says, “we were still seeing
up to 7 percent fail rates.”
Clearly, it was time to switch SSD suppliers.
First, however, Revention spent several
months reviewing nearly every SSD on the
market before deciding where to source
its new drives. “We had every model bench
tested, and put them inside of our units.
We actually did quite a rigorous test,”
says Doyle.
The company also asked some of its key
restaurant customers to field-test the
most promising SSDs in their highest-
volume POS workstations, without
disclosing which drives they were
receiving. “They let all their employees
use it, and when their hands-on reports
came back,” he says, “Samsung’s SSDs
blew everyone else out of the water.”
THE CUSTOMER NEED
Better Performance and Reliability
3. As the world’s largest maker of computer
memory chips and the largest global
supplier of consumer SSDs, Samsung
has unrivaled experience with solid-
state storage technology. Samsung is
the only SSD supplier to make its own
SSD memory and controller chips, and
this unique, integrated manufacturing
capability gives it full control of
every component, resulting in high
performance and reliability.
Revention started using Samsung’s 470
Series SSDs in its flagship line of R2310
POS terminals in early 2011 and later that
year switched to Samsung’s newer 830
Series SSDs. The SSDs’ 64 GB capacity
was twice as large as the previous SSDs
used by company, and their speed and
responsiveness drew rave reviews from
customers. “Overall, we’ve seen a major
performance gain. It’s probably twice the
performance that we had on hard drives,”
says Doyle.
But the most notable difference has been
the dramatic improvement in reliability.
Doyle says that out of the roughly 5,000
terminals shipped with Samsung SSDs
through early 2013, only two have
experienced SSD problems. “We’ve had
almost no failure issues with Samsung
SSDs,” he says. “We don’t have many
vendors with a perfect track record, but I
can honestly say that we’ve had a nearly
perfect track record with Samsung.”
The new drives also appear to have
resolved the problem of data losses
caused by power irregularities. “Those
issues have almost completely gone
away,” he says. “Samsung SSDs have
made our issues in the field go to where
they’re almost non-existent.”
QUICK PROFILE
As used by Revention, Inc.
SAMSUNG 840 PRO SERIES
SOLID STATE DRIVES
Form Factor: 2.5-inch
Capacity: Available in 128GB,
256GB & 512GB
Host Interface: Serial ATA
interface of 6.0Gbps; compliant
with ATA/ATAPI-8 Standard
Sequential Read Speed: Up to
540MB/s for 256GB & 512GB
models; up to 530MB/s for
128GB model
Sequential Write Speed: Up
to 520MB/s for 256GB & 512GB
models; up to 390MB/s for
128GB model
Random Read Speed: Up to
100K IOPS for 256GB & 512GB
models; up to 97K IOPS for
128GB model
Random Write Speed: Up to
90K IOPS
Power Consumption: 0.15W
Encryption: AES 256-bit Full
Disk Encryption; Class0 Self
Encryption Drive; user can set
HDD password in BIOS setup
mode
Operating Systems: Windows
Vista or Later
Environmental Specs:
Operating Temperature of 32o
F
to 140o
F
Weight: 0.15lb
Warranty: 5 years
THE SAMSUNG SOLUTION
Reliability Soars with New SSDs
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