Samsung has pushed up the capacity of solid state drives with the introduction of its new 2.5-inch 256GB SSD drive. The drive uses multi-level cell technology to pack more data in a smaller space without dramatically increasing costs, and supposedly performs over two times faster than typical hard drives.
The new SSD drive also boasts a mean time failure rate at one million hours, a 0.9 watt power consumption in active mode, and data encryption that continues to function after the drive is removed from a computer.
The company said that it plans to begin mass production of the 2.5-inch 256GB drive by the end of 2008, and it also plans to have a 1.8-inch version available in its fourth quarter of 2008.
Not in my immediate future; but, interesting, nonetheless.
I want one….but it has to be in 512GB or better.
All just a matter of time at this point.
Makes one wonder how many carbon-points making one of these generates, because while it is low power (GOOD!) you have to wonder what kinds of toxins were produced to develop/manufacture this thing.
Way too esoteric for a (sic)’Monday Morning’
I also love the idea. A real step in the right direction.
BUT…
The 120GB version cost in the thousands of dollars, what is this monster going to cost!
I wonder how many pictures I could get on that baby? Wooohoooooooo!!!
I find this to be drool worthy.
I really don’t get the push for huge, expensive SSDs. Why doesn’t anyone make an inexpensive 16GB SSD? That’s more than you need INSIDE a business laptop, you can plug in a USB drive for more capacity.
My only question is how volatile is the information on these things?
Are they problematic to static, electrical surges and such??
This appears to be a promising technology, but I have yet to here the down side to these besides the cost.
Solid state drives by definition have no moving parts, so are shock resistant compared to regular disk drives. They won’t be affordable now, but in 5 years or so they will be the standard mass storage, especially for laptops and other portable computers. Imagine never having a head crash again…
#1 Here’s the deal. My current carbon footprint is 20.4 tons according to mycarbonfootprint.com.
Starting today every time I read or hear about somebody worrying about the C footprint for something as insignificant as this I’m going to do something to increase my C footprint.
I may go broke doing it but damn-it I’m taking the planet down with me.
I’d even settle for an 8 GB model around $100. That would allow totally silent computing on an old Thinkpad 701C. And 8.1 GB is the BIOS limit for that machine, though some have been able to shoehorn larger drives.
This is great. Please wake me up when a mere mortal can afford one.
Big whoop-dee-doo.
Why does anyone ‘drool’ over something like this… how does it make your life actually better?
Bootup time is just slightly faster (if at all), because bootup has little to do with disk speed and everything to do with software component startup. (Anyone that has seen the OSX kernel load in graphics mode realizes this).
Disk speed? This is meant for a laptop! Performance on a laptop is always secondary to battery life and convenience (prime example: MacBook Air)
Just another evolutionary step in storage, certainly nothing to ‘drool’ about. But I guess some people drool easily over new toys… the same that buy every new Apple device that comes out, regardless of need or improved usefulness.
#1 You are wrong! I don’t “have to wonder how many toxins were produced to develop/manufacture this thing”. I have a life. Get one too,it’s great.
Very exciting indeed.
Instant on PC’s and super fast application loads with applications pinned to the SSD.
Providing for a truly rugged PC, more reliability with low MTBF and low power makes this technology rock.
I agree with #5 that a inexpensive 16GB would be fine for most road warriors.
If the OS puts the swap file in the same spot on the disk it’ll burn out in a matter of months. There will need to be some smart swapping to prevent this. I wonder what Lenovo and Apple do to prevent this.
Not until throughput and random access times are better than a 10000 rpm Raptor or a faster SCSCI will I buy one. No one needs more than 100gig…put the OS and swap file on the fast drive and save your bitorrent downloads for the 5200 speed hard drive…you don’t need more throughput than that.
I guess we have the answer to the question of how much more data can be packed onto a hard driver platter before physics hits a wall. The answer is nobody cares because hard drives got replaced by SSDs.
@ #11
As I was the only one that mentioned ‘drool’ until you came on to complain about ‘anyone drooling’ I’ll have to assume that comment was directed at me (or the droolers I represent).
Your last paragraph doesn’t fit me one bit. I’m just a bit of a futurist and I like seeing things take considerable steps. I want SSDs to surpass moving part HDs and when you start seeing their storage numbers jump up it starts seeming more plausible (though I feel certain the price tag will be ghastly).
Oh noes! I set my bar lower or differently for what is drool worthy! Omg!
Well, by the time WinBloze 7 ships, these drives will be TOO SMALL TO HOLD THE OS !!! Keep trying though, guys !!! Mechanical Rotating Magnetic Memory will still be with us !!!
This thing is so outdated. You guys need to do some research before posting crap though… First of all 256GB, not to be confused with gb or mb…is plenty room for the so called Windows 7. If it isn’t, then 1 terabyte isn’t much to woohoo about either. Windows 7 is pretty much vista and you don’t need anywhere near 256gb to run vista. As for a 128GB ssd, you can get one for max 900 min being somewhere around 300, so 6 months later and the price dropped by 3x. The Samsung SSD has read 200mb/s write 160mb/s, which is super fast even when compared to the mechanical drives. I’m thinking when it is mass produced it’ll be somewhere around 1000-2000 max, but somewhere more in the middle. I predict that in the next year or so SSD prices will drop to around $1 per GB. It’s already fast approaching. I’d say somewhere around 2010 they’ll be pretty much affordable, if not the standard for every laptop already.