256gb Ssd! Wow

[Scotty]

Well from the higest what 64GB? Super Talent have gone and made a huge 256GB Solid State Drive!

story link (http://www.overclock3d.net/news.php?/storage/super_talent_launches_256gb_sata_ssd/1)

Who wants to buy me one?

[Luke122]

Oh man.. I didnt see a price in there.. any ideas?

That would be killer!!!

[Scotty]

Na, im guessing it will be expensive though. i mean 32GB is like £200

[Luke122]

Well, as they become more common, and the size increases, they'll drop in price pretty fast. :)

Look at 1tb hdds.. getting more affordable everyday!

[Airbozo]

256gb SSD is going for roughly $2500 depending on channel discounts.

[Luke122]

Yoiks.. so that's a bit more than I could justify. Hahaha

[Airbozo]

I was way off on the price. Look what the 128gb's go for on newegg...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609259

[Zephik]

I was way off on the price. Look what the 128gb's go for on newegg...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609259

Dang, can they really justify selling them at that price?? Its not like its brand new technology right? Isn't SSD just basically ram but on a larger scale with a few different things so you can use them as storage?

Well, then again, if you bought that many memory sticks, it would be like over five grand...

But still, you could get an insane amount of storage space with regular HDD's for the same price as that fairly small SSD.

So I guess, the real question for me is, why would people buy SSD's right now if they cost that much? Is it really worth it? If it is, then why? and if it isn't, then why can't they lower the price, or why is the price so high?

[Airbozo]

The high cost is due to the cost of memory and development.

We have a few customers that are using the 32 gb versions of these drives. They use them in systems that have to have fast boot times. Part of the spec was to make sure the system with the SSD's were booted and online before the rest of the systems even posted. This is because the rest of the systems are diskless and need the system with the SSD's to complete their own boot sequnce. We had to tweak the bios to turn everything off that would delay the boot time.

We are currently in talks with one of our vendors to get 3 of the 32 gb ssd's on loan for in house performance testing in stand alone and raid configurations.

[XcOM]

if you get them for testing, let us know the results if your allowed, i know how some companys can be with stuff on loan "DOn't you tell anyone now, OR YOU DIE" sort of thing

[Airbozo]

if you get them for testing, let us know the results if your allowed, i know how some companys can be with stuff on loan "DOn't you tell anyone now, OR YOU DIE" sort of thing

Yeah we have been through that too. We just went through that with some 1TB drives in different raid setups. They did not tell us until we had already done all the testing that any information had to be cleared through them before release. We said no thanks and returned the drives. Their main concern was that we are not an "Official" testing house, even though we use the same software and in fact the exact same test setup that other "officially" blessed testing houses use. That is why we are trying to get one of our vendors to pony up with the loaners. That way they can have the results of our tests and we can share them around...

[Omega]

at least it's not this expensive...

http://www.lotechdesigns.com/host/images/19462542.jpg

[Greco101]

I was way off on the price. Look what the 128gb's go for on newegg...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609259

But that's also 2.5"

[TheGreatSatan]

How fast of a boot are we talking here? These things just seem unusually stupid and pointless. I don't get the appeal.:?

[Scotty]

They're faster than raptors at most things sometimes by quiet a bit, can't think of any results off the tiop of my head, theres some reviews around though.

They also consume a hell of a lot less power.

[calumc]

I've heard of 5 seconds with linux on a ssd

[Omega]

Yeah, I've heard of 3-7 second boot times on WinXP

SSD's are fast, light, don't use a lot of power. Hence the price.

[TheGreatSatan]

Ain't worth the price. I'll just get Gigabyte i-Ram instead.

[xRyokenx]

Aren't these drives more durable too? That itself would be a reason to buy one for a laptop or tablet.

[calumc]

I thought they still have a limited number of writes? and they do have a shorter lifespan

[The boy 4rm oz]

SSD's have better heat and vibration resistance which make them more durable. They are also silent and and use very little power and therefore make less heat. What more can you want? When the prices are reasonable I will get one for my rig and do a fresh Vista install on it and then load critical software and games on it. I will use my current SATA drive for movies, music, pics etc.

[Greco101]

Ain't worth the price. I'll just get Gigabyte i-Ram instead.

I'm pretty sure those can only hold 4x1gb sticks.

Link to the Gigabyte i-Ram booting windows. (http://www.fazed.org/video/view/?id=245) Mmmmm




EDIT:Here's a video of a computer rebooting with the Gigabyte I-Ram card. This is a PCI card that runs up to 4 DDR DIMMs with an onboard battery to keep the contents saved for up to 16 hours while the PC is powered off.

^ wtf? lol... power goes out while your out of town, gotta reload windows? Lame.

[Zephik]

Would this video be a good representation of your guys experiences?

http://video.i4u.com/ces.php?url=ces/hdd-vs-ssd.wmv&p=3

or maybe this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJMGAdpCLVg

I can't wait until they are affordable!

[Greco101]

If they ever are.

[Zephik]

If they ever are.

Well, if enough companies can justify the price tags of these drives, which to my knowledge they have been, then more and more companies will start producing SSD drives. That alone will make them cheaper. What company that is able to make these drives would not want to get on this action of 4k for a measly drive? The bigger companies, which there are a lot of, are going to want to spend money on research for bigger and better drives. So they can have the "next best SSD". Which results in the "past best SSD" becoming cheaper. Once that goes around enough times to the point where they are maybe not totally affordable like HDD's are now, but much more affordable than SSD's are now, then their sales will start to rocket up. Then there is no stopping them from becoming affordable like HDD's are now, its just a matter of time. How much time? I have no idea. Depends on how large the market is now and how large it would be if they did push for affordability by average users like us. Which, btw, who on earth would not want one of these drives?? There is most definitely a market for SSD by average users, which brings me to...

The only plausible thing I can see that would stop these drives from ever becoming mainstream for us, is the cost to make them. So does anyone know how much these cost compared to the cost of current "regular" hdd's?

[The boy 4rm oz]

Well considering you can get 4GB USB flash drives for $50-80AUD I would say that the cost isn't that astronomical to make SSDs. Wouldn't it cost more to manufacture all those platters in normal HDDs?

[Zephik]

Well considering you can get 4GB USB flash drives for $50-80AUD I would say that the cost isn't that astronomical to make SSDs. Wouldn't it cost more to manufacture all those platters in normal HDDs?

My thoughts exactly. This isn't new technology, its old technology with a new twist. The twist is the tough part, but really, it can't be much tougher than hard drives that use platters right?

We had RAM, then from that we got Flash Drives, from that we got SSD's. To not make SSD's mainstream would be not only counterproductive, but why would you not? The only thing that is expensive about them to make right now, is the research. Which they are spending on anyways, for platter hard drives. So once they got the research down for the most part, its smooth sailing from there really.

I just can't imagine these not becoming the new standard for HDD's.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Personally I believe we have come to the limits of standard HDD research. We are starting to get 1TB drives now and I think we shouldn't push it any further, I don't think we can go any further. The fastest HDDs to data are the Western Digital Raptors spinning at 10,000rpms. This is the fastest we can make out drives and due to them being so fast you only can get 150GB out of them. SSDs are faster than Raptors and have already been tested with capacitys greater than any WD Raptor has. I am all for SSDs and the only thing I am waiting for is a reasonable price. I only want to get a 150-200GB one and I am only willing to pay $200AUD for it. Only time will tell.

[Zephik]

I feel the same for the most part. We are either at, or close to, our limits for _standard_ HDD's. I mean sure, we can go a little further I'm sure, but not much in my opinion. Which is why I think SSD's are our future. They are better than HDD's in every way, price being put aside of course.

What company would not invest into the future? Not only that, but a very desirable future. The end of HDD's is only the beginning of SSD's too. Put some of your HDD research costs towards SSD's and make up your losses with the current prices. Which is why the current prices are so high, so companies can cover their losses from push the research. At least, thats my opinion and knowledge of how it works, I might be wrong though.

The best part in my mind about SSD's, is the fact that these are just the first ones to be released into the market. Just look at RAM, we have DDR, then we had DDR2, now we have DDR3! Right now, we are at the DDR stage in my book. With all the technology out there right now, we are sure to rocket to the DDR2 stage pretty quickly at the very least.

Can you imagine a Terabyte SSD that is twice as fast as the fastest HDD? or even twice as fast as the current SSD! How freaking awesome would that be! lol

[The boy 4rm oz]

Your right, that would be awesome. I completely agree with you, all the manufacturers have to do is invest a bit more cash in research and it would be a lot better for them in the long run and the consumers. I can see SSDs becoming larger (capacity wise) and cheaper but I can't see us getting to the 320GB or 500GB stage until the last half/quarter of 2008. When we hit this mark I will truly be interested in purchasing an SSD.

[Zephik]

Your right, that would be awesome. I completely agree with you, all the manufacturers have to do is invest a bit more cash in research and it would be a lot better for them in the long run and the consumers. I can see SSDs becoming larger (capacity wise) and cheaper but I can't see us getting to the 320GB or 500GB stage until the last half/quarter of 2008. When we hit this mark I will truly be interested in purchasing an SSD.

I'd actually be happy with just enough for the OS and whatnots. I wouldn't mind using a HDD/SDD combo. If only for the faster boot time. Cuz damn, thats what? at least twice as fast! So cool. Especially since I use XP and not Vista! ^_^

[The boy 4rm oz]

I want an SSD as my system disk with Vista and games loaded plus crucial software. I will use my existing 320GB SATAII drive for anything else.

[Airbozo]

Personally I believe we have come to the limits of standard HDD research. We are starting to get 1TB drives now and I think we shouldn't push it any further, I don't think we can go any further. The fastest HDDs to data are the Western Digital Raptors spinning at 10,000rpms. This is the fastest we can make out drives and due to them being so fast you only can get 150GB out of them. SSDs are faster than Raptors and have already been tested with capacitys greater than any WD Raptor has. I am all for SSDs and the only thing I am waiting for is a reasonable price. I only want to get a 150-200GB one and I am only willing to pay $200AUD for it. Only time will tell.

I don't think we will be at the end of mechanical drives for a couple of decades. The 1tb drives have been on the market for 6 months and there are already announcements of 2tb drives. They are mucking with the way the data is actually written to the platter and I suspect they have many tricks up their sleeves.

The fastest drives on the market are actually 15k rpm drives. They come in SCSI, SAS and FC flavors up to 146gb, with 300 gb versions due early next year.
(see this (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=322) article for why they are a ripoff and how to get better performance out of a 10k drive)

I am starting to see more orders come though for systems with an SSD drive for booting and SAS 15k drives in raid 5 for data storage. I suspect as the technology matures, the capacity will go up and the cost down. Just don't expect the 250gb versions to drop below $1000 any time soon.

One more thing; MOST 10k drives (if not all) are still SATA1, not 2.

[J-Roc]

Here are some intresting points to get this think tank really spinning.

1. Insted of your OS coming to you on cd, why not buy your OS preinstalled on a non-writeable or semi-writeable SSD disk that you can plug straight into a sata port?

2. Since SSD's are memory, why not do away with system ram and have the abillity to use your storage device's as a pagefile. You could potentialy have limitless ram with no compatabillity issues when upgrading.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I like your ideas J-Roc, that would make things a whole lot easier.

[calumc]

You could potentialy have limitless ram .
limitless ssd? :p

pigs might fly

[Airbozo]

limitless ssd? :p

pigs might fly

If you have ever been to a Pink Floyd Concert, you know for a fact pigs fly.

[The boy 4rm oz]

If pigs can fly this may be affordable to some lol.
832GB SATAII SSD:
http://www.techpowerup.com/?48781