The importance of SSD controllers often gets overlooked in the world of SSDs. Memory itself is front and center in the minds of most, simply because it is the most prominent component in any SSD. Most recently, we are even seeing Apple using the term flash in its product literature , rather than SSD. Not only is the controller capable of providing lightning fast speeds and up to 256-bit encryption in today's SSDs, but also, it extends the life of SSDs through wear leveling, garbage collection, and TRIM. To give you a small glimpse of how advanced the controller really is, it actually monitors each block of memory to ensure all wear equally. Now consider that a 256GB SSD contains 4.2 million of these blocks, each part of a constant behind the scenes movement to ensure memory wears equally and prolongs the life of the SSD; it becomes quite an impressive feat.