Samsung Mass Produces 128GB SSD 121
Lucas123 writes "Samsung Electronics said today it is now mass-producing solid-state drives with a 128GB capacity, and it will begin production of a 256GB product later this year, ahead of its scheduled 2009 release. Samsung's 128GB and 64GB SSDs are available in 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. Currently, solid state disk costs about $3.45 per gigabyte and spinning disk costs about $0.38 per gig."
Still no deal (Score:5, Interesting)
And still it is about 10 times more expensive than a hdd. If this doesn't get any cheaper, it won't get any popularity. If a new tech wants to replace an old tech it needs a significant and intrinsic advantage otherwise it will be adopted at a snails pace.
Re:Still no deal (Score:5, Informative)
SSD does have significant perceived benefits;
1) Faster reads
2) Lower power
3) Quieter
4) Cooler
That samsung is producing these at all indicates that there is a demand for them. I think in 5 years, a majority of HDs sold will be SSD.
Perhaps a mix (Score:4, Interesting)
Key read-only OS files would remain on SSD. Bigger files that are rarely used would be on the hard drive. The tricky part would be to minimize the number of times you spin up your hard drive. You could potentially leave it up to the user and have a deliberate mounting process when it's time to do backups or archiving.
Re:Perhaps a mix (Score:4, Insightful)
Although it'd also be nice to just give yourself a hybrid type setup. 100+ gig SSD drive for OS, Apps, Games, etc. and then a 1TB HDD for file storage.
Re:Still no deal (Score:5, Informative)
1) Faster reads
Not necessarily [tomshardware.co.uk]. Sustained read speeds are still faster on (most) spinning disks (vs. most SSDs). They do have orders of magnitude better access time resulting in better random read performance, but that wasn't what you said.
2) Lower power
Not necessarily [tomshardware.com]. A 200GB HDD uses about the same power as a 32GB SSD. While these numbers do not scale linearly with size, you can expect SSDs to consume more power as sizes go up (e.g. due to more complex wear leveling algorithms). These performance numbers of course will increase as the technology matures, but for now it is still only a perceived benefit.
I do agree with your expectation about SSDs in the future, but you don't need half-truths to reach that conclusion :)
However, I don't expect the spinning disk do the dodo just yet; seeing as they're still cheaper per unit of storage, I expect that 2-disk setups will become the norm: SSD for the OS, and HDD for data - which is what I've been doing in my own systems for the last 2 years (using CF->IDE converters)
Does anyone know about the retention rate for these SSDs? I can let an HDD gather dust for ten years, and then still hope to retrieve the data succesfully. Can I expect the same from SSDs?
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I said perceived. Not actual. Add to that list reliability.
And for myself, I'd put my data on the most reliable device ( SSD ).
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There's no real reason to expect SSDs to be more reliable today. Bits get flipped in memory in ways they don't get flipped on disk. SSDs have a limited number of writes - which might in practice mean longer or shorter effective life than HDDs, but it's too early to tell.
SSD technology has the *potential* to be much more reliable, but any technology with decades of engineering behind it should be assumed to be more reliable than any new technology, until one has actual measurments to the contrary.
Magic bits? (Score:2)
There's no real reason to expect SSDs to be more reliable today. Bits get flipped in memory in ways they don't get flipped on disk.
Ummm - you what? SSDs are a replacement option for spindle-type drives so they should be seeing the same sort of activity. Maybe the location of each write might vary as the drive controller for SSDs is interested in equalizing access around the memory. But last time I looked, bits are "on" or "off" unless you count the "evil" bit...
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
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It's very easy for stray radiation to flip a bit in memory, not so much on a modern GMR HDD. Ultimately, you could make an SSD more reliable than an HDD, but the SSD tech is very new.
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It's very easy for stray radiation to flip a bit in memory, not so much on a modern GMR HDD.
You are comparing flash memory to DRAM, which tells me you have no idea how flash memory works.
With flash, when you write data, you need a very high voltage compared to say, DRAM. This is because the electrons used to write to a flash cell need to tunnel through a thin gate insulator. This makes the amount of energy required to write a bit in flash much higher than what is required to write a bit in DRAM. Flash sh
Re:Still no deal (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Faster reads
Not necessarily [tomshardware.co.uk]. Sustained read speeds are still faster on (most) spinning disks (vs. most SSDs). They do have orders of magnitude better access time resulting in better random read performance, but that wasn't what you said.
To what extent does a typical desktop work load use random vs. sequential cluster reads, especially when it would matter? Consider for a moment that an SSD controller can stripe data across many flash chips, while a conventional drive can address only one platter at once due to head-to-head alignment limitations.
2) Lower power
Not necessarily [tomshardware.com].
I read that same Slashdot article from a week ago [slashdot.org]. I gathered from the comments that the faster random read of SSD caused more transactions to be performed per second, and that shortened the battery life as much as anything else.
I expect that 2-disk setups will become the norm: SSD for the OS, and HDD for data - which is what I've been doing in my own systems for the last 2 years (using CF->IDE converters)
Isn't the OS something that can be read sequentially, if you put the kernel, kernel modules, C library, and services in one big squashfs [sourceforge.net] on the hard disk, like a less-extreme version of Puppy Linux's boot process? Then you get the sequential read speed advantage of platters for stuff that'll become resident in RAM anyway.
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In general, what eats battery power is writing and erasing flash. If you don't have enough RAM and end up paging to flash, that's going to cost lots of battery life (and SSD lifespan as well). There's also a wide range of power management among flash controllers from those that do little or no power management at all to those that
Not all operating systems need to swap (Score:2)
If you don't have enough RAM and end up paging to flash
Then you must be running Windows. Some operating systems can run usefully with no swap. Specifically, I have run Puppy Linux as the primary OS on two nine-year-old PCs that had been upgraded to a quarter gig of RAM, and it doesn't swap. Give an SSD-based laptop a more efficient workload to run, and it will run more efficiently. Asus knew this and took it into account when building the Eee PC line.
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I guess if you don't run any programs, you'll never need to use the page file.
I recognize a hint of sarcasm. But seriously, not all programs are big enough to need the page file. If your OS occupies 64 MB, your web browser occupies 64 MB, and other open programs occupy a total of 64 MB, what good is a swap file on a 256 MB machine?
Re:Still no deal (Score:5, Insightful)
I would take that Toms Hardware article with a huge grain of salt.
Their tests simulated a usage pattern that is pretty rare in practice, especially for a portable device. Although certain applications do indeed require long, sustained transfers, most data transfers are spontaneous and sporadic (which is where flash memory shines, thanks to the nearly-zero seek times).
To make a shameful car analogy, a long sustained transfer is like driving on the highway. You get pretty good mileage, even with an "inefficient" petrol engine.
Unfortunately, we don't always drive on the highway, and a typical usage pattern involves lots of stopping and going. Due to the rotational inertia of the platters, HDDs and Optical disks are inherently inefficient in this regard, as the disk either has to be kept 'idling' or spun up from rest whenever access is required. These effects can be reduced via caching or by reducing the rotational velocity to match streaming/continuous data (eg. a video DVD), but flash memory seems to have a pretty clear advantage here.
This snippet from the article destroys virtually all of their credibility;
Could Tomâ(TM)s Hardware be Wrong?
No, our results are definitely correct.
Although I believe their data, any scientist needs to keep an open mind for any inaccuracies or potential flaws in their methodologies that may be present. Computer hardware reviews are no exception to this.
I'm also wary of leaving any media to sit for 10 years. Longevity isn't a terribly strong point these days....
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SSD does have significant perceived benefits;
1) Faster reads 2) Lower power 3) Quieter 4) Cooler
That samsung is producing these at all indicates that there is a demand for them. I think in 5 years, a majority of HDs sold will be SSD.
You missed the recent article here that discussed SSD's actually using more power since they're always in full on mode so to speak while spinning disks only are in full on mode when the disk needs to be spun
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We've gone from being several orders of magnitude more expensive to only being a single order of magnitude more.
Closing the final gap might take a bit of time, but I feel that we should be able to do it in time.
Re:Still no deal (Score:5, Insightful)
How on earth do zero seek time and no moving parts not qualify under "significant and intrinsic advantage"? Zero seek time alone represents a sea change for mass storage -- access many orders of magnitude slower than the rest of the system has been a major assumption encoded in much software (and hardware) architecture for decades. We'll be feeling the repercussions of the end of rotating media for decades more. Yes, the price needs to come down for SSD's to annihilate traditional hard drives... but SSD's will steadily eat up HDD territory in the mean time.
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"How on earth do zero seek time and no moving parts not qualify under "significant and intrinsic advantage"? Zero seek time alone represents a sea change for mass storage -- access many orders of magnitude slower than the rest of the system has been a major assumption encoded in much software (and hardware) architecture for decades. We'll be feeling the repercussions of the end of rotating media for decades more. Yes, the price needs to come down for SSD's to annihilate traditional hard drives... but SSD's
Choose the right tool (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop using your media center to store your media. That's what media servers and networks are for. Media centers are supposed to be slim low power units that need no fan but have killer presentation hardware (amps, surround sound, killer video resolution) and just enough CPU and storage to operate and present the media. Games are not "media." For those there are answers too - Google "eee Crysis youtube" for details. There's no need to have that monster kilowatt game machine (you gluttonous twits) running its shrieking fans in the space where you enjoy your content.
Early adopters pay premium prices, that's all this is. They charge the premium prices because they can get them. The more they sell, the more the price comes down. By the time a 128GB SSD is $20 you'll never believe they weren't useful, but be right here saying how nobody will need that $900 1TB model.
StreamMyGame.com (Score:2)
You propose an architecture containing a media server and a media extender. For example, Apple TV and Xbox 360 use this setup. In general, the media server is connected to a tiny monitor (17" or 19" diagonal visible image) compared to the extender's monitor (32" diagonal visible image). This architecture has its advantages for passive media such as video.
StreamMyGame.com looks interesting. But all I had were questions:
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For that you will need to get the Atom PC with DVI out for the media center. You'll also need a beefy gaming rig for the back end if you don't want it to be a slideshow.
but you knew that...
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NONE of my harddisks have failed me.
You're lucky. I have to replace my HDD roughly every year.
In fact, three weeks ago I purchased a new 160GB to use in my computer because my previous 250GB one has gone kaput. And I had purchased that one circa one year ago after my previous 250GB one broke. And that one after an 80GB one went to the grave. A 12 to 18 months average.
Why 160GB instead of 250GB? Well, I simply realized I don't need that much space, so why spend more? After all, it'll break anyway. "Permanent storage", for me, means DVD-R's, Gm
replacing a HD every year (Score:2)
I have to replace my HDD roughly every year??! (Score:2)
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Just wondering, how hot do your drives run? I haven't had hardly any significant drive failures in my home equipment in the last 15 - 20 years or so. But then again my drives run at close to room temprature (either because of the drive brand itself, or the case has good cooling). For people that I know that had premature drive failures, the drives ran excessively hot (you couldn't touch them for more than a second or so).
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Just wondering, how hot do your drives run?
I have an HDD fan fixed to it. It's always at a comfortable temperature when I touch it, and checking the SMART fields tells me it's usually in the 25-35ÂC (75-95ÂF) range. So, I don't think it's temperature related.
On the other hand, the 40GB HDD I had before the 80GB one went working without any problem for 5 years or so, I don't remember well. It was my best HDD, and it's possible I've just been unlucky since then.
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What sort of PSU is in your PC? I bet it's cheap crap or else your power is crappy in other ways.
Might be the power line, since it has no ground, but it surely isn't the PSU, a very good Seventeam one.
Any suggestion on how to improve the energy that enters the computer? Preferably one that doesn't includes destroying the walls to add a ground.
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Thanks! I'll look into both things.
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NONE of my harddisks have failed me.
Either you've not been using computers for very long, or you buy much better drives than the rest of us. The last drive I had fail was two weeks ago. The one before that about one year earlier. I typically expect one or two to fail every year.
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I have been using computers since 1992 and I have never seen any drive fail here.
Disclaimer: I'm Dutch and and the current amount of harddisks working now is 7(3+1+2+1). 2 of them are over 6 years old. And I have a computer running a CRT screen from 1993. I must be the guy with all the luck or hard drives really don't fail that often. I do not buy special drives. I like my hard drives big and cheap.
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Seek time is reduced by a vast amount, but it's not zero, and slower bulk read/write speeds largely negate that advantage.
No moving parts is nice, but that doesn't mean drive failures are eliminated. I've had some fail or cause trouble because of a poor connection, and a couple fail because something on the circuit board died.
So far, the promise of zippy SSD at low power consumption currently means considerable weeding to arrive at something that actually fulfills it. The high speed flash chips cost more
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Yeah I know, hard drives were never adopted because they were so expensive. Cassette tapes ftw!
What? They ar..? Ooops, it seems I was misinformed.
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I urge you to re-read it.
Compare to LCDs (Score:4, Interesting)
It may be more worth it to compare the adoption of SSDs to how the adoption of LCDs occurred. For quite a long while LCDs were much more expensive than CRTs, with arguably worse performance in some significant areas (response time and color accuracy), but they were THIN, and they were absolutely flat, and they were (generally) lighter.
And now they've taken over, and dirt-cheap LCDs are easily available. So being a much more expensive technology initially is not necessarily a barrier to many consumers who want "the next big thing" because they want the specific advantages.
For myself however, I'm interested to know how they've addressed some of the traditional weaknesses of SSDs, such as number of times you can write to any specific memory element, write speed in general, and lifetime of the memory when no power is applied (this limitation exists for HDDs too in that over time the files will become corrupt (random bit flipping due to the magnetics), but I want to know the numbers for SSDs too).
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LCDs are still inferior to CRTs in terms of picture quality.
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Clearly you have not used LCDs. I would never go back to a CRT.
Or, (much more likely), he's only used an LCD with a TN panel. TN panels have only 6-bit colour per channel, terrible viewing angles (vertical in particular) and are extremely common in any LCD smaller than 24" or that costs less than $500.
Needless to say, LCDs with TN panels are trash. LCDs with IPS or PVA panels are quite nice, though. Unfortunately, TN panels are infesting higher and higher up in the LCD market, 2 years ago it was hard to find a TN panel in anything larger than 19". At the same time, wid
A 'disk' is like a 'carriage' (Score:3, Interesting)
We'll know that the new technology has taken over when people no longer need to refer to it as a solid state 'disk'.
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'car' is not an abbreviation of 'carriage', although they share a common root.
Mod parent down, please. (Score:2)
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Wait, which one is the chicken again?
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If you make the chicken out of SSD it all depends on how fast it lays its platters.
I'll wait until they're cheaper (Score:1)
Like the old days of free DVD/CD cases.
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um, old days of cd cases? I remember the good old days of free floppies!.
Expensive. (Score:2)
Re:Expensive. (Score:4, Insightful)
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They might be referring to server-grade hardware, which is generally much more expensive than consumer-grade stuff.
Anyone just like the powers of 2? (Score:1)
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Actually, solid-state disks are marketed using metric gigabytes instead of binary gigabytes. The chips are manufactured using binary gigabytes, and the difference is used for a set of spare sectors that are used for wear-levelling or to replace defective and worn-out sectors.
I doubt it (Score:1)
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Yes they do. For exactly the same reason that they do it for hard disks: they get to sell you something that seems to have more capacity than it actually does.
The size and number of chips is pretty arbitrary, so they don't need to have the storage actually be a power of two.
I just want a cheapie (Score:2)
Re:I just want a cheapie (Score:5, Informative)
You're looking in the wrong places, then. The CF interface is pin- and signal-compatible with the IDE interface, so any adapter is simply a CF socket, an IDE header, and a set of wires connecting the two. Cheap adapters are flimsy, but not incompatible.
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Looks like they can be had for around $4, shipped:
http://cgi.ebay.com/CF-to-44-Pin-2-5-LAPTOP-IDE-Hard-Drive-Adapter-bootable_W0QQitemZ150268212084QQcmdZViewItem [ebay.com]
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Dude, check eBay. There are PLENTY of CF -> 2.5" IDE adapters to be had CHEAP. Sure they're not exactly name-brand products, getting shipped out of Hong Kong or wherever, but hell I've got a 10 year old Compaq laptop that's currently running off of an SD card sitting in an SD->CF adapter plugged into a CF-> 2.5" IDE adapter. The old hard drive I had for it was riddled with bad sectors, cost me less than $20 to get that old box up and running again.
Just did a search for 'CF IDE adapter' and the firs
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Here you go, CompactFlash to 44-pin IDE adapter:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/cfdisk_2g [logicsupply.com]
power consumption... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Power consumption for SSD's is currently worse than for standard laptop drives.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html [tomshardware.com]
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How many people really have their OSes set to spin down disks when not in use?
I try to, but at the same time my OS writes log data to disk every few minutes so it never really happens.
Wrong direction (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't need higher capacity. What the market wants is for their 32GB drives to come down in price under the 100$ mark. I'd love to replace the hard drive in my notebook to a flash drive, but if it means splashing out hundreds of dollars for one, when there isn't really that much of a glaring advantage compared to a 30$ hard drive, I have to get back down to earth.
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Everybody wants more storage, but not at a cost which is about as much as you want to spend on the laptop itslf.
IMO, it would be better to have the 32 Gig flash drive, and carry around your videos on an external drive for when you need them.
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If I could replace a 250GB/320GB laptop drive with a 256GB SSD for less than $200, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The prices are crawling closer to that sweetspot every week, so we just need for manufacturers to do that doubling in capacity one more time.
Vista not a sensible idea in 32GB (Score:2)
My Vista eats around 15GB of disk space, much of it in cache folders for compatible binaries : the World Wide Wisdom assures me it would be foolhardy to delete these.
Initially I stuck it on a 60GB partition, assuming that this would be a handsome spread of sectors for it to wallow on, providing headroom for defragmentation and plenty of room for applications. It's now getting a little crowded in there. Software developers are not going to be install Vista on one of these babies and get any sensible amount o
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Your message should read:
subject: Vista not a sensible idea.
Body: n.t.
All the other gibberish you write is redundant. :)
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"We don't need higher capacity."
People have been saying that forever in computer land, we're not at 2-4GB of RAM as a norm, 3+Ghz processors. There are applications not yet thought of or which require a little more time for significant advances using current computation.
Don't underestimate our 'needs', we'll find ways to use that space no one has yet dreamed of. While the average bear might not need that much, a significant size of the market will always want more.
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What the market wants is for their 32GB drives to come down in price under the 100$ mark.
OCZ just announced their 'Core' series of SSDs, and the 32GiB part is supposed to retail for around $170 or $180, I think (though I can't yet find them for under $209 (yet - these were just announced), so we're pretty close.
For me, this will be a great upgrade for my old Mac Mini (Core Duo generation), which will attach to a NAS for main storage. If they had these in ATA versions, it would be a fantastic upgrade for my
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If they had these in ATA versions, it would be a fantastic upgrade for my old ThinkPad T40, as I certainly don't need anything more than 32GiB in my laptop (though I know some people do). Sadly, they are only available in SATA versions. :(
If I had mod points to give, I'd rate your Informative. That's just what I was going to ask about. Two ATA drives each at 128 GiB would be good for stress testing in my Series1 TiVos that lack LBA48-compatible kernels (for as long as cable still provides SD channels).
For the SATA unit, I'd just use 1 TB drives.
Put this in an iPhone (Score:2, Interesting)
Hopefully Apple will put these in the next round of iPhones. Then I can finally replace my cell and iPod with one device!
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Won't somebody think of the utility industry? (Score:2)
>
Once these become mainstream, think of the poor software utility companies like GRC (spinrite) and Diskeeper Corporation..... One of their main revenue streams gone....
>
$3.45 per gigabyte? (Score:1)
$3.45 per gigabyte and spinning disk costs about $0.38 per gig
Newegg [newegg.com] is showing me anywhere from $12-25 per gigabyte.
Someone want to check my math? Are we talking US dollars? If you find a place that sells for $3.45/g then a 128GB for $441.60 definitely sounds affordable.
OCZ Core series SSD drives (Score:2)
The Savior of an Inept SQL Author (Score:5, Insightful)
With IOps an order of magnitude higher than standard disks, SSDs are primed to take the DB and file server markets by storm. Especially since performance usually trumps cost there. When it costs you $500/hour to optimize your DB or millions for downtime, spending $3 per gigabyte is a no brainer.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-memoright,1926-11.html [tomshardware.com]
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Or throw 64GB of ram at your server :)
SSD will only help when the DB is too big to fit into the largest amount of ram you can cram into one box, see EVE Online for an example, they use a 300GB SSD to store their game DB on.
Who needs a lot of storage (Score:1, Insightful)
I keep all my media and most of my large files on a server in the corner of my room. I usually grab a couple movies and maybe some music and put them on my hard drive when traveling other then that I just pull it from the network. I can even access these files online if I have too. So why would I need a big ssd drive. Personally I find that 64Gigs is more then I need for everyday use. I would not put an ssd in my server but I would certainly put it in my Laptop or desktop. I don't know why people whine abou
32GB SSD for ~$110 (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211244 [newegg.com]
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822998003 [newegg.com]
Hah, ok, so its a 32GB CF card and a CF->IDE adapter. But regardless, the combo works remarkably well, today, for tolerable prices.
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Why?
SSD drives are slower and more expensive and smaller (capacity) and not that great on the power like they promised.
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I don't think drinkypoo is a twitter sock (Score:2)
Tell me *you're* not a twitter clone...
Can't be. Grandparent post was roughly 312 characters long, over twice as long as a typical microblog post. (wc ftw)
But seriously, willyhill keeps a fairly comprehensive list of the sockpuppets [slashdot.org] of twitter (104583), and drinkypoo (153816) isn't on it. In fact, apart from Erris, most of the alleged shills have UID > 1.25M. You could try comparing drinkypoo's posting history here or on Everything 2 [everything2.com] to those of other alleged shills. Or you could just claim that I'm Twittacus [wikipedia.org].
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In your typical scenario Vista, Norton, and Google Desktop Search will be probing/indexing/scanning your hard drive non stop while your typical users browse the web, watch videos, and download crap in the background.
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You can get 8GB USB flash drives for £28, which is around $56, so we're getting there...
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