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Samsung Announces Flash-Based Disk Drive

Posted by Zonk on from the whirrless-laptops dept.

doc6502 writes "Samsung has announced flash-based disk drives with a 16 GB capacity, with an aim to get the drives to market by the end of the year. The (short) article suggests that this could be a big boost to laptop owners, as battery life could be seriously extended if there isn't a big high-speed motor to power constantly. The drives should be fast, too."

10 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. Old News by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Informative


    Memtech has been doing this sort of thing for a while now.

    Still, this is great news...the more companies that switch to flash technology, the more the technology itself will become mainstream. It's about time we did away with platter-based HDDs.

    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:Old News by X1011 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Memtech has been doing this sort of thing for a while now.

      Yea, they have the 35 inch SC3500 Sidewinder. Imagine how much data you can put on a disk that big!

    2. Re:Old News by LordStraun · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Yes, and depending on how the writes are being spread across the media, the device could last a day or years. From the comments in TA, someone posted the following specs:

      MTBF specs vary based on the manufacturer and the calculation used; the following are some sample specs I have found:

      Pretec --> MTBF 500,000 hours (powered on)
      Simpletech --> MTBF 1M+ hours
      SanDisk --> MTBF 3M+ hours
      BitMicro --> MTBF 2M+ hours


      But the most reliable and experienced guys around are BitMicro, and this is what they pubish for one of their flash drives:

      http://www.bitmicro.com/...urces_flash_ssd_db2.php

      Example #2: Write Frequency in MB/sec

      E-Disk® PB Size = 16 KB

      I/O Block Size = 64 KB

      Write Frequency = 6,016,204,800 KB per day (68 MB/sec)

      E-Disk® capacity = 155,648 MB
      Number of Flash chips = 608
      Size of Flash chips = 2048 Mbit or 256 MB or 262,144 KB


      Number of writes to Flash chip = 64 KB / 16 KB = 4
      Total E-Disk® physical blocks = (262,114 / 16) x 608 = 9,961,472
      Total max writes to E-Disk® drive = 9,961,472 x 1,000,000 = 9,961,472,000,000

      Endurance (in days) = 9,961,472,000,000 / (4 X (6,016,204,800/64)) = 26,492 days
      Endurance (in years) = 199,229 days / 365 = 72.59 years

      Samsung could also use a form of wear leveling to increase device longevity.
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  2. The drives should be fast, too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The have fast seek times but the slow rotational speed makes for low throughput.

  3. 16GB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    16GB? How much is that in Libraries of Congress? Dammnit I can't understand these fancy units like these GBs!

    1. Re:16GB? by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, if you had 12 hogsheads of ink and wrote out the Library of Congress in a single line so that you just used up all the ink, this drive would be able to store 493 rods worth of data. I hope that clears it up.

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  4. Re:Announces?! by JanneM · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wake me up when they're introduced.

    Anita, this is Flash Drive; Flash, this is Anita.

    There, better now?

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  5. Naming? by Winterblink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it called a disc drive if it's based on flash memory? :)

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
  6. Re:It's good news but ... by frazzlenz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've done some work with Flash in an embedded database application.

    Flash is specced for 100,000 erase cycles -- in a 'disk' application this probably equates to 100,000 writes. However, after about 10,000 erases, the write speed decreases significantly.

    In my application, I remapped blocks of data on a cyclical basis, so that all the blocks would get used the same number of times.

    At 100,000 cycles, if you erased and rewrote the entire disk every hour, it would last for 11 years. How many people are still using an 11 year old HDD? (That'd be, what, 1GB or so?)

    The key question is how much this will cost. The fact that its aimed at laptops suggests that it will be significantly more expensive than a HDD.

    Another question: how long do we keep calling Flash memory devices 'Flash drives'? Or will the name hang on, like 'dialling' telephone numbers?

  7. Re:Don't throw away your drives yet.. by Intron · · Score: 5, Funny

    "16GB ain't that much space"

    I suddenly feel very old.

    --
    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.