Toshiba Begins Selling MacBook Air SSD 162
Lucas123 writes "Toshiba has made the solid state drive used in the new MacBook Air generally available for use by equipment manufacturers. At just 2.2mm thick, the company said the drive represents a new form factor that is about one-third the thickness of a thin hard disk drive and that is 42% smaller than even a mini-SATA SSD module. The new Blade X-gale SSD series has a maximum throughput of 220MB/sec. and can store up to 256GB of data."
Re:SSD's are awesome, but the cost... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a matter of physically moving the directory. It's a matter of most programs looking in a default location for said user folder. They need a simple control panel tool to change the location of default folders. They offer some for subfolders like My Documents, but they lack the means to simply move the entire root of the users folder.
Re:SSD's are awesome, but the cost... (Score:5, Informative)
They will get cheaper. I picked up a 60G SSD from Newegg for under $100 after rebate. In a few months I expect that to be the normal price.
Is it worth it? Hell, yes. For systems where you need a lot of space or battery life isn't an issue, then they're probably not ideal. However, in a netbook they are amazing. I have a Samsung N120 with a 1.6GhZ Atom. With a standard HD, it was boggy. Resuming from suspend would take a minute. Launching apps would take 15 to 30 seconds. After installing the SSD it's like a new machine. Resume takes a few seconds. App launch times is a second or three. Browsing the web is snappier. I.e., anything that does multiple reads from the drive is much faster. If you replaced your standard laptop drive you may not notice it, but replacing a relatively slow HD in a netbook makes a huge difference. On top of it, my battery times climbed to at least 4 hours of constant use.
BTW, the SSDs run great with bcache/Linux. I'm putting together some benchmarks, but even before I run the numbers I can tell you that CentOS and Ubuntu on an Atom-based machine (a mini-pc form factor) runs incredibly.
Re:And now you can have a superior PC for $500 les (Score:1, Informative)
You appear to have seen the words "MacBook Air" in the title and instantly jumped into defensive/anti-fanboy mode.
Unfortunately, those threads were last week. This is about a new SSD form factor being released by Toshiba, for use in *other computers*. Please respond appropriately, and attempt to twist your arguments and rants to match this new information, preferably ranting against both Toshiba and Apple? kthx.
PS I'm also waiting for the Intel G3, but last I heard it's still months away
Re:no back compatibility (Score:3, Informative)
It's a standard called mSATA [serialata.org], and the driver for the interface is Toshiba. The linked PDF is from 2009, so this is not new.
The only thing new here is that Toshiba and Apple decided to do away with the 2.5" form factor.
Re:And now you can have a superior PC for $500 les (Score:1, Informative)
Wow, I'm not a huge Apple fan but the misinformation here is thick.
I'd wait for benchmarks on this before auto-bashing it in favor of the Intel SSDs, which are are meeting up with decent competition these days.
Well, the interface isn't proprietary so there's no reason 3rd parties can't release higher capacity SSDs in the future.
TRIM has nothing to do with the lifespan of an SSD and everything to do with speed over time. And I'd like to see where people get the idea that Apple hasn't added TRIM support to OS X?
Your arguments are pale, at best.
Thinner than something else that's thin (Score:1, Informative)
> is about one-third the thickness of a thin hard disk drive
Thanks, that's not vague at all!
Re:SSD's are awesome, but the cost... (Score:3, Informative)
Windows XP supported moving your My Documents folder (via a tab on it's properties if you right click on it from the start menu).. and it would move the folder and it's contents and update the system link.
and having theses options available at setup - while nice does not at all deal with the issue of applications that don't pay attention and just feel everything should be where the default would be.
Re:SSD's are awesome, but the cost... (Score:3, Informative)
The process consisted of putting the new HDD in a USB enclosure, attaching it to the PC, telling EASUS to do a clone of my drive onto the new one, including resizing partitions.
Once it was copied I shut off the laptop, but the new HDD in the laptop and booted it up. No reinstalling programs, not recreating user accounts.
Re:And now you can have a superior PC for $500 les (Score:5, Informative)
I'd wait for benchmarks on this before auto-bashing it in favor of the Intel SSDs, which are are meeting up with decent competition these days.
There are SSDs that are performance competitive with Intel. They are not made by Toshiba. Unless Toshiba has made massive gains over previous models then this drive will not be competitive with Intel or other good SSDs. Most if not all "Toshiba" SSD controller chips are re-baged JMicron ones.
Well, the interface isn't proprietary so there's no reason 3rd parties can't release higher capacity SSDs in the future.
Not proprietary != widely used.
And I'd like to see where people get the idea that Apple hasn't added TRIM support to OS X?
The only OSes that currently support TRIM are Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, Linux with kernel 2.6.33 or greater and recent OpenSolaris. OSX does not support it and Apple's only comments have been a long the lines of "we'll get to that, eventually, maybe".
Re:And now you can have a superior PC for $500 les (Score:3, Informative)
If you honestly believe windows is more secure then, I don't know what to tell you.
It's been accepted now by security experts (not so-called geeks spouting the same FUD since 1999) for a good year or two now. Go look it up. Also, there are a lot of new security technologies in place that OSX doesn't have.
I do a ton of photo work and iPhoto has a ton of features that no other program I have used has or has as elegantly or usable. Sorry. (and I play guitar and enjoy the simplicity of Garageband since I'm not a pro, I don't own a Mac but that is something I would dig.)
We can argue this until you're blue in the face. iPhoto is regarded as a poor application. There are a myriad of better alternatives. And millions of people don't need Garageband.
HP Envy is essentially the same price as a MBP and very close in hardware at those prices.
Not this again. Just... no.
The 13" MBP doesn't even have an OPTION for a 7200 RPM HD or a Core i3/5/7. And the other envy is a 17". Even fully decked out with a Core i7, 8GB of RAM, Blu-ray, and a 500 GB 7200 RPM HD, it's about $200-400 cheaper than a MBP 15" and $1,500 cheaper than the MBP 17"
Most of the tech you mentioned is for benchmarks or gaming on a home PC. Not average userland. The MBP and iMacs play modern games just fine and have perfectly normal GPUs. I'm not a hardcore gamer and a NV 9600GT is in my PC.
No problem. Let's expand the list. In just 5 seconds, I could name no USB 3.0. No blu-ray. No e-SATA ports. No HDMI ports. That not useful to you?
And sure they play modern games fine. At the lowest settings, lowest details, and they can only play about 10% of the games out there! Good example!
Windows 7 is a massive improvement and I love it. It is still terribly flawed in usability. OSX shines there. Sure, you have to do it their way but that is the tradeoff. I'd love to see Meego or Ubuntu Unity really take off.
You really think usability is superior? You really think that?
The incredibly small buttons used in most applications are easy to hit quickly?
Itunes and Quicktime are good at useability and interface?
That the inconsistant look of applications are good?
That half of the time you hover over an application, there is no tool-tip, so you're left wondering what the hell you press?
Only being able to resize a window from one *tiny* little corner, forcing you to take like 5 minutes to hit it and find it, is good?
I think Win 7 is excellent is usability. But I won't argue, like you, that it's superior because it's subjective. And OSX you can't say follows the HIG anymore. If anything, Gnome is more true to the HIG and is usable as an interface and more consistent. And you're making Unity the example of usability? The thing is practically alpha software and to date the most it does is a re-invented program launcher. Seriously?