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Intel Stomps Into Flash Memory

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hoping-for-solid-returns dept.

jcatcw writes "Intel's first NAND flash memory product, the Z-U130 Value Solid-State Drive, is a challenge to other hardware vendors. Intel claims read rates of 28 MB/sec, write speeds of 20 MB/sec., and capacity of 1GB to 8GB, which is much smaller than products from SanDisk. 'But Intel also touts extreme reliability numbers, saying the Z-U130 has an average mean time between failure of 5 million hours compared with SanDisk, which touts an MTBF of 2 million hours.'"

4 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. MTBF by Eternauta3k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    'But Intel also touts extreme reliability numbers, saying the Z-U130 has an average mean time between failure of 5 million hours compared with SanDisk, which touts an MTBF of 2 million hours.'"
    Is this hours of use or "real time" hours? I don't know about other people but my pendrives spend most of their time disconnected.
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    Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
    1. Re:MTBF by smallfries · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes of course they tested them for 5 million hours, after all it's only 570 years. Don't you know your ancient history? The legend of Intelia and their flashious memerious from 1437AD?

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  2. Re:WTF? by Kenja · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "2,000,000 hours = 228 years and 4 months or so. Who the hell cares if you make it to 5,000,000?"

    Mean time between failures is not a hard perdiction of when things will break. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBF

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    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  3. Re:Why? what does it matter by Reason58 · · Score: 5, Funny

    MTBF matters because it's random. They're not saying that every drive will last that long, they're saying that the average drive will. Therefore the chance of any drive failing within a reasonable amount of time drops the more the mean time is. So with a 5000000 MTBF the chance of any one drive failing in your life time is incredibly minuscule. In 20 years from now, when hard drive capacity is measured in yottabytes, will you really be carrying around a 512MB thumbdrive you bought for $20 back before the Great War of 2010?