Leaked Intel Roadmap Shows 600GB SSD

An anonymous reader writes "Solid State Drives have been trying to fill the mechanical hard drive niche for some time now. The problem is that while flash memory is faster than a spinning platter, it is also much more expensive per gigabyte. Over the weekend details leaked about Intel's SSD roadmap, and what's most interesting about it is that the capacities of Intel's SSDs are going to increase in a big way. First off is a refresh to the high performance X25-M range of SSDs. Currently available in 80GB and 160GB models, these will be replaced by a new design, codenamed Postville, which will come in 160GB, 300GB and 600GB variants."

Comments

"Postville" is the current generation

[Florian Weimer]

For example, this is a posting using the code name: http://communities.intel.com/message/51359;jsessionid=F3036FCC8C1DD878FCED25A7A6D32547.node6COM

Re:"Postville" is the current generation

[malzfreund]

No, the OP clearly refers to the Postville refresh, which will bring capacities of 160/300/600GB NAND. Lyndonville is the codename of the follow-up to Ephraim, i.e., Intel's series of enterprise drives commonly known as X25-E. Lyndonville is expected in capacities of 100/200/400GB so that's clearly not what the article referred to.

No mention about speeds

[rsborg]

Intel does not have the fastest MLC drives out there (X25-E is SLC), and now they're ditching SLC?
I wonder how their performance will match the other controllers (Sandforce, Indilix, Samsung, etc)... perhaps their new MLC is more along the lines of what Sandforce is doing?

Re:Any update in terms of long run use?

[Rockoon]

I keep hearing people claim reliability issues when SSD articles come along to slashdot.

I have never seen a citation, so I went looking for them via Google but could only find citations attesting to the high reliability of these devices.

Dell's Lionel Menchaca stated in 2008, when it was reported by Avian Securities that Dell was having SSD reliability issues, "Our global reliability data shows that SSD drives [that we shipped] are equal to or better than traditional hard disk drives we've shipped." He further notes that Avian Securities never contacted them and that their numbers were a complete fabrication.

At this point I consider any claims that SSD's are less reliable to simply be a myth derived from dishonest reporting.

Furthermore, there are published studies detailing how unreliable traditional magnetic platter drives are.

Do they have write limits? Yes. Can other parts of the device fail? Yes. Are they more expensive than economy platters? Yes. Is there real world data showing that they are less reliable as claimed? Apparently not.

Re:How will large SSDs effect databases?

[Surt]

People who tune large databases have been IOPS focused for a long time. SSDs enable a new level of IOPS that is about one to two orders of magnitude better than spinning disks. SSDs will allow people to (re)consider all sorts of applications that are currently IOPS bound or IOPS prohibited. Soon Google will be able to keep track of how much milk you have in your fridge, and send you a reminder to buy some when you are near a store that sells it, and have plans to go home afterward so that they can be sure you will be able to refrigerate it.

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