Sandisk Debuts World's Smallest SSD Yet 222
siliconbits writes "Weighing less than a paper clip and smaller than a postage stamp, Sandisk's iSSD comes in a tiny Ball Grid Array and boasts support for the SATA standard, which means that it can be soldered directly on motherboards."
SATA=solder to motherboard? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that the SATA spec mandates a BGA interface be provided on motherboards. You couldn't really solder this directly on there any more than you could directly solder a USB device on a mobo that had no headers. You'd have to precision-solder onto the tracks on the board. I think what's meant is that this component can be integrated onto existing motherboard designs without adding a new interface. It can use the existing SATA controller.
This opens the door to a mobo that not only has onboard graphics and sound, but onboard mass storage. That'd be pretty amazing in an "all my hard drives just ate themselves" scenario.
Re:Make them cheaper, not smaller (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that the two are actually positively correlated.
Re:That's a great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Make them cheaper, not smaller (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheaper and higher capacity I'd say. I don't care if they've got some weight/size. 2.5" form factor for notebooks and very small pc's and 3.5" form factor for normal sized desktops is absolutely fine. My computer sits under my desk anyways.
Re:That's a great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
SSD being soldered directly to a motherboard? I'm a bit torn about that idea...
ok, so you're saying my hard drive died. How much will that cost to replace?
Excuse me?
(they'd BETTER put it in a socket)
Re:That's a great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's a great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a great Idea for Apple products. Because if it breaks, you just send it in to their support and they give you a replacement for the time being (ignoring the fact that you actually need your files right away) while they work on your computer for 4-6 months only to ship you a brand new one in the end. And when its time to upgrade, you just toss your computer out and buy a new one.
Re:Make them cheaper, not smaller (Score:5, Insightful)
Did it ever occur to you that drive manufacturers and researchers work on all of those things, but don't magically make breakthroughs in a given area simply because a bunch of jackasses on slashdot want them to? I mean, over the past 5 years, SSDs have gotten smaller, cheaper, bigger, faster and more reliable. This story just happened to be about a development in one of those areas.
Re:Make them cheaper, not smaller (Score:1, Insightful)
yea take your money for a oversized sd card
Re:Make them cheaper, not smaller (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way I'm buying SSDs is if they become dramatically more affordable ($/GB). And I tend to think most people would agree. I'm not exactly asking for free stuff here, just helping those guys understand what matters. And I couldn't care less about a postage stamp SSD. I don't need that kind of speed at that price in my phone or my fridge. I want a fast disk for my workstation/server. And unless I have $1M to spend on a RAID array of 1024 SSDs the size of a postage stamp, I'm not going to mind if they're 3"1/2.
Re:SATA=solder to motherboard? (Score:3, Insightful)
It'd be guff as a data partition, but you could stick a Linux environment on there for basic tasks. Like those instant-on OSes, but user-accessable. Heck, they could market it as a built-in Readyboost drive.
Re:That's a great idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering my netbook has 8 gigs of onboard storage, yes it could.
Re:Make them cheaper, not smaller (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe someone thought him calling us jackasses was insightful. :)
That wee bit you forgot about. (Score:1, Insightful)
New manufacturing equipment of some sort must still be purchased. So if the tool costs Y, then you have to sell Z number of cost X/20 chips to pay for the tool. After that, you get to make a profit. You can conceal and amortize the costs through whatever accounting tricks strike your fancy, but the cash flow and mid-term profit concerns will weigh heavy. This is usually the largest factor for long-term reduced prices.