Sandisk shows off 2.5'' 32GB SSD

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 15th March 2007
Comments (15) Stumble
Sandisk claims its latest SSD is capable of reading and writing 100GB of data every day for five years.

Sandisk claims its latest SSD is capable of reading and writing 100GB of data every day for five years.

In the wake of Sandisk's solid state breakthrough at this year's CES trade show in Las Vegas, the company has announced a 32GB 2.5" SSD (solid state disk) that representatives described as a 'drop in' replacement for mechanical 2.5" notebook drives used in the majority of notebooks on the market these days.

The drive uses a SATA interface and uses 16 NAND flash chips to reach its 32GB capacity. It also boasts read speeds in excess of 65MB/sec, according to the firm - this is higher than we've seen from previous SSDs we've seen.

The benefits of solid state are massive, especially in the notebook market. It takes durability into another dimension because there are no moving parts in the device. In addition, the lack of moving parts means that seek time is instantanious and battery life is also improved too.

However, while this is an exciting progression in the solid state market, there is unfortunately a downside: cost.

Currently, Sandisk is expecting the drive to hit the market at around £200 (inc VAT) for the 32GB model. For comparison, you can pick up a 40GB 2.5" drive for as little as £30 (inc VAT).

Obviously, it's going to take some time for the cost of SSDs to drop down to the same level as their mechanical equivalents, but there are plenty of benefits for those that do fancy making the jump.

For those worried about the longevity of data on solid state drives, Sandisk claims that the drive is capable of reading and writing around 100GB of data every day for five years - that should be more than enough for even the most extravagant users. To back up this claim, the company will sell the drive with a five year warranty. We don't have any details on when it's due to hit the market just yet - we'll let you know as soon as we find out.

Discuss in the forums
Quote Anakha 15th March 2007, 17:19
I, for one, can't wait for these to get popular. It'll drive (pun unintended) down costs pretty quickly. And considering it wasn't that long ago that a 40Gb 2.5" HDD would set you back $300, and the price of flash is halving every 6 months (or so), this can only be a good thing.
Quote rupbert 15th March 2007, 17:20
Actually £200 isn't that expensive considering an 8Gb usb drive is around £60/70...

Bit-Tech needs to do some benchmarks with one of these, please!
Quote riggs 15th March 2007, 17:31
Quote:
Originally Posted by rupbert
Actually £200 isn't that expensive considering an 8Gb usb drive is around £60/70...
I agree, £200 isn't that bad...and the price will no doubt fall very quickly as they become cheaper to manufacture.

This is exactly the type of revolutionary hardware the PC industry needs - we've been using magnetic/mechanical storage for far too long.
Quote Paradigm Shifter 15th March 2007, 18:26
I know I've been using a few of my SS drives daily for more than three years, now, but I still can't help but be nervous about sudden death caused by excessive read/write... because I've not been booting an OS or running a swapfile off them...

I mean, sure; an external HDD of the normal variety would make sure you wouldn't lose too much data as long as you made a backup every evening, but there are gonna be times when the loss of even a few hours work is going to be a headache of enormous proportions...

Eh, I probably worry too much. :)

Still, it's good news. Might drive prices down all around when this becomes more mainstream. :D
Quote jezmck 15th March 2007, 18:31
Quote:
boasts read speeds in excess of 65MB/sec
the article would benefit from some figures to compare that with. e.g. standard 7200rpm HDDs, etc.
Quote TomH 15th March 2007, 19:18
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter
I know I've been using a few of my SS drives daily for more than three years, now, but I still can't help but be nervous about sudden death caused by excessive read/write... because I've not been booting an OS or running a swapfile off them...
Generally, running any file system that doesn't perform wear-levelling on a paritcular partition, will weed out any potential weakness in re-write cycles (by giving no thought towards constantly re-writing over the same sectors).

As far as I know though, SSD drives obtain uber-MTBF's due to the fact that they perform wear-levelling in firmware, eliminating the worry.

I don't think I'd be trusting my valuable data on one still, but I'd be quite happy to run my OS from one! I'd love to see how they bench, too.

Your mission, Mr. Smalley, should you choose to accept it... ;)
Quote sinizterguy 15th March 2007, 19:44
Awesome - £200 is almost is the affordable range.

And I will seriously considering buying one for my laptop if there is a good performance benefit - not to mention battery life advantage.
Quote OremLK 15th March 2007, 21:31
Definitely the future of data storage. Can't wait until these drop some more in price so I can get one. 65MB/sec already beats the average transfer rates on just about every 7,200RPM drive out there, and of course the nonexistent seek times and cool, quiet operation are both big pluses.
Quote Baboo 16th March 2007, 01:15
definitely a step in the right direction. For those of you don't want to wait for a 3.5" version for your computer, there is always this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by http://auspcmarket.com.au
2GB SOLID-STATE GIGABYTE I-RAM HARD DRIVE

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This combo comes with 2x 1024mb sticks of PC3200 DDR RAM (1x 2Gb Dual channel pack, leaving 2 slots free) - save $27.50

Fits into PCI slot for power, connects as a SATA-150 drive to your PC, no drivers needed
Battery-backed for 10-16 hours, in case stand-by power to motherboard is lost
Comes with backup software to image the disk
You will lose the use of the PCI slot next to the side the RAM is mounted on
We recommend nLite to help shrink your Windows install
Removing power to PC for longer than the battery lasts will result in loss of data!
Tested with WindowsXP / latest Debian - not working yet with RH Fedora or BSD

http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/images/info/IMG_RA-GAIRAM_27464_0_lrg.jpg
Quote Nature 16th March 2007, 06:51
If this drive reads @ 65 mb/per second, how does a 7200 rpm 2.5 incher measure up?
Quote sinizterguy 16th March 2007, 08:01
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nature
If this drive reads @ 65 mb/per second, how does a 7200 rpm 2.5 incher measure up?

Wouldnt it be more relevant to compare with a 5400rpm as thats what most laptops would have normally?

It certainly is what I would be replacing.
Quote JADS 16th March 2007, 09:10
Quote:
Originally Posted by sinizterguy
Wouldnt it be more relevant to compare with a 5400rpm as thats what most laptops would have normally?

It certainly is what I would be replacing.

I'd say if these drives hit 128-256GB and cost around £500 a few enthusiasts would use them as their primary system hard drive. For this reason it is important to see how the current crop and onwards perform against desktop hard drives. Hopefully in the not too distant future it won't be unreasonable to compare a 150GB WD Raptor and a 128GB SSD.
Quote Nature 16th March 2007, 11:15
Quote:
Originally Posted by sinizterguy
Wouldnt it be more relevant to compare with a 5400rpm as thats what most laptops would have normally?

It certainly is what I would be replacing.

Tis the most common the 5400, but a trend of desktop like preformance is coveted to us enthusiasts.

I read some more about this thing and it touted a 30 second Vista load compared to a 45 second load using 5400rpm drive.
Quote jezmck 16th March 2007, 18:01
can anyone provide some real numbers?
Quote sinizterguy 17th March 2007, 15:39
If these come out in 64gb flavours at the same or lower storage per pound, the I will definitely be replacing my laptop hard drive. Even if it offers more or less the same performance, but will increase the battery life.
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