BitMicro Takes Wraps Off 832 GB Flash Drive

Lucas123 writes "BitMicro has unveiled an 832GB NAND flash drive that will begin shipping later this year. The E-Disk Altima drive is expected to have sustained read rates of up to 100MB/sec and up to 20,000 I/O operations per second. The device features a SATA 3.0 G/bps interface. No pricing as of yet."

Mortgage?

[mudetroit]

Unless they came up with some radically cheaper method of producting them this will basically probably require a mortgage to go out and buy.

Yawn

[Rie Beam]

They've already announced a 1.6TB flash drive for launch around mid-2008 [bitmicro.com].

Re:cost estimate

[TeknoDragon]

more likely they will be using anything from 4gb - 64gb chips (Samsung announced 25/10/07)

If they are shooting for video editing only that price would be right, but the enthusiast & business market will IMO want something under $2000. TFA suggests business application.

Re:832?

[Rickz0rz]

832 = 64 * 13 Perhaps they are using 13 64mB modules.

Re:cost estimate

[Anonymous Coward]

32 GB NAND Flash SSDs are going $250. This would be about $6500, which is inline with your numbers. I will personally be shocked if it comes in below $5000. SSDs are high price and currently a niche market at best. Honestly, they need to fill the gap with more varied size drives. 32 GB are really the most reasonably priced.

Re:Yawn

[MTgeekMAN]

Yes, but that 1.6 TB drive is Fiber Chanel. The one in the article is a 2.5" SATA drive. Much more useful for the average person.

Re:cost estimate

[Anonymous Coward]

Be sure to look at $/MB prices from around the time when hard disks were still measured in MB. That was just 15 years ago. Now we're on the verge of 1TB hard disks becoming mainstream. It's funny how people who have grown up right in the epicenter of the most staggering miniaturization and integration races of all time still don't grasp what "2 times the performance or capacity in x months" means.

Re:cost estimate

[rogerdewhite]

2GB spot prices for MLC are ~$5.50...so we're talking $2,300 for the raw MLC NAND alone. Considering this thing is probably built with SLC NAND and you're looking at $5,000+ for the NAND...add in controllers, boards, packaging & profit and suddenly $6,000 looks like a screaming deal.

Re:I thought flash went bad over time

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

I swear at least one person has asked this question in every flash-drive related article on /. for the last 5 years. Yes, there is a limited number of writes - usually in the 100,000 to 1 million range depending on the quality of flash used. No, it isn't a problem in any practical terms for common uses. Using wear-levelling a flash drive should work out a great deal more durable than existing hard drive technology.

Re:I thought flash went bad over time

[Skapare]

So if I use one of these to record the nightly news every day in UNcompressed high definition, it will wear out in just over 273 years in the worst case, or last nearly 2738 years in the best case. It's more likely to be stolen as primitive relic in that time frame :-)

Re:cost estimate

[phoenix321]

"There is a lot more computing in this world than what can be found in data centers and offices, young Padawan."

Really, there is. Computers that fly, sail, drive or are employed in low power, low heat, low noise, high vibration, high dust, high heat, low heat environments. Be creative: That starts with laptops in the space shuttle and surely doesn't end with onboard systems of surveillance planes. All Gigabyte-intensive operations where you do not have an unlimited power socket in the wall and/or have other considerations about weight and shock tolerances.

And all of these applications have powers with large checkbooks behind them, who will write off 5000USD as merely half a percent price increase for much better reliability and power consumption.

Re:Yawn

[lazyforker]

The drive you linked to is 3.5" and 1.6TB; whereas the drive in TFA is 2.5" and 832GB. I assume they're aiming for a different market with this product. In fact the 2.5" might be ideal as a storage device for an HD video camera. Small, light, low power consumption, less susceptible to shocks etc. Or if you have a high performance laptop with which you perform video editing and want to avoid carrying bags of external FW drives, cables, PSUs, spare batteries etc etc this would be pretty cool to have *in* the laptop.