Samsung's 64-GB Solid-State Drive

Anonymous Howard writes "Just a couple of weeks ago Sandisk introduced a 32-GB solid-state drive. Now Samsung has one-upped them, unveiling a 64-GB solid-state drive. They are expecting to begin shipping in the second quarter of this year. Samsung says the device can read 64 MB/s, write 45 MB/s, and uses just 0.5 W when operating (0.1 W when idle). In comparison, an 80-GB 1.8-inch hard drive reads at 15 MB/s, writes at 7 MB/s, and consumes 1.5 W when either operating or idle. No pricing yet."

Comments

Re:finally, one big enough for regular use

[stratjakt]

You don't need that speed for all your slews of videos and images, just put them ( and all data) on a regular disc, and use this for applications only. It'll last longer that way, anyways.

What's the long-term stability?

[davidwr]

Quality hard drives are fairly reliable. They can last 10 years or more and you can usually count on them to last their warranty period - 3-5 years - and then some.

They also have error detection/correction, bad-sector remapping, and "I'm about to die" notification.

At one time, solid-state devices were good for about a thousand writes for any given memory cell, a lot fewer than HDs.

Does anyone know the reliability for these new solid-state devices over wall time, hours in use/plugged in, number of read cycles, and number of write cycles under normal operating conditions, and how those compare with a modern 1.8, 2.5, or 3.5" drive?

Seek time? Should be 0ms

[CFD339]

There should be no seek time, it's solid state. There is no read write head to move, and there is no platter to spin.

I would spend serious money for a laptop drive

[CFD339]

What would you spend if you could be a 2.5" version that was interface compatible with your laptop sata connector that was say, 100gb with comparable power and performance?

Personally, to pull the SATA drive out of my laptop and replace it with a 100gb version of this that used so much less power and was so much faster would be a no-brainer even at something like 700 or 800 dollars (US). Battery life would be radically better, noise and heat would be much lower, performance better and general usability should be outstanding.

What are the downsides? How is the duty cycle on these things? Will they last as long or develop hotspots that can't store data as well?

Re:Heat and Noise?

[amorsen]

I read the articles. I didn't see anything about heat and noise output. Can anyone fill me in? I would guess it would be minimal and none, respectively.

Well, based on an energy consumption of 0.5W and an educated guess that they probably aren't emitting much light, I'd say that the heat output is 0.5W.

Duh.