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jeffm · #1 Post by **jeffm** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:35 pm

SanDisk has released a 32GB SSD to OEMs that can be used in any laptop that uses 2.5" SATA:

http://sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1520

If those performance numbers hold up, I'm getting one as soon as it's available to the general public (well, I might wait for the 60GB version).

#2 Post by **tomh009** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:00 pm

Ooooh -- very nice! Looks very promising, though would want to see some real-life benchmarks as the technology is so fundamentally different from hard disks.

If it works as advertised, it'll be silent, run at 1/3 the power of a 7200 rpm drive and provide another 30-60 minutes of battery life. Wow.

#3 Post by **rkawakami** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:18 pm

Hmm... nice marketing specs. 2 million hour MTBF is good, along with the reduced power consumption.

However, I do not see the one flash specification that really means something.... and that's the number of write/programming cycles that each byte can sustain. If it's the normal NAND flash cell, then it's probably somewhere around 100,000 to 1,000,0000 program cycles, after which the byte is defective and must be marked as bad. Coupled with a wear-leveling memory controller that spreads out the usage of each byte, you shouldn't see a problem with "bad sectors" for many years (??). I'd be curious to see if anyone has determined how many actual write cycles occur within a single file over a large amount of time on a hard disk drive. Say for example, the virtual memory file. The file is created on disk and may grow or shrink, depending on how it was set up and system usage. As memory blocks are swapped in and out between the physical memory and the disk drive, data will be overwritten (re-programmed). A hard disk drive sector does not deteriorate (AFAIK) with multiple writes; a flash cell does.

#4 Post by **tomh009** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:39 pm

Indeed, NAND memory is typically guaranteed to only 100K erase cycles per block. The key here is the use of TrueFFS, which Sandisk gained in their acquisition of m-systems. Now there is no simple answer, but the results do look very impressive. Especially read the technical note in the first link below:
http://www.m-sys.com/NR/rdonlyres/FCC7D ... hanism.pdf
http://www.m-sys.com/NR/rdonlyres/623A2 ... FFS_SD.pdf
http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/File/OEM/ ... elv1.0.pdf

dsigma6 · #5 Post by **dsigma6** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:32 pm

I think we should just start a new sticky called "News from Gizmodo.com that I've copy/pasted on the forum."

I do it too sometimes, but this tech news is so abundant.

#6 Post by **gator** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:51 pm

dsigma6 wrote:I think we should just start a new sticky called "News from Gizmodo.com that I've copy/pasted on the forum."

Are you referring to me

I do it all the time!

jeffm · #7 Post by **jeffm** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:01 pm

I think we should just start a new sticky called "News from Gizmodo.com that I've copy/pasted on the forum."

Actually, I first saw this on NotebookReview.com, but they didn't link to the original, so I hunted it down on the SanDisk site. Give me some credit!

JHEM · #8 Post by **JHEM** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:09 pm

OEM price for the SanDisk SSD is reported to be ~$350, so figure $600 street price at introduction.

I've been following developments in solid state HD technology for quite a while now as I want something like the SanDisk 32GB or the PQI 64GB offering (introduced at the CES show) for my TransNote and X31. The PQI drive has been quoted at ~$2800 for OEMs, but there have been projections for street prices falling below $1K for more than a year.

Should also note that these would be a Godsend for X4 series owners.

As Ray (the memory God) stated, there are still a lot of questions pertaining to this technology.

James

ennma · #9 Post by **ennma** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:04 pm

would this thing just simply plug in the bay for the 2.5inch?

ennma

sugo · #10 Post by **sugo** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:13 pm

ennma wrote:would this thing just simply plug in the bay for the 2.5inch?

Yes, a SATA 2.5".

I don't understand why they don't release 8GB and 16GB versions.

JHEM · #11 Post by **JHEM** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:16 pm

sugo wrote:Yes, a SATA 2.5".

No, they're available in both interfaces.

And smaller capacities are already available.

James

ennma · #12 Post by **ennma** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:27 pm

1M cycles, hmm does that mean each time we read data, that counts towards that 1M life cycle?

isn't that low? I mean how many times do we r/w data a day alot?

ennma

sugo · #13 Post by **sugo** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:34 pm

JHEM wrote:No, they're available in both interfaces.

And smaller capacities are already available.

James

Huh? I don't see 2.5" PATA 32GB or 2.5" SATA 8/16GB version.
http://sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1477

#14 Post by **rkawakami** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:31 am

ennma wrote:1M cycles, hmm does that mean each time we read data, that counts towards that 1M life cycle?

No. The number of program (write) cycles is what really counts. Once programmed with data, you can read from a flash device as many times as you want without degrading it.

Well, actually, it's the number of erasures that you have to count but since you have to erase a sector and then re-program it when you write data, those two operations go hand-in-hand. Flash is not like a regular DRAM memory cell. There's a finite number of times that you can erase and program each cell. Once you cross that threshold (~100K to 1M cycles), the cell will no longer store data correctly and you must mark the sector bad.

JHEM · #15 Post by **JHEM** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:22 am

sugo wrote:Huh? I don't see 2.5" PATA 32GB or 2.5" SATA 8/16GB version.

E. g., if you check the URL in my original reply above, you'll see that PQI offers their range of Turbo DOM SSD drives in both SATA from 8GB to 64GB and PATA from 64MB to 64GB.

There are other manufacturers as well.

James

sugo · #16 Post by **sugo** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:42 am

JHEM wrote:E. g., if you check the URL in my original reply above, you'll see that PQI offers their range of Turbo DOM SSD drives in both SATA from 8GB to 64GB and PATA from 64MB to 64GB.

There are other manufacturers as well.

James

sigh ... PQI's offerings are not the focus of this thread since they are several times more expensive. ennma's question was directed towards the SanDisk as well. I was wondering why SanDisk doesn't offer 8GB and 16GB versions.

Transcend's and Super Talent's offerings are cheap but too slow.

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