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Toshiba To Launch First 512GB Solid State Drive

Posted by timothy on from the bits-o'-plenty dept.

designperfection9 writes "Toshiba said Thursday that it will show off a new line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512GB SSD. The drive is based on a 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND and claims to offer a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebooks as well as gaming and home entertainment systems."

59 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Newegg Special Price! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just $2,001,099!

    1. Re:Newegg Special Price! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, it was a Christian tradition not to loan out money at interest, which is why the Jews became moneylenders in the first place. In Islam, it's still forbidden to lend money at interest.

    2. Re:Newegg Special Price! by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Star trek(in this case, The Next Generation) is popular because, in spite of its message of universal peace, there are still many thinly-veiled racial stereotypes. You're only scratching the surface:

      Ferengi: Jews. Large-nosed, money-hoarding, shrewd businessmen.
      Klingons: Blacks. Ill-tempered, dark-skinned, and comparitively primitive; they believe that all problems can be solved using force.
      Starfleet/the Federation: Analagous to garden-variety Caucasians. The most pragmatic and well-rounded of the bunch and that is, oddly enough, reflected in the depiction of the diversity of races within Starfleet.
      Vulcans: Asians. The most sensible and rational, valuing logic over emotion.
      Romulans: Russians, i.e. Asians gone wrong.

    3. Re:Newegg Special Price! by Rene+S.+Hollan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IIRC, Islam also forbids the lending of money at interest. Whereas we in the U.S. are used to a lender taking a security interest in property purchased with the help of a loan, people who subscribe to faiths where lending at interest is forbidden solve the problem by the lender taking a depreciating ownership interest in the property, sharing proportionately in it's change in value (up or down), while the loan is being paid off. The purchaser's monthly payment goes partially toward purchasing more of the property and partially toward renting the part s/he does not own. Rather clever actually.

      --
      In Liberty, Rene
    4. Re:Newegg Special Price! by camperdave · · Score: 4, Informative
      No, lending without interest is an Old Testament law written to and for the Jews/Israelites.

      If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. Lev 25:35-37

      Do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess. Deut 20:19-20

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    5. Re:Newegg Special Price! by BKX · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sort of. The written Torah is just first five books of the Old Testament. The oral Torah (also called the Talmud) is not shared by either Christianity or Islam, and is arguably more important. It gives you the guidelines for interpretation and understanding of the written Torah. In fact, nowadays, the most important part of the Torah is really the more recent commentaries on the Talmud. They give you actual understanding.

      Without the Talmud (and the more recent commentaries for guidance), you would end up with ridiculous, literal interpretations of the Pentateuch (the Christian word for the written Torah) that fundamentalist Christians walk around spouting. (The Earth is 6000 years old my ass.)

    6. Re:Newegg Special Price! by causality · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IIRC, Islam also forbids the lending of money at interest. Whereas we in the U.S. are used to a lender taking a security interest in property purchased with the help of a loan, people who subscribe to faiths where lending at interest is forbidden solve the problem by the lender taking a depreciating ownership interest in the property, sharing proportionately in it's change in value (up or down), while the loan is being paid off. The purchaser's monthly payment goes partially toward purchasing more of the property and partially toward renting the part s/he does not own. Rather clever actually.

      Don't you love it when people get really clever at following the words of a law for the purpose of evading the spirit of a law?

      While I'm sure that there are also moral reasons for it, the prohibitions against lending money at interest found in various religions really seem to be designed to prevent a house-of-cards situation like what the USA currently has with the Federal Reserve, where dollars represent debt, not wealth, and paying off all debt would mean no money in circulation, not that you could even do this because the system inherently has more debt than it has dollars in circulation since interest is attached to the money the moment it is created. Just like the religious prohibitions against eating i.e. pork had a real function of preventing food-borne illness for ancient people who could not have known what bacteria/viruses/microscopic parasites are, it fascinates me to wonder whether the prohibition against lending money at interest had a real function of preventing a house-of-cards economy for ancient people who could not have known what centralized banking systems are.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    7. Re:Newegg Special Price! by idiot900 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If there's anything to be learned from this, it's that God is a lawyer who is easily kept happy through the use of legal technicalities.

    8. Re:Newegg Special Price! by lysergic.acid · · Score: 2, Interesting

      it can't be denied that Star Trek species are often based off of human cultures (and to a degree cultural stereotypes, but to be fair Klingons were originally modeled after mongols/asians), but i don't think that's the reason it's popular.

      personally, i like Star Trek (over, say, Star Wars) because of its social commentary and Gene Roddenberry's keen insight into the (potential) sociological evolution of the human race. whereas the speculative imaginings in other sci-fi works generally focus exclusively on future technological advancements while the world's sociopolitical climate remains relatively unchanged (or is simply a throwback to past eras), Roddenberry also speculates on humanity's social and cultural progress, creating a unique eschatology in Star Trek.

      i mean, the Federation is basically a pan-galactic egalitarian communist utopia. but this isn't just a random utopian fantasy; everything is thoughtfully reasoned and explained in a way that actually makes sense--for instance, once replicator technology is invented, a capitalistic economy and consumer culture no longer make any sense, and want & poverty are also eradicated. and with nation-states similarly abolished (and without people fighting for resources), a military serves no purpose, which is why Starfleet is a scientific/exploratory organization. likewise, religion would be a cultural anachronism in an advanced spacefaring civilization with extensive scientific knowledge, thus Federation citizens are generally atheists.

      of course, Rick Berman screwed everything up in DS9. in it Star Trek was basically brought to the level of soft sci-fi fantasy like Star Wars. the show revolved around war & violence rather than space exploration. then you have the Bajorans--a space faring theocracy that supposedly developed warp technology on their own (and long before humans did) while their entire society is still steeped in superstition and mythology, believing in prophets and wraiths--oh, and they still adhered to a caste system when they first achieved interstellar travel.

    9. Re:Newegg Special Price! by Fweeky · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the speculative imaginings in other sci-fi works generally focus exclusively on future technological advancements while the world's sociopolitical climate remains relatively unchanged

      I suggest you improve your sci-fi diet. There are literally thousands of far better fleshed out, better thought out and more interesting and realistic portrayals of the ramifications of potential technological, social and political changes in the future, they're just mostly in the form of books, not crappy TV shows or movies, which are developed using a process that seems designed to filter out most of what's actually good about science fiction.

      i mean, the Federation is basically a pan-galactic egalitarian communist utopia. but this isn't just a random utopian fantasy; everything is thoughtfully reasoned and explained in a way that actually makes sense

      Not particularly; the technology doesn't make sense, the portrayed capabilities aren't taken anywhere near their logical conclusions, and frankly most of the universe is left completely untouched; let's face it, most of Star Trek takes place on at least semi-military spaceships, of course it looks like a communist utopia; they're mostly crew. The day to day lives of ordinary citizens is handwaved away with a few soundbites like:

      once replicator technology is invented, a capitalistic economy and consumer culture no longer make any sense, and want & poverty are also eradicated

      But that's bollocks; it simply shifts your economy from being driven by materials to being driven by (utterly humungous amounts of) energy and knowledge. You want the latest and greatest hovercar? Well, those engines didn't develop themselves, the 50 petawatt hours of energy for a small 2 tonne vehicle didn't magic itself into existance, and the replicators sure don't maintain themselves, the software to run them doesn't write itself, even the sleek fashionable bodywork doesn't spring into existance out of thin air. Replicators can't even make everything, so chances are you'll need to pay for some good old fashioned non-magic manufacturing to go with it; if nothing else, some assembly might be required, since replicators seem to have some upper limit on practical size.

      But no, Star Trek goes with "replicators solve everything and everyone lives happily ever after, so let's go and do another stupid holodeck episode because the reality we made was too boring to make another show about".

      and with nation-states similarly abolished (and without people fighting for resources), a military serves no purpose

      Right, making a cup of tea involves generating and moving around the energy of 475 Fat Man nuclear bombs (assuming 100% effeciency at all points) and there's no longer any problem of resources. That sure does make for interesting social commentary. Also, people no longer have any real ideologies, and certainly don't disagree with anyone over them; there's no terrorism or politics, except out in space, where the implications of these sort of energies being thrown about are never really considered, even at times of war.

      likewise, religion would be a cultural anachronism in an advanced spacefaring civilization with extensive scientific knowledge

      Again, unlikely oversimplification. We have pretty extensive scientific knowledge *now* and still 90% of the planet is still rather religious, and much of the rest have some pretty strange ideas. Commenting on social and cultural progress should typically involve a little more than some just-so stories which completely ignore most of the issues involved.

    10. Re:Newegg Special Price! by Rene+S.+Hollan · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Don't you love it when people get really clever at following the words of a law for the purpose of evading the spirit of a law?

      I think it's more subtle than that.

      While one can equate a rent/own arrangement to a mortgage in financial terms, and arrive at an equivalent payment stream, when one considers the ownership differences between the two arrangements, there are major differences.

      Using the "infidel" concept of interest, the purchaser owns the property and is ultimately responsible for property taxes, upkeep of grounds, and generally ensuring the property does not become a danger or menace to neighbors, in the rent/own arrangement: both the "seller" and "purchaser" retain an ownership interest, and therefore responsiblilty until the property is fully paid for.

      One could argue that the "seller" does not use any utilities (if these are covered by property taxes as they are some places), but s/he certainly is partly responsible for their share of roads, etc., adjoining the property and their upkeep. Further, s/he is partly responsible for ensuring the property does not present a hazard, nuisance, or eyesore. While this responsibility can be contractually transferred to the "purchaser", someone has to be held accountable if the "purchaser" defaults in this matter. Ultimately, the city could excercise eminent domain, but generally the "seller" will likely have to guarantee the "purchaser's" performance in this regard.

      Of course, it is in both parties interest to maintain the value of the property, but their respective interests change over time (similarly, a high-ratio mortgage becomes less of a risk to the lender over time, and this is reflected in the freedom to eventually drop morgtage insurange (PMI in the U.S. In Canada, the cost of such insurance is paid as a lump sum of the purchase price, and added to the loan, so is paid until the property is sold).

      Where the real difference comes in is in the case of foreclosure.

      In an "infidel" foreclosure, the lender gets first dibs at any monies obtained to satisfy the loan, after expenses, and the owner gets what's left over (though tax liens have precedence even over first position lenders).

      In this foreclosure, both "seller", and "purchaser" have an interest in the property, and therefore, proceeds of sale would be split between them. This is not the same as an "infidel" arrangement, where the owner assumes all risk (and reward) of fluctuating property values, and the lender assumes the risk of the property value falling below the selling price (against which the lender can insure at the owner's expense).

      Furthermore, the "seller" could sell an interest in his/her remaining part of the property in exchange for the income stream from the "purchaser". Of course, who would want to buy a property where the existing occupant is in arrears in payments? I suppose someone (family member?) might. But, more likely might be a contractual arrangement requiring the "purchaser" to either sell their share if they become in arrears in rent, or a "reverse purchase" arrangement whereby the "purchaser" compensates the "seller" by giving back some of their ownership share.

      The striking thing, though, is that if the property is, indeed sold, in the equivalent to a foreclosure, the "purchaser" will get something back, even if the property has depreciated significantly. For example, if a $200k home was purchased with the "purchaser" taking a 20% inital share, and the "seller" retaining an 80% share (so purchaser: $40k interest, seller: $160k interest), and the property value drops by 1/4 to $150k, the "purchaser's" interest is $30k, and the "sellers" is $120k. With an "infidel" arrangement, the owner's share would be -$10k, and the lender's interest remain at $160k.

      This makes the financial interests of "purchaser" and "seller" much more closely related than in an "infidel" arrangement, and far less likely for their interests to be conflicted. For example, many people in the U.S. might be

      --
      In Liberty, Rene
  2. Random read/write? by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I only see numbers for sequential access (240MB/s read, 200MB/s write). I don't suppose anyone knows how it does for random read/write speed?

    1. Re:Random read/write? by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that previous drives have well-known severe problems with random IO, so I'm kinda suspicious that they specified sequential speeds rather than take the opportunity to say "see, we don't have that bug that everyone else does".

    2. Re:Random read/write? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

      Unless the design is broken

      That's the problem; almost all SSDs on the market are broken and have worse write performance than hard disks. Just look at all the "JMicron rage" out there.

    3. Re:Random read/write? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Random writes are problematic for SSDs because Flash memory writes are done in two steps: erase and write. The erase step always blanks a relatively big block of Flash memory, so to write a 4K sector, a big block of Flash memory has to be read, erased and then written back with the modification. Randomly writing small blocks is therefore several times slower than continuous writes.

    4. Re:Random read/write? by OrangeTide · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is a small latency with loading a new address walk through in these high density flash devices. Also it takes additional sata/scsi commands to issue I/O at a new address. If you spend 50% of the time issuing and waiting for the drive to lock on to a new address, then your performance will be cut in half (simple). But on SSD you need to seek extremely rapidly to get to that point. on a spinning disk drive the rate you need to keep seeking to heavily impact performance is a much slower rate.

      It's definitely measurable on SSD though. Especially if you issue the I/Os in the least efficient way possible, such as treating each as a single transaction, rather than doing a scatter-gather with a long list of sectors to fetch. But that is more a limitation of the interface of sata/scsi/everything-else than with the medium, but it does have a real world impact.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    5. Re:Random read/write? by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since SSDs don't have any seek time (or if they do, it's probably not measurable) the sequential and non-sequential I/O should be indifferent.

      Yes, should. But most current SSDs have buggy controllers that can't really handle random IO.

    6. Re:Random read/write? by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not all of them. Intel and Samsung both make controllers that do not have the buggy performance problems that the JMicron controllers have.

    7. Re:Random read/write? by adisakp · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, most of the SLC SSD drives are fairly immune to the random write stall issue that plagues MLC drives. For example, compare SLC and MLC drives from OCZ. The older OCZ Core SSD drives (SLC) have much faster random write access than newer OCZ Core V2 SSD drives (MLS) even though the Core II have much higher specified/published (sequential) write speeds.

      OCZ's official line on the frightening performance problems with random writes on MLC drives (i.e. multi-second system stalls and random write throughput as low as 4 writes/second) is "we encourage potential customers to research this product and insure that it will fill their needs. These MLC based drives have extremely fast reads, and if you need a drive with fast sequential (frequent) writes, please check into our SLC based SATA II drive series."

      At least OCZ is somewhat honest up front in acknowledging that their MLC drives are not for everyone. But FWIW, nearly all MLC SSD drives are orders of magnitude for real world performance (that includes writes) than their sequential performance specs would suggest.

      Currently, the Intel drives are the only shipping MLC drives with good random write performance out-of-the-box. OCZ has announced (but is not yet shipping) a new "Vertex" series SSD that combines MLC with 64MB of RAM cache that speeds up random writes tremendously.

      But in general, right now, it's buyer beware if you need fast random write access for higher system performance (i.e. a Windows user). Make sure you get either one of the Intel drives (MLC or SLC) or a well known SLC drive if you're concerned about anything other than strict read performance. Before you buy a MLC drive, follow OCZ's suggestion and do a lot of research on the drive first.

    8. Re:Random read/write? by lgw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      limitation of the interface of sata/scsi/everything-else than with the medium

      When everyone in the chain supports asynchronous reads (or writes) via SCSI command queuing, this is largely optimized. Most high-end spinning disk hard drives claim no seek latency for queued reads (as long as the drive knows ahead of time, it can seek while transferring the previous read's data). Sadly, almost no one does this: from the system call through the OS to the controller to the device, just about eveyrone is too lazy to implement anything beyond simple synchronous reads and writes.

      So the interface supports the needed optimization (I'm pretty sure SATA took this part of the SCSI standard), most tragets, initiators, device drivers, filesystems, and programs do not.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:Random read/write? by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In solid state there is no such thing... it's all address based access. ;)

      For current stuff perhaps, but as a general statement there are exceptions. Remember magnetic bubble memory? Intel had a 1MB prototype once. Little magnetic domains moving around in a maze. Very serial.

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  3. Re:Doesn't address fundamental problems by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 3, Informative

    there haven't been any articles recently addressing fundamental problems for long term practical use.

    I wasn't aware that there were any, just a few implementation issues with the early drives (bad wear leveling and f-ed up controllers that can't multitask).

  4. MythTV by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's my intention to grab one of those Toshiba systems once they start shipping. I hope that a Solid State Drive will be able to handle the constant read/write operations associated with MythTV.

    Some folks here at Slashdot, have suggested that SSDs are not a good choice for applications like MythTV. This time, I will prove for myself.

    1. Re:MythTV by qoncept · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't understand why you would do that. The only upside that I can see to a spinning disc would be noise, and if you're watching TV, how could you hear it? I'd spend a whole lot less money and get a whole lot bigger hard drive.

      --
      Whale
    2. Re:MythTV by bogaboga · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't understand why you would do that.

      I currently run my computer system off solar panels. They (SSDs) consume less power as compared to systems that have hard disks. FYI, I live deep in the country.

    3. Re:MythTV by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I currently run my computer system off solar panels. They (SSDs) consume less power as compared to systems that have hard disks. FYI, I live deep in the country."

      Well, I etch my data into massive stone tables. FYI, I live even deeper in the country.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    4. Re:MythTV by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Funny

      Moses? Is that you?

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    5. Re:MythTV by vertinox · · Score: 2, Funny

      The only upside that I can see to a spinning disc would be noise, and if you're watching TV, how could you hear it?

      I watch silent films you insensitive clod!

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    6. Re:MythTV by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Funny

      You have stone tables? Damn are you lucky! I live much, much deeper in the country than you, apparently. We have to use sticks to etch our data into the sand. Unfortunately, every time it rains, we lose everything. So we have memorize the data, and re-etch it after the rainy season.

      --
      My blog
    7. Re:MythTV by blhack · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well I release butterflies into the atmosphere. The flapping of their wings changes the flow of the eddy currents in the upper atmosphere. These cause momentary pockets of higher-pressure air to form, which act as lenses that deflect incoming cosmic rays, focusing them to strike the drive platter and flip the desired bit..

      --
      NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
    8. Re:MythTV by Surt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not a huge difference though ... you'd be better off spending the price difference elsewhere in terms of wattage. Buy a more expensive power saving cpu or display and you'll save way more than the 1-2 watt difference between a conventional hard drive and an SSD. Though I suppose if money is no object, you do both.
      But if money is no object, why not just buy a few more solar panels?

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    9. Re:MythTV by alta · · Score: 5, Funny

      I live much, much deeper in the woods than you. We have yet to evolve sufficiently to maintain those so called memories. We are destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

      --
      Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
    10. Re:MythTV by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

      So you're from Texas?

      --
      My blog
    11. Re:MythTV by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah, an EMACS user.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  5. Terrible Article by neoform · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who wrote this garbage? The article repeats itself about 3 times on one page.

    --
    MABASPLOOM!
    1. Re:Terrible Article by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Funny

      The article repeats itself about 3 times on one page.

      Apparently slashdot editors.
      Apparently slashdot editors.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  6. Re:Price by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You can't afford it.

  7. hmm... by kabocox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hate not to be all positive about this, but I'd much rather the prices drop rather than the sizes get bigger. Then again this is a huge sized solid state drive. I wonder if it is actually worth it. I'd like to see some real numbers comparing these drives to normal laptop drives.

    A part of me also wonders when something like this will be thrown into the next ipod or DVR. It'll most likely be a price thing that determines it.

  8. It may say 512GB now by Alzheimers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It may say 512GB now, but we all know that once marketing gets a hold of it, it'll be

    Tosiba's Brand New 550GB* drive.

    *1GB = 1,000 MB

    1. Re:It may say 512GB now by maugle · · Score: 2, Funny

      Considering how they seem to be able to define the units whatever way they like, I wonder if a hard drive company could get away with this:

      New 6TB* Hard Drive!
      Only $250!


      *1TB = 10GB

  9. Re:And the cost is what? by causality · · Score: 2, Insightful

    $1200?

    If so I'm not going to go run and buy one. I can buy a USB disk drive that has twice as much for 1/10th the price.

    I think this is like many other computing/electronics items in that the early adopters pay a lot more than the rest of us are willing to pay until the prices come down. Remember how expensive the earliest CD burners were? Really I'm glad that there is more interest in non-volatile solid-state storage. Over the years I've seen so much vaporware (like the 3D gelatin cubes that are written to and read from with lasers, like a hologram) in this area that it's good to see something that is actually going to be available. Even if solid-state drives are expensive as hell and not much better than current mechanical/magnetic hard drives right now, I don't expect them to stay that way so this is a step in the right direction.

    --
    It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  10. Re:Platter drives by bunratty · · Score: 2, Informative
    Two big reasons:
    • high capacity
    • high random write throughput

    Don't buy an SSD to store a large database that gets lots of updates!

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  11. Re:Platter drives by wgaryhas · · Score: 2, Informative

    But this is a laptop drive, and the largest capacity available for a laptop drive, or 2.5 inch drives in general.

    --
    "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken
  12. Re:Price by d3ac0n · · Score: 4, Informative

    All jokes aside, I'd imagine quite a bit.

    As an example, 150GB solid state hard drives are selling around the $7-800.00 US range on Newegg.com I have no idea if those are NAND drives or the older flash drives.

    A new NAND tech drive with around 5 times the capacity? Oh geez that's gonna be expensive! Methinks you'd be better off spending the money on a 3Ware RAID card and some really good standard drives.

    --
    Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
  13. Re:And the cost is what? by poetmatt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Early adopters are just paying more early(unless its someone/thing that needs cutting edge technology). They aren't paying the way to make it cheaper for us. It's just an early indicator of interest and a short-term way to start recouping costs. When people make more than the cost it is profit, not discounts that we see. This would be because the MFR makes the same profit either way.

    In reality the cost of something is generally (not completely, but generally) far lower than the original price...this is because they know that most things start expensive and get cheaper. Competition brings it down.

    When manufacturing costs find a way to make the same item cheaper, do you really think that cost savings is passed on to retail or the consumer? Absolutely not. Consumer's don't even know, for the most part.

  14. Straight from Toshiba by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.toshiba.com/taec/news/press_releases/2008/memy_08_550.jsp

  15. Just give me a cheap fast 64GB already by ChienAndalu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When are the small SSD drives coming? I just need to put my operating system on the SSD-drive, the mp3s and movies are doing fine on the spinning platter. 512GB are total overkill.

    1. Re:Just give me a cheap fast 64GB already by Overzeetop · · Score: 2, Interesting

      16GB is available on microSD, and I've seen adapters which allow them to slip into a USB slot with almost zero protrusion (http://www.amazon.com/DATA-MICRO-Reader-microSD-interface/dp/B000VE2PCG). Speed isn't great - 48Mbps - but your just booting the OS, and maybe a small app or two, right? If you can go a smidge bigger, 64GB SD are expected "soon." Speed is still low, but many lappys have an SD specific slot (which would also work with a microSD-SD adapter, of course)

      Finally if you really need more space, 100GB is available on CF (http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092306pretec_64gb_100gb_cf.asp). Speed is much better - up to 400Mbps. You can even get a CF to SATA/2.5HDD adapter (http://www.buyextras.com/criococsaadr.html?gclid=CKrE2LWLy5cCFQsaHgod5TIDTQ) for $15. There are 2-CF options out there, but the ones I saw were maxed at 32GB/CF.

      So go out there and fire up that system with what exists. No need to wait for the manufacturers to put all the pieces together.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    2. Re:Just give me a cheap fast 64GB already by tknd · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're almost here. $70 for 30GB SSD is currently out of stock but I'm sure they'll get a new shipment within the week. With each new drive that hits the market profit margins are getting squeezed out. MLC NAND flash chips spot prices are about $1 a gigabyte so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a healthy 100% margin still built into these product prices.

  16. Re:Price by nabsltd · · Score: 5, Informative

    As an example, 150GB solid state hard drives are selling around the $7-800.00 US range on Newegg.com

    I think you mean that 250GB SSDs are in the $700-800 range.

    128GB (the closest I can find to 150GB) are around $250-350.

  17. Re:And the cost is what? by adamjgp · · Score: 2, Informative

    That is correct, but don't forget to include economies of scale. Companies will want to lower the price on their product in order to sell more. Once they start selling more, they are able to purchase/manufacture the parts in bulk and at a cheaper price therefore lowering the price of their product even more. This increases demand, allowing the company to sell more and purchase/manufacture the parts at a cheaper price, and lower the cost of their product which increases demand...

  18. Re:Price by Bandman · · Score: 3, Funny

    Depends on the lap. I've gotten a 12 drive AX100 on my lap before. Hurt like hell, but hey, you deal with that sometimes.

    --
    Check out my sysadmin blog!
  19. Re:FS's made for rotating platters by H0p313ss · · Score: 2, Informative

    From what is sounds like, the problems of a SSD device warrant a differently designed file system.

    There already exist a number of file system implementations designed specifically flash such as JFFS, JFFS2 and YAFFS. (I'm sure there are others I have not bumped into yet...)

    N.B. There's an IBM Devworks article discussing flash file systems for linux.

    --
    XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
  20. Re:And the cost is what? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

    See, now look what you've done. You've been modded 'Offtopic'

    The first rule of Moderation is you don't talk about Moderation.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  21. Re:Doesn't address fundamental problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > The only way around this is to move into the "insanely smart" wear-leveling that will actually move data when the drive is otherwise idle to re-balance the sector write counts. You wouldn't want to do this during actual write requests, as it would slow them down even more than they are now. AFAIK, no SSD does this.

    Actually, a lot of SSD's do. It's called "Static Wear-leveling".

    In the SSD world, there are currently 2 tiers of technologies:

    On the lower end, you have SSD's that are basically glorified CF cards (CF cards, after all, are miniature solid state drives). These drives can have very good sequential transfer speed, but are slow in random write IO, that's because they are extension of the CF technology, and therefore are optimized for the typical CF card applications. A lot of companies' first generation SSD's are of this type, because the CF technology is very mature, and A LOT of people know how to do it.

    On the higher tier, you have SSD's that are designed from the ground-up to be PC hard drives. They should (I hope by now) have all the bells and whistles, such as static wear-leveling and may be a little dram cache thrown in. While their random write IO may still be pretty crappy (because of the flash erase-before-write limitation), they should be at least acceptable, or at least as good as a hard disk drive.

  22. GB vs. GiB is probably spare sectors by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Tosiba's Brand New 550GB* drive.

    *1GB = 1,000 MB

    In my experience, consumer flash memory products such as USB pen drives, CF cards, and SD cards actually have their stated capacity available. For instance, I bought a 512 MB CF card that had 512,000,000 bytes; I guessed that the other 5% of the underlying 512 MiB chip was spare sectors used by the wear leveling scheme. (CF is just a parallel ATA SSD in a smaller form factor.) Likewise, if this SSD has 7% spare sectors, it would have 512 GB available out of 512 GiB.

  23. Re:Platter drives by merreborn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't buy an SSD to store a large database that gets lots of updates!

    Don't buy a cheap, consumer grade SSD for a large database that gets lots of updates.

    On the other hand, if it's in your budget, and you don't have any other options, *do* buy an enterprise SSD array that's actually up to the task -- CCP claims a 4000% increase in performance after switching to an SSD-based solution for their game, EVE Online.

    However, the solution they're working with was priced somewhere around $150 per gig as of a year ago. Consumer SSDs are currently priced around $2-3/gig, based on newegg price quotes elsewhere in this thread.

  24. Re:And the cost is what? by mcrbids · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even if solid-state drives are expensive as hell and not much better than current mechanical/magnetic hard drives right now, I don't expect them to stay that way so this is a step in the right direction.

    The fact that SSD devices can compete with Hard Disks today shows not just excellent growth, but purely awe-inspiring growth. Despite being a much smaller marketplace than the magnetic HD marketplace, SSD storage has almost caught up with magnetic Hard Drives.

    To show what an incredible accomplishment this is, you need to really understand exactly what this graph actually means.

    It shows how hard disk capacity has grown since 1980. Yeah, it's gotten bigger every year... whoopdie doo, right? Notice that this is a logarithmic graph. Each line is 10x the line before, so you really don't see the significance of this, so I rewrote the graph in a "real" scale.

    What previously looked like a smooth, predictable growth actually represents a cliff of growth. Capacity has grown so fast that it's been a challenge to find uses for this much storage. We've had to re-invent the meaning of what is a computer in order to make use of so much new found power - over and over, and over again.

    And yet, despite having a dramatically smaller marketshare, much less R&D, SSD storage has managed to all-but catch up to this fast-moving target. This isn't just cool, it's incredible. Every year, SSD drives get a little closer to parity with their spinning cousins.

    I have an 8 GB thumb drive, but I also still have a couple 1 and 3 GB drives from a few years back on the shelf. This kind of growth is simply astounding!

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  25. Re: Its not really that clear by upside · · Score: 2, Informative

    Minor generalization, much?

    Re. Christianity, how does your assertion sit with Jesus' teachings? If are you just commenting on how fundamentalists somehow manage to ignore the core principles, I couldn't agree more. So many self-righteous "Christians" are a bit too keen to cast the first stone.

    This was one of Jesus' pet peeves and earned the wrath of religious learned for pointing out the hypocrisy in such a legalistic approach.

    I'm not sure where this "group that the religion claims to protect" comes from, but mainstream Christianity interprets the prime directive "love thy neighbor" to mean all people.

    --
    I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone