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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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 to Transistors.

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: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:Industrial PC's

[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:Industrial PC's

[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 couple of TB of space, or at least some external drives mounted to a laptop slot-in?

Re:Put pagefile somewhere else?

[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:Put pagefile somewhere else?

[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".

No pricing yet

[nurb432]

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

Re:Industrial PC's

[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 year of spinning at 7200rpm makes it crash and burn. Unless it has shorted out for some reason, I imagine a failing SSD will be easier to recover from.