Micron Working On NVMe SSD Abrupt Shutdown Support For Linux

The NVMe specification provides for an abrupt shutdown mode over the normal/safe shutdown command if needing to quickly get the NVMe solid-state storage ready for powering off as quickly as possible. Currently the Linux kernel isn't making use of the NVMe abrupt shutdown command but a proposal by Micron is looking to begin its usage.

A patch set sent out on Monday by a Micron engineer wires up the abrupt shutdown support for NVMe SSD. The initial use-case is over platforms with a very limited back-up power supply and if knowing a power loss is imminent, to perform the abrupt shutdown of the NVMe SSD.

The abrupt shutdown mode gets the storage device ready for powering off quicker while still being reasonably safe and the host not needing to send the Delete I/O submission and completion queues to the device.

This Micron patch series implements the NVMe abrupt shutdown support if a power loss is imminent, including adding the flag to the Linux kernel's power management code around the imminent power loss. But this patch series doesn't currently wire up anything to actually set / make use the new flag for when a system power loss may be imminent, thus still more work ahead before it would be of use to end-users.