Slashdot Mirror
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."
64 GB "ought to be enough for anybody"!
Seriously, though, that's enough for windows XP/Vista/etc. plus your favorite games, apps, and so on. Maybe you couldn't put whole slews of videos or images on there, but you could always get 2 of them.
stuff |
I'm wondering, will this work as a drop-in replacement for existing hard drives? The article doesn't say, and while I can't imagine there would be a reason it wouldn't work, I really don't know. In particular, is this something that will work in Vista and not XP?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Can anyone find some more details on the transfer rate/seek time?
For a hard disk peak transfer rate is when reading consecutive blocks... if the solid state drive can get near peak performance for random access, it's got a huge advantage.
And is thus very cool.
It's flash-based, so am I right in assuming that mapping the pagefile to that drive will dramatically shorten its lifespan?
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
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?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This would be perfect for my iRiver H320 MP3 player, since (according to TFA) it's in the 1.8" form factor which almost every HD MP3 player uses.
How can it be one-upping them A-DATA already annouced 128GB SSDs two months ago?
Hard drive capacity growth has slowed the last years in notebooks, they just haven't been increasing in size that fast as in the early 00s. I think flash will surpass notebook harddrives in size within 2-3 years. As it is, 64GB is in the same magnitude of existing typical notebook drives now, just halfway down on the scale.
The price may or not go down enough within that time period to kick out harddrives completely - in which case we'll just see hybrid drives take over.
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.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Based on 4GB compact flash prices at Pricewatch, I can get 32G for $107.60 or 64G for $215.20. All that's new here is packaging all that in one package, and putting a regular IDE interface on it. So at today's prices, that's about $200 per 64GB drive. Of course, by the time this hits the market, it should be lower. On the other hand, there will be a significant premium charged at first until there's enough competition to bring it down.
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?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
The SanDisk 32GB version reports a 2 million hour MTBF... http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1478
That's quite a bit better than typical hard drives these days!
Has anyone found MTBF information regarding the Samsung versions?
I worked with some industrial PCs back in 98, and they came equipped with solid state hard drives. They were around 120 MB, but the could load Win 98 in a few seconds. They solid state technology was important in that application, because it was highly resistant to shock and vibration. They could withstand like 80 g's of shock. Is there any reason that solid state cannot ultimately replace the current HD technology? It seems like a logic progression. Horses to Automobiles Propellers to Jets Vacuum Tubes to Transistors.
It's flash-based, so I would think the energy savings from not having to constantly run a hard drive's motor would lengthen battery life just with the batteries as they are now.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
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.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Well... that doesn't necessarily mean it's as fast at random access as it is at consecutive access.
Normal computer RAM is also faster at consecutive reads than random reads.
Hm, based on the cheapest (without rebates) memory available at $8.50/GB, figure 20% markup between the manf and retailer, thats $6.8/GB.
e _digital_2gb.htm
$435 for memory
+10% for R&D
+10% for manf (including controller, parts, etc)
-10% for manf efficency when producing 64GB/run
COST $479
RETAIL:
+20% for geewhiz-newtoy-factor/supply shortages
+10% for retail
YOUR COST: $630
sources:
http://www.pricewatch.com/flash_card_memory/secur
Another prediction: SSDs will offer such huge power and performance advantanges, they will sell like crazy and drop in price by a factor of 70% within 1 year from now.
... which leaves 0W for the noise.
If comparing these to 2.5" drives instead of 1.8" drives the advantages aren't as drastic.
* 2.5" drives consume between 0.8W to 2.5W (ok, seeking eats a lot, but during sequential read or write, they consume similar amounts), almost no power consumption when they spin down.
* 2.5" drives give 53MB/sec read and write.
* 2.5" drives are very cheap and have triple the capacity.
The solid state drives are still at an advantage, but it's not quite as large as compared to 1.8" drives.
If you even have to ask about pricing, trust me, you cant afford it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
THe Samsung site says these new drives are based on single cell level NAND technology. It doesn't have as high a density as MCL NAND. Bbut each cell can do 100K rewrites as opposed to the 10K rewrites of the more common MCL NAND. See EDN article on difference between SCL and MCL NAND http://www.edn.com/article-partner/CA6319917.html
It's not about the MTBF (the wear with age), yes you can almost indefinitely read data from you flash drive, when compared to harddrives, because there's no mechanical wear.
/var and /tmp, most of the rest of the installation can be read-only), and that support special file systems designed for lower wear (JFFS and such), may fare better : for example there are some Linux distribution that are tested for running from flash, like Damn Small Linux.
BUT!
The flash cells have a limited number of write cycles, which is very small compared to hard drives. If you write too much data on the same sector, the sector get very quickly broken.
If you used a flash card for swap, it won't last long at all (because some sectors get constantly written over).
To limit those damages, flash controllers use "wear level". That means that the small RISC controller that interface between the flash cells and the computer interface (ATA/CF, SD, USB, etc.) dynamically remaps the sectors so the wear caused by write cycles is distributed over several different sector.
Let's say that an OS constatly writes data on the first couple of sectors. Instead of always writing on the first few cell, the controller remaps a different physical flash cell, to the logical disc sector seen by the OS.
This works as a charm for flash media storing files likes used in digital cameras and such.
But doesn't perform as well when used by an operating system.
Windows XP is specially bad at this.
Other OS - such as Linux or *BSD, that already have good support for running on slow read-only media (LiveCDs) for a long time, that don't need writing that much (except
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
These things have a .12ms avg seek time.
Raptors are still at abt 4.5ms.
Additionally they can Read in Parallel, randomly. (ie not limited to the spindle speed and read head physical limitations.
They are NOT just as fast. No sir. They make raptors look like they're standing still, and everyone else like they're in a time warp.
I saw a demo of an XP boot / shutdown on HD vs SSD. (where'd that link go) It's pretty amazing and significant.
Add in an OS / CPU that can HANDLE parallel loading of drivers / OS modules, then it'll be something like the Linux 6 second boot (ok maybe 10 second).
The flash parts used in these devices can only program approx 10k times before they can be expected to start failing.
Modern NAND flash is in the 100k+ erase/program cycles... from an ST application note on wear leveling: "In ST NAND Flash memories each physical block can be programmed or erased reliably over 100,000 times." Of course, the wear leveling is what gets you in the 1M hour MTBF range...
the MTBF numbers for flash assume that you stay within the endurance limits.
With flash, the weak point is wear of the memory cells, in magnetic disks it's physical components like motors/actuators, heads, etc. Either way, more usage = more wear = shorter lifespan.
Besides, MTBF is not at all a good indication of the expected life of the disk - most drive manufacturers basically cheat and calculate the MTBF based on failures before any components would wear out due to usage (obviously... otherwise they'd be testing the drives for years before shipping them). So it's more of a measure of "defect rate".
An interesting comparison between SSDs and magnetic disks will be their MTBFs vs. average lifespans. I would guess with wear leveling covering the most likely point of failure, SSDs will eventually have a much higher MTBF, but also a much smaller range (I guess "deviation" would be the statistical term) in the average lifespan. It's very possible magnetic disks will have an overall longer average lifespan. But if that SSD lifespan can get into the 5-10 year range, then they are going to become REALLY popular for a lot of uses... (goodbye seek time!)
Since thermodynamics was invented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat
I'm sorry, Doug is in the server room, swapping Zip disks. How can I help you?
IANAL, but I have studied law and I have worked in the litigation field. I have read many letters that have had me wanting to ROFL, and this is in that category. But the best part is also the last bit:
"From there, it should be a short trip to dismissal even if it means getting our clients to mediate Mr. Merchant's positive claims in the absence of an appropriate settlement."
Translation: If you have read this far, you realize that you not only have no case, but that you are entirely out of your league because the standards of evidence in the court system where I have major influence, would procedurally bar you from even entering your case on the docket. Despite this, my client's claims against you are already demonstrated, and our claims will continue to have merit even after your case is dismissed with prejudice (and we have not offered to drop our case.)
This letter is a masterpiece because it manages to hand the plaintiff his ass, in a rather respectful colleague-to-colleague way, while at the same time threatening a counterclaim that could end up with far greater damages than the initial claim!
And the real beauty is that even though the RIAA seems to have withdrawn its claim, the damages from the malice might still hold, if they really want to push it.
Who did they sue? Directors of a Silicon Valley bank? They should do some research before they pull the pin on the hand grenade!
"I would be happy to send the airplane..." (At the plaintiff's expense of course...)
Love it.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Yes indeed, that's part of all optimisations done in LiveCD. Specially using "union" type of mounting where several filesystems are mounted on the same point (when read, data is pulled from the CD-R, but then, subsequent modification go to RAM disk) and similar solutions.
Also, as I said, the often over-written zone are limited (Linux doesn't write much on disk when it isn't needed) and this makes easier to use such solutions.
RAM used as RAM : and the system could use it even more efficiently.
But swap on RAM disk isn't completly silly... if it's a *hardware* RAM disk :
once you've maxed out all memory slot on your motherboard (say, 2GB DDR-2 dimms in each slot), the only solution to keep adding more memory is to of those "conver RAM dimms into a SATA harddisk" solutions like the Gigabyte's iRAM that was featured on
It won't be as fast and directly usable as the main DDR-2 memory, but it enbales you to add more memory to the system and, if you put your swap file on it, in the end it does extend the maximal memory limit, although in this cas it's *virtual* memory and over a slower connection.
It's kind of "double the number of memory slots, although newer are slower"
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]