Solid state 1.8" drives shipping in 2007

[seneca]

I just saw this post on slashdot:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/0 ... 1232.shtml

I wonder if they will have a compatible connector for the X40.

And I hope they will be cheaper then these:

http://www.dvnation.com/nand-flash-ssd.html#Samsung

[dmar]

I'm too lazy to read through all of the slashdot comments. But curious what this quote means to us x41 users...

While streaming performance can't equal that of hard disks, Samsung claims that random-access performance is more important and that (e.g.) Vista users would see a 4x speedup in many key operations.

Does this mean we'll get the bootup boost, but won't see actual peformance increases in everyday related apps? If the solid state hard drive gets anywhere near a 7200rpm platter, it would make me rethink selling my tablet.

[seneca]

No it's not about fast boots and the like, even though it's a bit faster.

I think the Solid state drives will be about the same speed or perhaps twice as fast as a 4200rpm 1.8" hdd when streaming. Meaning when you load a large file into memory from the hdd or download from your LAN to your harddrive.

The biggest advantage is in the random I/O operations, meaning swap, background-writes, seektime and simultaneously open files.

Seektime is down to 1ms compared to like...12ms (?) of our 1.8" hdds and 6.5ms of the fastest SCSI drives. And random I/O is really good since there is no moving parts.

[draco2527]

I just saw this post on slashdot:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/0 ... 1232.shtml

I wonder if they will have a compatible connector for the X40.

And I hope they will be cheaper then these:

http://www.dvnation.com/nand-flash-ssd.html#Samsung

If the environment required the use of a HD of this caliber ($$); I might do it...but for that kind of coin, I'll take an X60T!

If the cost was 2 or even 3 times what a regular HD would cost...then...yes, I woul get one in a heartbeat!

[tomh009]

I think the Solid state drives will be about the same speed or perhaps twice as fast as a 4200rpm 1.8" hdd when streaming. Meaning when you load a large file into memory from the hdd or download from your LAN to your harddrive.

I don't think so. Hitachi's old C4K40 1.8" 4200 rpm drive is rated at between 16.8 and 30.0 MB/s off the media. The fastest solid-state media read speeds are currently between 16 and 17 MB/s regardless of the interface type (USB2, Firewire etc.):
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_ ... =6007-8462

The biggest advantage is in the random I/O operations, meaning swap, background-writes, seektime and simultaneously open files.

Seektime is down to 1ms compared to like...12ms (?) of our 1.8" hdds and 6.5ms of the fastest SCSI drives. And random I/O is really good since there is no moving parts.

This will indeed be better on solid-state drives.

[fudgy]

One of the most important aspects of having a solid state drive will be much lower power consumption.

[taob]

The fastest solid-state media read speeds are currently between 16 and 17 MB/s regardless of the interface type (USB2, Firewire etc.):
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_ ... =6007-8462

The current speed champ is SanDisk's Extreme IV flash memory with a UDMA-4 Firewire 800 reader... it comes just a bit shy of tickling 40 MB/s sustained I/O in that configuration. It was released early last year, although no digital camera can yet take full advantage of the speed.

The benchmark results are at the page you linked to above, but you need to scroll to the right of the CF results table.

[taob]

Here's a newer article:

SanDisk Launches 32 Gigabyte Solid State Drive (Jan 4 2007)

1.8" form factor, 60 MB/s (!), 7000 iops, 2 million hours MTBF. Initial cost... USD600.

[seneca]

wow, not bad at all

I can't wait until these drives are available to the consumer

And seriously...600USD ain't that bad, it's about 450EUR.

I remember my first 80gb 3.5" hdd costing around 600USD when I bought it.

[taob]

I wonder if they've worked around the write cycle limitation of NAND memory cells then?

[malone]

Does anyone know if the recently announced SanDisk solid-state hard drive is compatible with the X41? As I recall, we have a bit of a funky hardware interface that doesn't make us compatible with all industry 1.8" drives...

[seneca]

I wonder if they've worked around the write cycle limitation of NAND memory cells then?

These SSD's have write-cycle equalization algorithms that even out the load on the the flash. The limited write cycles are not an issue with SSD hdds.

[dmdsoftware]

Considering the X60 has been tagged as able to accommodate 1.8" and 2.5" drives, will this work in an X60?

EDIT: noticed they are PATA, so, NO, they won't work on an X60.

[teetee]

16GB RiDATA SSD for $169

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5645

It doesn't seem to mention anything about the random read/write speed though.

Here is another article:
http://press.arrivenet.com/technology/a ... 95971.html

[berlin]

Any update on SSDs. I made a mistake of buying an X41. Hehe