32 GB Flash Storage Drive Announced
Audrius writes to tell us TG Daily is reporting that Samsung has just announced a new 32 GB Flash storage device. The aim of this new solid state disk (SSD) drive is to completely replace the traditional hard drives in many laptops on the market. Some of the advantages offered are the 1.8" form factor, read speeds more than twice that of a normal hard drive, and the promise of 95% less power use.
These flash drives still have very low rotational speeds. I'd wait a few years until they get them spinning a little faster.
I had one of these years ago.
Ohhh, G i g a b y t e s - thougt it said megaby...
Oh, sure, but when you consider the power savings mentioned in the summary, those prices really start to pale! It costs me nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year to charge my Dell Inspiron 9100, with an old fashioned hard drive.
I'm trying to close on buying a house! And Samsung, Apple's iPod Nano flash supplier comes out with this?
APPLE, please PLEASE do not come out with an Intel Mac portable featuring a flash drive (with its tasty power consumption, lower power and low low low seek times) after I clean out my savings! I would have been exceptionally happy to have a PowerPC flash computer a year ago or 6 months ago, or even maybe 3 months ago, but I'm cleaning out my savings here for the part of a house that the bank won't cover!
Wait 6-12 months for a flash based portable and I'll forgive you for going to Intel.
I'm reminded of Star Trek. We all know that Star Trek is the way of the future. Talk about beating a dead horse. But this story made me think back on the episode where Cmdr. Data is swapping all of those USB flash drives into a different order to overcome some technical problem. USB and Flash memory are therefor, conclusively, here to stay for good.
The solution to that issue is the same as it would be for disk based drives: thermite.
After all, I am strangely colored.
I would think the one advantage that Flash drives have over HDds is they're more environmentally friendly (if you don't count the huge packaging they're packed in at retail).
They are small and lighters and take less space (doesn't use as much fuel to ship), don't produce much heat, use less electricity, and I think there's probably less wasteful throwing out a little stick when its bad than an HDD.