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When SSD and USB 3.0 Come Together
An anonymous reader writes "USB flash drives have been a quiet revolution in computing. Their rise broke the death grip that the floppy drive had on the PC industry, and smaller capacity models have become cheap, disposable means of data transport and distribution. Yet while you can pick up a 4GB model for less than the price of a meal, large capacity drives are still prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile, solid state drives (SSDs) also utilize flash memory, but masquerade as mechanical hard drives rather than USB storage devices. Now it seems the two technologies are bashing into each other, with this article pointing to OCZ's new Enyo USB 3.0 SSD — a rather curious beast that looks like a thin external hard drive and connects via USB, but houses an SSD inside."
When Slashdot and Advertisements come together... Slashvertisements! You could have learned as much or more by reading the press release where it is revealed that "Enyo USB 3.0 Portable SSDs will begin shipping this now and will be available through OCZ's extensive worldwide channel." Thank goodness, I thought I would have to wait for the next now. Also per the pr, "the Enyo features a sleek, anodized aluminum housing" ... the choice of words implies that it's a desktop SSD in a box. It would be nice to know which one, if so.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
From the summary: "Yet while you can pick up a 4GB model for less than the price of a meal, large capacity drives are still prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile, solid state drives (SSDs) also utilize flash memory, but masquerade as mechanical hard drives rather than USB storage devices. Now it seems the two technologies are bashing into each other"
SSDs, whether they are internal or external will continue to be exorbitantly priced, so you're not getting larger storage densities for cheaper.
This development is nothing new... I use a deconstructed external USD HDD container and just swap on SATA 2.5" drives as necessary; a SSD would just be another drive to toss on there. While SSDs are significantly faster than most thumb drives, the question at the end of the day is: "Do you have the disposable income for this storage strategy?"
*insert pithy sig here*
There are plenty of things on the market that address this issue. You can get 64 Gb flash drives on newegg for less than $150. I remember when I bought a gigabox that was 5 gig for more than that. If you really must have the extra space, I doubt that the max 256 GB model of this SSD is worth it, just get a sata dock, or a regular external, as the speeds of SSD are going to fairly useless on a USB 2.0 system most people have today. The other point to USB flash drives is their portability, I carry about three at all times in my pocket, I don't think I'd want to carry one of these in a pocket. It's interesting, but this is just a slashvertisment.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Just because its not enough for a major bank or for you to store your porn collection on doesn't mean it isn't enough for 99% of small businesses.
Light Peak, if it actually comes out as specified, looks like it will be an awesome advancement: it'll change datacenter storage, home storage, and pretty much everything else overnight.
The crux will be how it's licensed and how it's designed: will it be licensed like USB (ie, liberally) or like Firewire (ie, barely)? Will it be designed to allow for people to abuse the specifications (ie, USB) and still work, or will it be painfully restrictive, allowing only "good" devices to work (ie, Firewire)?
If it behaves as an interface and costs like USB, it'll fly off the shelves, I think. I'm hoping so, and looking forward to it. But, frankly, I can see it becoming the future equivalent of something like iSCSI or FC: too awesome and capable for the consumer, and it's got such an incredible profit margin we're going to keep it Enterprisey.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers