|
|
Solid-state disk capacities set to soar
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 5th December 2007
STEC Mach8 MLC SSDs now available in 512GB sizes.
This allows the size of the SSD to increase without sacrificing speed. The initial product range, the Mach-8 MLC, will be available in sizes from 32GB to a whopping 512GB at half the cost of current SSDs.
Whilst the performance isn't quite on a par with the latest traditional drives, with a claimed 90MB/s read and 60MB/s write, the technology certainly seems to be heading in the right direction. I certainly wouldn't mind a 32GB unit to replace the ageing 20GB drive in my laptop, providing the price per gigabyte isn't too far away from traditional disks. With STEC claiming that its parts will cost OEMs around half that of existing solutions, there's certainly room for prices to fall.
Solid-state disks, for those who are unaware, are the latest innovation in laptop computing. Taking the place of a traditional magnetic hard-disk an SSD has no moving parts, making it ideal for the harsh treatment a notebook drive is likely to get and also helping to prolong battery life. The only downside is the capacity: although it's possible to buy 32GB SSDs at the moment they're exceedingly expensive, and will set you back much more than a 250GB mechanical drive.
Tempted to replace the 4GB drive in your Eee PC with a 512GB whopper (and thus doubling the value of your Eee -- Ed)? Thinking about making a solid-state RAID array? Let us know in the forums.
Related articles on bit-tech.net
Comments (25)
Stats: 0.082 seconds
btw ed needs to learn vb tags :p
Just as well I can't find a stockist of the Samsung 64GB SSD. :D
All I need now is a stockist of one of these solutions so I can buy one. :)
As soon as high capacities get cheaper we are going so see nothing but speed increases, since they are not mechanically limited like HDs. I get the feeling as soon as I go to buy one they will release a new one that is the same price but 30% faster or something. It will be interesting to see how fast they progress once they are selling well.
As soon as I can get a 32gb with 100+MB read for less that $100 I'm gonna jump on it.
any chance of one of these before february?
It is not going to be attractive to consumers.
But it is another story when: 500GB-HD $ <= 500Gb-SSD $
On the other hand a SSD is way better then anything a hd is made off:
No moving parts
Less heat
No magnetic influences
No wear
Less parts
Less power consumption
Larger live-span estimate
Cheaper in production
Environment friendlier then HD's
Less raw resources needed
Faster access times
Less space needed
Space to grow in memory/storage sizes
Space to read faster to/from memory
It really is a win/win situation. All it needs is to get into the consumer market and cheaper.
uh i dont think so....
if SSD price drops even to a 2:1 ratio (2x HD = 1x SSD), these puppies will sell like hotcakes.
current price for 320Gb = ~$100.
would u pay $100 for a 160Gb SSD drive??
i would.
how about $150 for a 250Gb SSD drive?
oh please.... :)
<A88>
Would love to swap my current RAID array out with a bunch of these drives, be sooo much quieter, less heat, more speed, MOAR WIN :D
Its the hard drives in my pc that make the only noise now, with the rest being watercooled, i would love to remove the heat and noise form the pc, by swapping out the drives for these SSD's.
Personally, I'll feel a lot better when the only mechanical devices in my computer are the cooling fans. Now we just have to figure out how to get software distributed on flash so I can get rid of my optical drives - optical has all the drawbacks of magnetic, plus a few more issues. I wish we could use CompactFlash cards today like we used floppy drives 5-10 years ago.
EDIT: Does anyone else find it strange that while the fastest drive on the manufacturer's page is the 3.5", the highest-capacity drive is the smaller 2.5?" I suppose that's not all bad - I'd be just fine with the smaller form factor, if most desktop cases could provide mounting.
While I agree claimed speeds are often a little optimistic, they're usually not wildly inaccurate.
I think current 3.5" HDDs still don't beat 100MB/s in sustained sequention transfers.
That's at their best and as bob mentions, their inner edges are much slower.
I think a suitable average would be around the 80MB/s mark.
Now Samsung's latest SDD (which I'm currently looking for a stockist of :() claims 100MB/s reads and 80MB/s write IIRC.
Even if they were wildly optomistic that's probably still gonna be at least 80MB/s read and 60MB/s write.
Now combine that with the fact that's the speed you get across the whole capacity of the drive, seek times of less than 1ms (meaning you don't have to worry about fragmentation nearly as much), very little heat, no noise, comparitively little power draw, no spin-up times and you can start to see why most of us are excited. :)
Just a shame about the cost but it looks like that'll be tumbling soon too.
Start bringing raid into the mix and we're gonna see great leaps forward in the storage area soon.
And about time too! :)
Don't forget no fragmentation. Shweeet.
You just won't notice it due to the sub 1ms seek times. :)
but current reviews so far its been better. yes,only time will tell, but like archie said, theyre usually not that wildly inaccurate. plus, 'on paper', it promised so so SO much more.... for the sake of simplicity, if only HALF of those features are true, its still better than regular spinning disk IMHO..... :)