4 GB SSD w/ Vista launch

[Jammrock]

To curb the still high cost of solid state drives (SSD) but still give people the option to use the ReadyBoost tech in Vista, Samsung will release a 4 GB SSD drive in time for Vista. The drive can be used inconjuntion with an hybrid drive, a readyboost USB flash drive or by itself in conjuction with a traditional HDD. ReadyBoost basically loads OS and commonly used app components as compressed data on faster flash drives to speed up boot and application load times.

No price has been announced yet, though I wouldn't think more than $200 since a 4 GB mp3 player costs about that.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3501

Very cool. It'll be nice to finally have a SSD in the old PC.

[ZokesPro]

When SSD drives become larger and less expensive, it'll be great but for now, I guess we still have to endure our mechanical counterpart.

[Wombat]

No price has been announced yet, though I wouldn't think more than $200 since a 4 GB mp3 player costs about that.

I'm not aware of any 4GB SSD players in that range, they're all HD-based. The 2GB iPod nano is in that range, though.

[Jammrock]

iPod Nano 4 GB is new:

http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/

MSRP of $250, but the electronics are more expensive in an MP3 player than a SDD (I would think), so my estimate was $200 for the SDD, maybe more until others come out with low capacity SDDs.

[Gurm]

Err... are you SURE that this stuff is FASTER than hard disks? I mean, last time I checked the iPod was the limiting factor in data transfer, not the hard disk.

[Jammrock]

Big thing is I/Os per second. Plus the new NAND flash technology can read at much higher speeds than the current gen.

Though if MRAM can boost their densities and yields, NAND will get their bits handed to them.

[Mehen]

Wouldn't that Samsung drive have to load the OS into the system ram to run it anyways?

[Jammrock]

Wouldn't that Samsung drive have to load the OS into the system ram to run it anyways?

Yes and no. ReadyBoost will keep some portions of the OS on the SDD, while others would be loaded into RAM. Either way, a NAND flash HDD with ReadyBoost will reportedly (at least from demos I've read about) boot Vista in under 20 seconds and load office apps in under 5. Which is abig improvement over the 60+ seconds the boot takes right now.

Intel has even developed a special port/connector for SSDs, a feature to be released with Vista codenamed Robson on the upcoming Crestline laptop chipset.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20060417163118.html

[Jammrock]

Samsung just released more info about their 4 GB SSD drive:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3523

..."Samsung confirmed to TG Daily that the SSD is likely to be priced below $200," implying the price of the drive would be just under $200. In fact, when DailyTech talked to Samsung the company confirmed that the device will cost significantly less than that, perhaps as much as $100 less...

According to Samsung, the 4GB SSD should be ready to ship in time for the Vista launch, and features 57MBps read speeds and 31MBps write speeds and up to 5,000 operations per second.

Damn, if they are releasing it for $100, I'm definately jumping on the bandwagon. The Read/Write speeds are good too, especially since they aren't rotation dependant, and I/O's per second are phenominal.

Though I will probably wait for the SATA version to come out.

[Wulfman]

I love the 1.8-inch-version they mention. imagine that stuff in a laptop - would save power as well.

mfg
wulfman

[Jammrock]

I can see HTPC enthusists throwing a SATA RAID controller in their box, the combining 5-6 4GB drives to make the HDD noise go away. Then just use a NAS or computer elsewhere to stream A/V to the HTPC. A bit pricey, but unless those 64 GB SSDs come out soon and at a lower price, may be a better way to go.