SanDisk wants to replace the hard drive in notebooks with flash memory, a swap that it says will make thin laptops faster and more reliable.
The switch, however, will cost you a few hundred dollars more. Roughly $600 to the cost of a notebook.
SanDisk on Thursday released a 32GB drive for commercial notebooks that stores information on flash memory chips rather than the magnetic platters that make up a traditional hard drive. The drive is available only to manufacturers, and the company declined to give out pricing or identify any notebook makers that will adopt it, but SanDisk said notebooks sporting the drive could come out in the first half of 2007.
SanDisk got the bulk of its expertise in these drives when it acquired Msystems, an Israeli outfit that was an early pioneer in USB flash keys.
News source: CNET
The switch, however, will cost you a few hundred dollars more. Roughly $600 to the cost of a notebook.
SanDisk on Thursday released a 32GB drive for commercial notebooks that stores information on flash memory chips rather than the magnetic platters that make up a traditional hard drive. The drive is available only to manufacturers, and the company declined to give out pricing or identify any notebook makers that will adopt it, but SanDisk said notebooks sporting the drive could come out in the first half of 2007.
SanDisk got the bulk of its expertise in these drives when it acquired Msystems, an Israeli outfit that was an early pioneer in USB flash keys.
News source: CNET
... and sapce.
sapce?
Currently more expensive...if demand increases, prices would drop i guess? Lots of notebooks only have 40gb HDDs anyway...
They typical flash based SSD is about 100 times faster on avg. in regards to access time.
Two sources of this info on SSD "solid state disks", one being the press release about this particular sandisk product:
http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom...se.aspx?ID=3654
Also the following page had some useful info:
http://www.storagesearch.com/bitmicro-art3.html
Lots of benefits, speed being the main. No noise and less chance for failure due to no moving parts. Battery life is suppose to be improved as well.
I personally see these as being used in conjunction with a typical HD until the size increases and price subsequently decreases. Personally would love to throw the OS and core apps on their, as well as swap space. I suspect the same benefits can be had that Vista touts with its ReadyBoost and a flash USB drive.
Its been too long in my opinion coming for us to finally start seein SSD's in the consumer market. I only wish they would also announce making these available to the consumer soon and not just OEM's.
It's a step in the right direction though and hopefully another manufacturer will try to do the same or better, competition grows and hey presto, 160gb SSD chips all round!
Last edited by imachip on 04 Jan 2007 - 18:30
If they've got 128 GB drives by the end of the year, I think my new notebook will get one.
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