Sandisk 32GB solid state drive

yuchai · Post by **yuchai** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:09 am

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36706

http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1478

Seems very interesting, but the price is still very prohibitive at $600 for 32GB.

What do you all think?

CraigB · Post by **CraigB** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:34 am

I'd buy one for my laptop if they were available.

Scrooge · Post by **Scrooge** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:15 pm

I would be all over that if it were available right now.

|Romeo| · Post by **|Romeo|** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:27 pm

Whilst I really like where Sandisk is going with this, the fact that they chose to compare it to a drive designed for ipods seems somewhat cheeky to me.
[quote]
*** Measurements were made on SanDisk SSD 1.8â€

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:46 pm

Very nice product, aside from the price. I wonder why they chose 1.8" form factor when surely the big market would be 2.5" laptops...

link1896 · Post by **link1896** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:30 pm

"Very nice product, aside from the price. I wonder why they chose 1.8" form factor when surely the big market would be 2.5" laptops..."

notebook manufacturers would jump on the reduced form factor in a second, and it also solves a lot of ipod failure issues. Of course this is ignoring prices for a minute.

60 MB/s is pretty damned good for solid state memory. For a traditional 7200 rpm drive, average transfer rate is 60-70 MB/s. The 60 MB/s for the SanDisk SSD UATA 5000 is not an average as it will maintain this over the whole storage area, no inner and outer tracks on a solid state device.

32 GB is plenty for an OS/programs disk.

see link below for comparison of current hard drives for transfer rates.

Of course the price will need to shrink considerable to compete with traditional storage methods.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/ba ... ex.x?pg=12

vick1000 · Post by **vick1000** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:19 am

But does'nt flash memory deteriorate with continued over-writes?

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 11:29 am

In my PC the OS is frequently acessing the hdd. Some application profiles (mail, internet cache, ...) are also generating access. Putting it on a flash drive would enable me to shut down the hdd using the idle timer. An 8 GiB solid state should be enough. My current system partition is 5 GiB big.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:43 pm

vick1000 wrote:But does'nt flash memory deteriorate with continued over-writes?

It does, but the smart flash cards compensate by writing data to different physical locations each time data is written. Since access is virtually instant anywhere it comes from, fragmentation is almost irrelevant since there's no moving parts anyway. The only reason fragmentation matters with hard drives is because you have rotational latency and seek lag to reach the needed sectors. Flash can randomly access any sector it wants to at any time.

sgtspiff · Post by **sgtspiff** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:10 am

Samsung has said that they will release their SSD early in 2007. Hopefully they would be able to press the prices a bit.
Don't know when "early 2007" is though.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:58 am

How does 128GB grab you.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36841

Andy

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:17 pm

Yes, competition in the consumer space. I love it. Sandisk stuff is always overpriced...

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:46 pm

AZBrandon wrote:
vick1000 wrote:But does'nt flash memory deteriorate with continued over-writes?
It does, but the smart flash cards compensate by writing data to different physical locations each time data is written. Since access is virtually instant anywhere it comes from, fragmentation is almost irrelevant since there's no moving parts anyway. The only reason fragmentation matters with hard drives is because you have rotational latency and seek lag to reach the needed sectors. Flash can randomly access any sector it wants to at any time.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I recall reading that wear levelling software could extend flash memory up to around 100,000 cycles. A quickie about this here as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_levelling

I'm not sure I'm understanding the Wikipedia entry about Sandisk's software correctly though. What happens to static data that doesn't get altered? Is it basically never cycled through while any free space gets cycled a disproportionately higher number of times? That could be bad if you have a SSD that is nearly full.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:03 am

BrianE wrote:
AZBrandon wrote:
vick1000 wrote:But does'nt flash memory deteriorate with continued over-writes?
It does, but the smart flash cards compensate by writing data to different physical locations each time data is written. Since access is virtually instant anywhere it comes from, fragmentation is almost irrelevant since there's no moving parts anyway. The only reason fragmentation matters with hard drives is because you have rotational latency and seek lag to reach the needed sectors. Flash can randomly access any sector it wants to at any time.
I can't remember where I saw it, but I recall reading that wear levelling software could extend flash memory up to around 100,000 cycles. A quickie about this here as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_levelling

Some flash memories are good up to 1,000,000 cycles now.

I'm not sure I'm understanding the Wikipedia entry about Sandisk's software correctly though. What happens to static data that doesn't get altered? Is it basically never cycled through while any free space gets cycled a disproportionately higher number of times? That could be bad if you have a SSD that is nearly full.

TrueFFS also does static data rotation. So even if the host computer isn't rewriting those sectors, they'll be moved around so that their remaining erase cycles are available to the whole system.

Palindroman · Post by **Palindroman** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 5:58 am

How's about this:

Setting New Standards for Industrial Storage â€“ PQI Turbo SATA DOM / 2.5â€

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 12:46 pm

link1896 wrote:32 GB is plenty for an OS/programs disk.

Oh really?

Win XP Media Centre takes up 9G, pre-installed.

Windows Vista takes up anywhere from 10-40G !!! (depending on version)

loz · Post by **loz** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:03 pm

Windows isn't the only OS, and you can find alternative light versions of Windows...

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:25 pm

loz wrote:Windows isn't the only OS, and you can find alternative light versions of Windows...

True, but most people aren't willing to sacrifice the versatility and ease of use of Windows. I'm not saying Windows is good, I'm just saying everyone's used to it and every program conforms to it (most of time). They need to make it 64GB and get the price down to about $1.50/GB. Then they will sell like crazy. I expect it to get down there sometime late this year or early next year. Hopefully, there'll be some Black Friday deals

.

P.S. Hmmm, maybe its time to buy some SanDisk stock . . .

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:26 pm

Yeah for a lot of people, a 2gb Windows XP image, another gig for MS Office, and a few gigs for random stuff is all that they need. I know at least two people who only use their computer for browsing the internet and occasionally downloading pics from their digital camera so they can be posted to myspace. For them even an 8gb hard drive would probably be enough.

kater · Post by **kater** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:43 am

How about his one? Looks promising.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:24 pm

kater wrote:How about his one? Looks promising.

Indeed. I just sent them an email asking about pricing and availability. I'd actually be perfectly fine with the 32gb model probably, like for my already passive linux server to make it truly silent.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:51 pm

AZBrandon wrote:
kater wrote:How about his one? Looks promising.
Indeed. I just sent them an email asking about pricing and availability. I'd actually be perfectly fine with the 32gb model probably, like for my already passive linux server to make it truly silent.

Please let us know what you hear, if anything!

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:59 pm

Eunos wrote:Please let us know what you hear, if anything!

Yeah, nothing so far, but I'll let you know when I do hear something. That's actually a local company for me, maybe 15 miles from where I live. Unfortuantely in searching online to try to find more information, I saw one page saying they might be $80-100 per gigabyte. That would put even the 32gb model at $2500. I personally have trouble believing that's possible when the Sandisk is supposedly $600 for a 32gb drive, but I hope to find out maybe in the next day or two.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:47 pm

Adtron is one of the most expensive industrial brands out there. Definitely not in the consumer price range.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:31 pm

highlandsun wrote:Adtron is one of the most expensive industrial brands out there. Definitely not in the consumer price range.

Gotcha. Well they never wrote back and I suspect they have no interest in getting back to me anyway. I guess Sandisk is the one to watch in this arena. Heck, I think I could fit a pretty decent linux build even on a 4gb drive, I just would want it to be a flash device truly intended to be a hard drive, rather than using a consumer grade flash card as a drive. I dunno, maybe I'll get ambitious and experiment some day down the road.

yuchai · Post by **yuchai** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:12 pm

Update: Looks like it will actually be priced at $350. Still too expensive for me to consider it currently. However, if volume picks up and prices come down, this can be affordable very soon.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6466

http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressR ... px?ID=3732

vincentfox · Post by **vincentfox** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:38 pm

Yeah but when will we see these in the usual distribution channels?

It's nice to read about and all, but "launch" and "available to manufacturers" doesn't mean it's showing up as in-stock item at NewEgg. I would like to upgrade my laptop and until it shows up in the usual e-tailer shops it's not really available, to me.

The limited number of form-factors and interfaces seems a problem also. Lots of laptops with 2.5" format and PATA, so having only SATA means it's not going to fit.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:50 pm

To clarify, the articles indicate that the $350 buys a 2.5" SATA version of the 1.8" announced in January - and that price only applies to bulk orders.

If Sandisk are serious, they will offer test samples to PC publications (especially to SPCR

) make sure it's well marketed and available to buy ASAP.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:11 pm

NoiseFreeGuy wrote:
link1896 wrote:32 GB is plenty for an OS/programs disk.
Oh really?

Win XP Media Centre takes up 9G, pre-installed.

Windows Vista takes up anywhere from 10-40G !!! (depending on version)

XP Pro and a LOT of apps on my system adds up to under 10 g. I would not want a Vista that hogs up 30G. Obviously EVERYTHING in life is trade-offs,and in large part-that's what this whole site is about. This is a technology that will get more effective and less expensive. Remember the first CD burners? The first DVD Rom drives? LCD monitors? Remember WAY back (about 3-4 years) when the "power" CPU was about = to a Sempron 3000 in performance but 8x the price?

pipperoni · Post by **pipperoni** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:19 am

ronrem wrote:Remember WAY back...

I remember way back on the first Mac, the entire operating system, your programs (well, usually one per floppy) and saved files all had to fit on a 360k floppy. Of course I'm sure there are always older reminiscers then I...

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