Samsung's 64-GB Solid-State Drive

Anonymous Howard writes "Just a couple of weeks ago Sandisk introduced a 32-GB solid-state drive. Now Samsung has one-upped them, unveiling a 64-GB solid-state drive. They are expecting to begin shipping in the second quarter of this year. Samsung says the device can read 64 MB/s, write 45 MB/s, and uses just 0.5 W when operating (0.1 W when idle). In comparison, an 80-GB 1.8-inch hard drive reads at 15 MB/s, writes at 7 MB/s, and consumes 1.5 W when either operating or idle. No pricing yet."

finally, one big enough for regular use

[192939495969798999]

64 GB "ought to be enough for anybody"!

Seriously, though, that's enough for windows XP/Vista/etc. plus your favorite games, apps, and so on. Maybe you couldn't put whole slews of videos or images on there, but you could always get 2 of them.

Re:finally, one big enough for regular use

[stratjakt]

You don't need that speed for all your slews of videos and images, just put them ( and all data) on a regular disc, and use this for applications only. It'll last longer that way, anyways.

Re:finally, one big enough for regular use

[Tyler Eaves]

Last longer? The MTBF on flash storage is about an order of magnitude greater than magnetic storage these days.

Re:

[MindStalker]

I could be wrong, but I do believe flash turned off stuck in storage has a fairly limited lifetime, while a harddrive has a very long lifetime. Failures from day to day use, yes Flash wins, mainly because small errors can be corrected with regular use.

Re:finally, one big enough for regular use

[FuzzyDaddy]

I could be wrong, but I do believe flash turned off stuck in storage has a fairly limited lifetime

They specify 10 years for flash memory to hold it's data, but in practice (e.g. not at the highest temperature or most extreme operating voltage) it is significantly longer. I don't know to what extent the hard drives work around bad sectors, but they probably do it for both flash drives and the traditional magnetic type.

Re:

[compro01]

unless you're planning on treating it as WORM memory, flash has somewhat limited lifespan. the flash we're using at my collage for our integrated processing stuff is rated for 1 million write/erase cycles, but the datasheet doesn't even mention MTBF.

Re:

[ichigo 2.0]

Assuming a million write/erase cycle limit for this SSD, it would take over 46 years of 24/7 writing to reach the limit on the entire disk. Of course that's unlikely as normal usage patterns would not use the drive in such a way, but I thought it was interesting to know.

(((64 * 1 024) / 45) * 1 000 000) / (60 * 60 * 24 * 365) = 46.1807317

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

Not sure what it means but 1 of my 3 flash memory cards has gone bad in 2 years.

Looks perfect- but it reports a formatting error when loaded into my camera and reformatting it doesn't fix the problem.

And hard drives last a lot less than they advertise too (all those google related articles 2 months back).

It depends on usage models

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Sure there is no mechanical wear on flash, but the MTBF numbers for flash assume that you stay within the endurance limits.

The flash parts used in these devices can only program approx 10k times before they can be expected to start failing.

100k, not 10k

[Anonymous Coward]

THe Samsung site says these new drives are based on single cell level NAND technology. It doesn't have as high a density as MCL NAND. Bbut each cell can do 100K rewrites as opposed to the 10K rewrites of the more common MCL NAND. See EDN article on difference between SCL and MCL NAND http://www.edn.com/article-partner/CA6319917.html [edn.com]

Re:

[Dahamma]

The flash parts used in these devices can only program approx 10k times before they can be expected to start failing.

Modern NAND flash is in the 100k+ erase/program cycles... from an ST application note on wear leveling: "In ST NAND Flash memories each physical block can be programmed or erased reliably over 100,000 times." Of course, the wear leveling is what gets you in the 1M hour MTBF range...

the MTBF numbers for flash assume that you stay within the endurance limits.

With flash, the weak point is wear

Not the MTBF, the read-write cycles.

[DrYak]

It's not about the MTBF (the wear with age), yes you can almost indefinitely read data from you flash drive, when compared to harddrives, because there's no mechanical wear.

BUT!

The flash cells have a limited number of write cycles, which is very small compared to hard drives. If you write too much data on the same sector, the sector get very quickly broken.
If you used a flash card for swap, it won't last long at all (because some sectors get constantly written over).

To limit those damages, flash controllers use "wear level". That means that the small RISC controller that interface between the flash cells and the computer interface (ATA/CF, SD, USB, etc.) dynamically remaps the sectors so the wear caused by write cycles is distributed over several different sector.
Let's say that an OS constatly writes data on the first couple of sectors. Instead of always writing on the first few cell, the controller remaps a different physical flash cell, to the logical disc sector seen by the OS.
This works as a charm for flash media storing files likes used in digital cameras and such.

But doesn't perform as well when used by an operating system.
Windows XP is specially bad at this.
Other OS - such as Linux or *BSD, that already have good support for running on slow read-only media (LiveCDs) for a long time, that don't need writing that much (except /var and /tmp, most of the rest of the installation can be read-only), and that support special file systems designed for lower wear (JFFS and such), may fare better : for example there are some Linux distribution that are tested for running from flash, like Damn Small Linux.

Re:Not the MTBF, the read-write cycles.

[Deliveranc3]

But doesn't perform as well when used by an operating system.

Since flash doesn't have sectors that are faster than others; Thus, this is incorrect.

Flash chips each have a read and write speed limit the more of them you have in parrelel the faster it can read/write. It's trivial to make the chips within a flash drive have JBOD(F) properties.

This is one of the major advantages for me, disks that will be able to max out gigabit+ ethernet with increadible seek times, data redundancy, and massive througput.

As disks get bigger it may become nescessary to have some space for a read/write buffer (normal HD's have ram for this) which will increase the life or need for higher MTBF sections, both of these properties are showing up in variations on flash.

So if you have a flash disk with 1 Increadible MTBF chip, 1 super speed no storage sector (like ram), 1 massive storage space, and a bunch of standard flash you can have all the advantages of every kind of disk with the internal controller handling performance and wear leveling (not a trivial programming problem but one which we have a bunch of excellent solutions in place for).

My personal problem with flash disks is that industry seems to be holding back development, trying to develop an upgrade cycle instead of realeasing a perfect solution.

I can get a 1GB microsd flash card for $15 about 400-600(conservative) of them would fit into a 2.5 disk enclosure. With JBOD and wear leveling across the chips and I'm assuming it would be cheaper because you wouldn't need hundreds of cases/interfaces a 200GB drive with read/write speeds of 100-300 Gb a sec and seek time of
Hmm, well maybe the price does need to come down but the other concerns about flash seem unjustified, write wear isn't a problem, it's not scary. losing all your data to a HD failure, now that's scary.

RAM: indeed

[DrYak]

At the risk of asking a dumb question or missing an important point...Would you mitigate this wear by creating a RAM disk for items that are frequently read/written, and periodically (every few hours? When going to standby? Only on shutdown?) update the flash drive with the "temporary" contents.

Yes indeed, that's part of all optimisations done in LiveCD. Specially using "union" type of mounting where several filesystems are mounted on the same point (when read, data is pulled from the CD-R, but then, subseq

From my vantage point

[rolfwind]

Hard drive capacity growth has slowed the last years in notebooks, they just haven't been increasing in size that fast as in the early 00s. I think flash will surpass notebook harddrives in size within 2-3 years. As it is, 64GB is in the same magnitude of existing typical notebook drives now, just halfway down on the scale.

The price may or not go down enough within that time period to kick out harddrives completely - in which case we'll just see hybrid drives take over.

Re:

[timeOday]

Hard drive progress has dramatically slacked off in general, not just in laptops. here [google.com] is my recent usenet rant on the topic. The upshot is that if trends from 2001 had continued, you could now buy a 5 terabyte drive for $300. Instead it's $300 for 750GB.

Re:

[PingSpike]

I haven't ever really had any complaints about how long it takes for videos and music to load, which all sit on a little low power file server at my house. However, games and some applications are certainly a different story.

Granted, I probably don't represent your average user. But I do think your average user could benefit from a combination hard drive layout and would even notice the increase in speed!

Re:

[nine-times]

Yeah. I could see someone using more than I do, but if I install my OS and all my apps (full installs, clip-art, etc), it's probably going to be under 10GB. Add the games I'm currently running, and it'll be under 20. Add another 20GB for my music collection, and you're still well under the 64GBs listed here. I'll only break 60 GB when you add TV shows, movies, and my software archive (I have a Mac, and whenever I buy software, I make a DMG of the disc and store that for later installs, treat the disc as

Re:

[steveo777]

That's actually 4GB larger than my current Notebook HDD. I'm pretty excited to see what the pricing will be.

Re:

[lpcustom]

One Millllllion Dollars!!!!!!

Re:

[johneee]

I'm sure there'll be lots of other comments saying much the same thing, but I agree wholeheartedly with you.

I have three laptops in use in my family, and none of them use any more than 30GB on the hard drive... And I could probably clean them up to get them smaller.

Big files get stored on the main desktop at home, and the only things that typically live on the laptops are programs and enough files to keep us going at the time.

If these drives weren't so dang expensive, I'd use them right now and be perfectl

I'm lazy, yes, but that's not a bad thing

[heinousjay]

I'm wondering, will this work as a drop-in replacement for existing hard drives? The article doesn't say, and while I can't imagine there would be a reason it wouldn't work, I really don't know. In particular, is this something that will work in Vista and not XP?

Re:I'm lazy, yes, but that's not a bad thing

[gbjbaanb]

yes. a solid-state hard drive is exactly that - a normal HDD that uses a different mechanism for storing data. Usually its a pinning platter, this uses non-volatile memory chips. The interface and size are the same, so you just use it as you otherwise would.

Personally, I think 64Gb is a bit much for me, I'd stick the OS and swap files on there - which come to about 10Gb on my current XP machine.

Re:

[TooMuchToDo]

Don't use swap on the flash disk. Run with a ton of RAM instead. Longer hardware life, with the added bonus of extremely quick data shuffling.

Re:

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

There are many reasons why using a swap file is more practical than adding more RAM. For one thing there are inherent limitations on many systems - whether it's a limit on RAM size, a limit to the number of physical slots available, or simply a situation where the rarity of needing additional memory space doesn't justify the cost of adding extra DIMMs. Whatever the reason, "swap files are for memory leaks" is rubbish.

Re:I'm lazy, yes, but that's not a bad thing

[drinkypoo]

One possible reason is an OS that will not run, or will not run correctly, without paging. Linux actually fell into the latter category once upon a time, it would run like crap without swap (unless you made some patches.) SunOS4 was SOLIDLY in that category, but it's old (BSD 4 based - IIRC mostly 4.3, with some 4.4-lite code in the last release of SunOS4?) Windows 2000 would allow you to turn of all paging files, but would blue screen on boot if you did so as it absolutely required some paging (but you could have a teensy, fixed-length paging file.) But in a system that isn't so poorly designed that it requires paging, adding more RAM is a better solution any time you have the slots and the cash. It stops you from paging! That's pure gold right there. Who wants to wait for that?

One solution, of course, is to use a DRAM SSD for your swap if you're out of DIMM slots. Then only cash is the limiting factor. Granted, it still limits me right out of that particular game...

Re:I'm lazy, yes, but that's not a bad thing

[faloi]

They're marketed as drop in replacements, currently built to notebook drive standards. The downside, as someone else mentions, is that they are flash based. While flash has gotten better recently, I'd be squeemish about having an OS that constantly writes to the drive even when nothing is (apparently) happening on it.

Performance?

[26199]

Can anyone find some more details on the transfer rate/seek time?

For a hard disk peak transfer rate is when reading consecutive blocks... if the solid state drive can get near peak performance for random access, it's got a huge advantage.

And is thus very cool.

Seek time? Should be 0ms

[CFD339]

There should be no seek time, it's solid state. There is no read write head to move, and there is no platter to spin.

Re:Seek time? Should be 0ms

[26199]

Well... that doesn't necessarily mean it's as fast at random access as it is at consecutive access.

Normal computer RAM is also faster at consecutive reads than random reads.

Re:

[brunascle]

is there even such thing as seek time with a solid state disk? there isnt really any seeking going on.

Re:

[stratjakt]

They're called "wait states" and the number of them really depends on the depth of the decoding logic.

You know, those SDRAM timings that x-trememe overclockers 2 the max use to fully run 3dmarks to the xtreme maxx.

Put pagefile somewhere else?

[Pyrion]

It's flash-based, so am I right in assuming that mapping the pagefile to that drive will dramatically shorten its lifespan?

Re:

[crow]

I'm under the impression that this is solved by two factors.

First, flash parts have internal controlers that remap the flash to level out the writes. (I remember hearing about some researcher who developed a great flash file system, only to find that it didn't make any difference because of the remapping.)

Second, flash parts can handle orders of magnitude more writes now than they could a few years ago.

Re:

[HTH NE1]

Second, flash parts can handle orders of magnitude more writes now than they could a few years ago.

But when it fails, how recoverable is it? Is there an industry for flash memory data recovery like there is for hard drive recovery?

Re:

[benzapp]

Flash drives are designed to operate with the same level of reliability as mechanical hard drives during the warranty period. After the maximum writes is reached, there will be irrevocable data loss - but that will occur after the warranty period, which is at least 3 years.

Only a fool runs anything of importance, without a backup, on a hard drive that is over 3 years old.

So the answer to your question is simple: Who cares? For the near future, flash drives are marketed towards people with money who want a

Re:

[egomaniac]

Only a fool runs anything of importance, without a backup, on a hard drive that is over 3 years old.

That sentence should have ended right after "without a backup".

Re:Put pagefile somewhere else?

[asavage]

Fortunately flash fails on writing not on reading so while you can't write to sectors that have failed you can still read them.

Re:Put pagefile somewhere else?

[Kadin2048]

Not totally certain, but I would guess so. Depending on how big the pagefile was, perhaps the drive does some intelligent load-balancing that would keep you from frying it too quickly, but it might be better to keep another drive around for that, or loading the machine up with enough RAM to keep it from swapping often.

I used to know people who swore that, after adding RAM, the best thing you could do for speed was to add a small-but-fast SCSI hard drive and use it for nothing but your swapfile. I've never gone that route personally, because I've never thought it worth the expense, but I bet it would make for a pretty nice system. And I also suspect there have to be a lot of SCSI drives on the used market if you look.

Re:

[Pyrion]

Personally, I'm hoping more for being able to find a Gigabyte iRAM locally now that in a couple of days I'll have about 2GB in 512MB sticks left over after a RAM upgrade.

That's the kind of thing a pagefile should be mapped to - a ramdisk. ;)

Re:

[CastrTroy]

If your pagefile exists in RAM, then why even have a pagefile at all? Just get rid of the pagefile completely. If you have 2Gig of Ram, then you pretty much have no need for a page file for most desktop applications. Things like photo/video editing can take a lot of RAM, but if you don't do any of that, you're probably OK.

Re:

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

Pay close attention to the winky emoticon. It actually means something. ;)

Re:

[Sparr0]

Because some OSes behave VERY differently with and without swap space, regardless of the total amount of RAM+swap. Running linux with ~900MB of RAM and ~100MB of swap (on a ram drive) is far preferable to running with 1GB of RAM and no swap.

Re:Put pagefile somewhere else?

[Mr Z]

The numbers you used, approx 900/100, are also a special magic point on 32-bit CPUs under Linux. Above about 960MB, Linux uses "highmem" mode on x86, and that slows things down. A 32-bit x86 PC runs faster when you restrict it to 960MB instead of letting it use the full 1024MB.

For those of you who wonder how a computer could run faster w/ a little swap in RAM instead of just using all the RAM, the answer is complicated. Mainly, all the VM algorithms assume the existance of swap, and so when they get backed into a corner, they expect to be able to dump a bunch of stuff overboard into swap. They only start making the really hard choices once swap fills up. If you take away swap, then you hit the "out of swap" condition much more readily.

You might be thinking "ah, but it's all just a shell game! You'll still run out of swap at the same time, since your total memory is fixed!" Not true. The OS prioritizes disk buffers and other caches relative to the work it's doing and the RAM available to it. RAM dedicated to a RAM disk is not available for other purposes. Thus, a RAM-based swap partition dedicates some portion of RAM to only hold dirty program pages. No disk buffers, no network buffers, no inode information. Just dirty program pages. By forcing austerity on these other discretionary structures, you can compensate for the VM's inbuilt assumption it can just "dump things to swap", and that running out of swap occurs "almost never."

--Joe

Re:

[Pyrion]

Gigabyte iRAM [gigabyte.com.tw]
It's technically a ramdisk because it's storing data in RAM sticks, yet the RAM is seen by the system as a SATA drive.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Frankly it doesn't even matter if you use SCSI or not. What matters is that you're not using a controller that offloads all processing to the CPU. Some SCSI controllers even did this, so they won't provide any speed bump over using onboard IDE. Most SCSI controllers DO have their own processor though (amusingly, even an Adaptec 2940U has a Z80 chip on it, it's the chip that would not die!) and most ATAPI controllers don't. Any HW RAID controller does, of course. Any SW RAID controller probably does not alth

Re:Put pagefile somewhere else?

[Pike]

no, but your browser will need the latest Adobe plugins in order for your operating system to boot properly.

What's the long-term stability?

[davidwr]

Quality hard drives are fairly reliable. They can last 10 years or more and you can usually count on them to last their warranty period - 3-5 years - and then some.

They also have error detection/correction, bad-sector remapping, and "I'm about to die" notification.

At one time, solid-state devices were good for about a thousand writes for any given memory cell, a lot fewer than HDs.

Does anyone know the reliability for these new solid-state devices over wall time, hours in use/plugged in, number of read cycles, and number of write cycles under normal operating conditions, and how those compare with a modern 1.8, 2.5, or 3.5" drive?

Re:

[Timoteo47]

The SSDs from Samsung and SanDisk will last for years and have an MTBF of 2 million hours. San Disk claims there device will last at least 5 years.

Re:

[MrZaius]

For comparison's sake, apparently some of my 250GB WD hard drives have a MTBF of only 1 million hours.

Perfect for MP3 players

[Grishnakh]

This would be perfect for my iRiver H320 MP3 player, since (according to TFA) it's in the 1.8" form factor which almost every HD MP3 player uses.

Re:

[DeadChobi]

I'm wondering how much disk my Zen Sleek Photo can use. If I can get a 1.8" 64GB flash drive and replace the solid state drive with it then it'll have better uptime than my cellphone. All I need is a better battery and I'm golden. The question is whether or not it puts out more or less heat than the hard disk. BTW, there's probably a howto for disassembling your MP3 player somewhere that you could use. The remaining question is whether or not the firmware will support it.

Re:

[Grishnakh]

I don't know about your Zen, but my iRiver is known to support 80GB drives with the stock firmware, even though the device never came from the factory with more than 40GB. If your device came in models with different HD sizes, it's likely it just auto-detects the size and uses it, though there's probably some upper limit.

Better battery: check out newertech and other iPod battery retailers. If your battery is close to the size of one of the iPod batteries (remember, there's a lot of sizes with all the gene

Re:

[Grishnakh]

I'd be happy, for right now at least, with the 32GB model. The power savings would make a huge difference in battery life, however, since the HD is what consumes most of the power in an MP3 player. If these use half the power or less, that's probably at least a 33% increase in battery life (the electronics use some too). That equates to several hours.

You're right though: the prices these sell for will probably be too much. Not thousands (or else they'd never be considered seriously for laptops), but sti

I don't get it...

[bluemonq]

How can it be one-upping them A-DATA already annouced 128GB SSDs two months ago [engadget.com]?

Re:

[brunascle]

the samsung is a 1.8 inch drive and the A-DATA is a 2.5 inch.

Re:

[Klaruz]

If you read the actual source [theinquirer.net]. Instead of the blog post you'd see they have a 64gb 1.8" IDE version too. I'm not sure if the current interface standard for 1.8" drives is IDE or S-ATA, but I'm sure they'll put the appropriate connector and interface chip on whatever they sell when they ship them.

Smaller isn't better...

[Channard]

All this means is that we'll suddenly get smaller and smaller MP3 players. Which I'm not sure is the right direction. I'd rather have the players stay the same size and for the batteries to get bigger. I'd happily trade miniscule size for a much longer battery life.

Re:Smaller isn't better...

[Pyrion]

It's flash-based, so I would think the energy savings from not having to constantly run a hard drive's motor would lengthen battery life just with the batteries as they are now.

Re:

[eebra82]

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Just because manufacturers can create a GSM phone the size of a small watch doesn't mean they are doing it. Some niche products will always go beyond limits but there is a practical limitation as to how small a gadget can get, and the developers know this.

Usable life...

[Cervantes]

I'd love to grab one of these (even the 32MB one) and slap my OS and apps on there... but I'm concerned about what the usable life really is. I mean, sure, it's good for maybe a million write cycles (number pulled out of my ass), but really, with your OS running, the usual memory-resident programs, perhaps a nice game of warcrack going... how long is that going to last you?

Some systems I have use hard drives I bought ten years ago... really, 8GB is more than enough to hold the OS, programs, etc etc, and if

Re:

[Fizzl]

I'm under the impression, that solid state drives cycle through the available space somehow, so all the blocks would get approximately equal read/write cycles. So that a) it lasts as long as possible b) when it starts having bad blocks, you better replace the thing pretty fast.

Re:

[LWATCDR]

So go for it.
http://www.psism.com/adcf.htm [psism.com]
Has CompactFlash to IDE adaptors.
Get a few of these and some Compact Flashcards and then set up a Flash based raid. I Would keep a my swap on a regular drive but modern motherboards tend to have a few IDE slots and a few Sata connectors.
Could be a cool little system.

Price: $200ish?

[crow]

Based on 4GB compact flash prices at Pricewatch, I can get 32G for $107.60 or 64G for $215.20. All that's new here is packaging all that in one package, and putting a regular IDE interface on it. So at today's prices, that's about $200 per 64GB drive. Of course, by the time this hits the market, it should be lower. On the other hand, there will be a significant premium charged at first until there's enough competition to bring it down.

Re:Price: $500ish?

[Demon-Xanth]

Without looking around much, I see CF cards at 1GB for $12.50, 2GB ones for $16, 4GB for $34 and 8GB for $75. Making a bit less than linear progression. But you can guess about $8/GB for wholesale. 64x8=about $500.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

But you can guess about $8/GB for wholesale. 64x8=about $500.

I know this is horribly silly, but if you scored some USB2 CF readers, and you've got at least two USB2 buses to dedicate to the problem, you could RAID them (stripe) and potentially get BETTER performance than with the single drive. Wouldn't help much for a laptop but it would be a super fast, super reliable storage mechanism for home use...

I know a guy who made a RAID of ZIP 100 drives on a RS6k running AIX once... Doug, where are you? I know

Re:

[tsalaroth]

I'm sorry, Doug is in the server room, swapping Zip disks. How can I help you?

I would spend serious money for a laptop drive

[CFD339]

What would you spend if you could be a 2.5" version that was interface compatible with your laptop sata connector that was say, 100gb with comparable power and performance?

Personally, to pull the SATA drive out of my laptop and replace it with a 100gb version of this that used so much less power and was so much faster would be a no-brainer even at something like 700 or 800 dollars (US). Battery life would be radically better, noise and heat would be much lower, performance better and general usability should be outstanding.

What are the downsides? How is the duty cycle on these things? Will they last as long or develop hotspots that can't store data as well?

Re:I would spend serious money for a laptop drive

[zippthorne]

one more downside, perhaps: zero noise. How will you know the difference between a hang and simple thrashing without being able to put your ear to the chassis and listen to the disk doing what it does?

Re:

[ivan256]

When my hard drive is thrashing, the access light comes on... You should look into hooking up that cable. ;)

Re:

[zippthorne]

Mine, too. But when my system hangs, the light *stays* on, even if the hard drive isn't doing anything at all.

Re:

[ambrosen]

Well, you can get 32GB for that price right now. Although I've only seen it sold as PATA, for reasons I do not know.

Re:

[cerberusss]

Battery life would be radically better

It would be better, but not radically so. Looking at these numbers [codinghorror.com] and generalizing a bit, it would mean that you would get a 25 percent gain in battery usage.

MTBF

[EssTiDee]

The SanDisk 32GB version reports a 2 million hour MTBF... http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1478 [sandisk.com]

That's quite a bit better than typical hard drives these days!
Has anyone found MTBF information regarding the Samsung versions?

Heat and Noise?

[lawpoop]

I read the articles. I didn't see anything about heat and noise output. Can anyone fill me in? I would guess it would be minimal and none, respectively.

Re:Heat and Noise?

[amorsen]

I read the articles. I didn't see anything about heat and noise output. Can anyone fill me in? I would guess it would be minimal and none, respectively.

Well, based on an energy consumption of 0.5W and an educated guess that they probably aren't emitting much light, I'd say that the heat output is 0.5W.

Duh.

Re:Heat and Noise?

[njchick]

... which leaves 0W for the noise.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Since thermodynamics was invented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat [wikipedia.org]

I'd like one in my next iPod

[soft_guy]

I didn't RTFA, so I don't know how physically large these are, but I want one for my next iPod. It isn't a high enough capacity for a laptop HD for me, though.

Industrial PC's

[timias1]

I worked with some industrial PCs back in 98, and they came equipped with solid state hard drives. They were around 120 MB, but the could load Win 98 in a few seconds. They solid state technology was important in that application, because it was highly resistant to shock and vibration. They could withstand like 80 g's of shock. Is there any reason that solid state cannot ultimately replace the current HD technology? It seems like a logic progression. Horses to Automobiles Propellers to Jets Vacuum Tubes

Re:

[stratjakt]

Is there any reason that solid state cannot ultimately replace the current HD technology?

$$$

For a long while I think you'll see more hybrids, and more use of a solid state drive to accelerate application loading, while platter based discs hold the mountains of "data".

Other than application loading, there isn't too much use for these on personal PCs. They'd improve the hell out of database server performance, though.

Re:

[eebra82]

Of course solid state disks will replace regular hard drives. After all, the conventional disk is the only computer peripheral with moving parts.

I think that the SSD is going to compete far sooner than most people realize. Looking at the numbers, we now see that laptops are almost outselling stationary computers, so people may actually turn to SSD as soon as 2.5 inchers at 200 GB come at competitive prices. Besides, if you want lots of space for vids and mp3s, then why not get a networked server with a cou

Re:Industrial PC's

[garyok]

After all, the conventional disk is the only computer peripheral with moving parts.

Ummm... CDs and DVDs (not to mention the blinking-flip 1.4Mb floppy drive I still need to load RAID drivers on XP)? CPU and PSU fans? My printer? My (opti) mouse's buttons? The front door thingy on my PC case? Still lots of moving bits around in conventional PC peripherals that can wear out, 'fraid to say.

Re:

[eebra82]

Have to disagree with your thinking. I was obviously thinking of the most vital parts of the computer. I agree that the CD/DVD player could be included in that list, but a computer fan is only optional. You can get coolers with no moving parts too, you know.

I am not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I was talking about the computer and not any mice, printers or whatever.

Re:

[Kjella]

But of those mentioned, the only one that actually stores the data (CDs/DVDs store it, but the drive doesn't) of those mentioned. The others can be replaced, failed hard disks are usually a Emergency(tm). Yes, there's RAID and live/nearline/offline/offsite backup. No, people still won't do it. From what I've understood the SSD disks will be more reliable. They have a limited lifespan but it should be more predictable. A HDD might be a microscopic flaw in its bearings or motor or disk heads, which after a ye

Re:

[couchslug]

Floppy drive to load RAID drivers?
Try slipstreaming instead. nlite makes it even easier.

Re:

[repvik]

Of course solid state disks will replace regular hard drives. After all, the conventional disk is the only computer peripheral with moving parts.

Well, I guess your CPU fan, PSU fan, CD-ROM and possibly floppy drive is broken since they're not moving?

Re:

[RiotXIX]

as pointed out, $$$.

But do you really need ssd in large volumes?
No os partition + apps should require more than 10GB, and that gives you about 20GB+ of temp data to play with.

For my next setup (finally building THE dream machine), I'll have a 32gb (actually would have been content with 16gb, but I guess I can rip more large wavs/mov's in one go), I'll have my main parition/documents on the flash drive, and then a big SATAII mechanical drive for storing this large, infrequently accessed files on. I'd have it

Predict $630

[llZENll]

Hm, based on the cheapest (without rebates) memory available at $8.50/GB, figure 20% markup between the manf and retailer, thats $6.8/GB.

$435 for memory

+10% for R&D
+10% for manf (including controller, parts, etc)
-10% for manf efficency when producing 64GB/run

COST $479

RETAIL:
+20% for geewhiz-newtoy-factor/supply shortages
+10% for retail

YOUR COST: $630

sources:
http://www.pricewatch.com/flash_card_memory/secure _digital_2gb.htm [pricewatch.com]

Another prediction: SSDs will offer such huge power and performance advantanges, they will sell like crazy and drop in price by a factor of 70% within 1 year from now.

Slow?

[SLi]

While 64 MB/s reads are definitely fast compared to =2.5" hard disks, can anyone explain what caps the access rate to 64 MB/s? I'd think the bus should be able to go way higher. Is flash memory inherently slow?

These fair similar to 2.5" drives

[Hackeron]

If comparing these to 2.5" drives instead of 1.8" drives the advantages aren't as drastic.

* 2.5" drives consume between 0.8W to 2.5W (ok, seeking eats a lot, but during sequential read or write, they consume similar amounts), almost no power consumption when they spin down.
* 2.5" drives give 53MB/sec read and write.
* 2.5" drives are very cheap and have triple the capacity.

The solid state drives are still at an advantage, but it's not quite as large as compared to 1.8" drives.

No pricing yet

[nurb432]

If you even have to ask about pricing, trust me, you cant afford it.

Well

[ShooterNeo]

Obviously, from a technical standpoint, flash drives should ALWAYS be faster than mechanical ones. MUCH, MUCH faster. That seek time, which is a fraction of the time that a hard disk takes, shows that the electronics can get to their data quicker. The catch is the electronics in convential flash disks have been designed to drive very small drives, and so there are bottlenecks that can make their transfer rates slower. However, in theory flash memory can be read in parallel and have a transfer rate of "t

Seems like a perfect way ...

[constantnormal]

... to cool down those warm AppleTV devices.

Now if Intel will just ramp up their phase-change memory alternative to flash [eetimes.com], and get it out in a comparable size, the issues regarding cycling limits will be dealt with.

My favorite line

[fishbowl]

IANAL, but I have studied law and I have worked in the litigation field. I have read many letters that have had me wanting to ROFL, and this is in that category. But the best part is also the last bit:

  "From there, it should be a short trip to dismissal even if it means getting our clients to mediate Mr. Merchant's positive claims in the absence of an appropriate settlement."

Translation: If you have read this far, you realize that you not only have no case, but that you are entirely out of your league because the standards of evidence in the court system where I have major influence, would procedurally bar you from even entering your case on the docket. Despite this, my client's claims against you are already demonstrated, and our claims will continue to have merit even after your case is dismissed with prejudice (and we have not offered to drop our case.)

This letter is a masterpiece because it manages to hand the plaintiff his ass, in a rather respectful colleague-to-colleague way, while at the same time threatening a counterclaim that could end up with far greater damages than the initial claim!

And the real beauty is that even though the RIAA seems to have withdrawn its claim, the damages from the malice might still hold, if they really want to push it.

Who did they sue? Directors of a Silicon Valley bank? They should do some research before they pull the pin on the hand grenade!

"I would be happy to send the airplane..." (At the plaintiff's expense of course...)

Love it.

RAM based HD's answered these questions

[symbolset]

Years ago.

Yes, there were problems. They were fixed. All good now. Faster is better. Lower watts is better. Denser is better. Now let's work on cheaper.

Re:

[burndive]

Ever hear of a RAM-based virtual disk? I use them on my Linux server for /tmp and anything else that doesn't need to persist through a reboot. They're in RAM, but the OS treats them as drives. Any Live (CD or DVD-based) distro will load the main OS onto RAM disks (if there's room) and run from there, only accessing the optical drive for large data files. It works fine.

Re:

[suggsjc]

Yeah, but just imagine a RAID array of these...

It would still take quite a few before you would start getting close to fully saturating a PCI Express card, but just imagine if you could.

I know there will (probably) always be a performance gap between RAM and your mass storage, but hopefully this will begin to close the gap. I see many applications greatly benefiting from this type of setup/technology.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

I wonder if this'll end up killing off Raptor drives (10K rpm). Since it is flash if the OS could save its state to the drive before shutdown we could have instant on capability too.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

These things have a .12ms avg seek time.

Raptors are still at abt 4.5ms.

Additionally they can Read in Parallel, randomly. (ie not limited to the spindle speed and read head physical limitations.

They are NOT just as fast. No sir. They make raptors look like they're standing still, and everyone else like they're in a time warp.

I saw a demo of an XP boot / shutdown on HD vs SSD. (where'd that link go) It's pretty amazing and significant.

Add in an OS / CPU that can HANDLE parallel loading of drivers / OS modules