Samsung ready to release 16GB solid state hard drives
 

SOUTH KOREAN electronics giant Samsung said it has made the first solid state disk (SSD) using NAND flash memory.
It can make SSDs to support capacities of up to 16GB, it said, suitable for notebook and tablet PCs, and with power consumption rates less than five per cent of current hard drives. That, it said, will extend the battery life of notebook PCs by over 10 per cent.

The weight savings are also considerable - SDDs will be less than half the weight of comparable hard drives.

The drives will also include performance rate by a claimed 150 per cent, with the disk reading data at 57Mbps and write speeds of 32Mbps. It also is much quieter and emits less heat than conventional hard drives.

Even though they have a very diferent structure than conventional HDDs, Samsung said that they will design them to look the same, for compatibility purposes.

Samsung said it will release a 1.8-inch SDD in August this year, but has developed 2.5-inch drives using 16 NAND flash memories of 4Gbit or 8Gbit densities. The 1.8-inch SDDs will also come in 4GB and 8GB flavours, Samsung said. µ

http://theinquirer.net/?article=23425

Will these be faster than the 74GB Raptor?
If it does I would seriously consider putting my Operating system in it.

Will they actually be usable for a desktop?

Re: Samsung ready to release 16GB solid state hard drives
 

I don't think so :)

the readspeed is pretty good though if i'm not mistaken, a lot of serial ata disks don't even gen that speed

I've seen solid state drives before; it uses RAM & PCI card to deliver impressive performance; it's expensive as hell of course:)

http://www.avatar.demon.nl/cenatek.html

with PCIe and cheaper RAM this might become very interesting though as system drive; Windows (and any other OS) would fly, performance would triple

No moving parts = long life?

that's another extra. I'm trying out a software called [g]Ramdisk[/g], allows you to set up a part of your memory as disk in windows. put my Firefox cache file there, let's see if it flies:)

put your page file there

have you done this? because if the ramdisk software is loaded after the pagefile.. you're in ****:)

indeed, the loop of hell (complete reinstall necessary) would be waiting for you then

image your os-partition before proceeding

haven't tried this ... yet :chicken:

- Jmke thanks for the cenatek review, it confirmed my theories.

I visited their homepage and sent them an e-mail about an 8GB PCIe version of the RocketDrive.

I also sent an e-mail to superSSD.com but they seem to have only enterprise products.

I also read (in CustomPC i think) about Savrow Computers www.savrow.com and how they build PCs to order WITH solid state disks. Would you ever do a review of their stuff Jmke?

To my opinion 8GB is all I need (my 74GB Raptor has less than that, including a 2GB solid pagefile), the rest of my data is sitting in external disks. If WinXP, one top game like Doom3 or HL2 and the rest of the tiny programs we usually employ could all run from such a disk wouldn't there be a dramatic increase in performance?

I can't image system; no resource available; saw it posted at their site that they did put the page file there; but with only 512Mb in RAMdisk the pagefile is too small;

have installed 1.5GB in system now; running 2T which "lowers" performance a bit

it would make an interesting review, might have to tap some resources to get all the hardware needed for a really interesting test.

would approach the review by building 2 identical systems, save for the hard disk, then put a camera on the 2 systems so you can watch the boot difference; loading times, copying, cd burning, etc etc

of course all the data will be represented in digital graph/table format also for those who like numbers

such a review does require time and space; something I do not have much of at the moment; in a few months maybe, who knows, [M] review crew is pretty big, so we usually have somebody available at all times to review new gear

ok, will try ramdisk pagefile tomorrow on test pc

curiosity :rolleyes:

"RamDisk Plus adds multiple disk support, system page file support, and a versatile disk image backup facility. You can manually save the RAM disk’s contents to an image file, or have the contents saved automatically when the computer is shutdown. This feature ensures that service and application data stored on the RAM disk can be preserved between system restarts. During the subsequent system start-up, the disk's image is automatically loaded."
http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php

Have "Plus" installed here

Ok I just found out about some extremely expensive solid sate disks called PuRam:

PuRam™ - The future, today.
Introducing the first desktop computer configurable WITHOUT a system hard drive. The Operating system and system files reside on a PuRam™ solid state flash disk with near zero latency and seek times, and burst transfer rates up to 8.0GB/s I/O, capable of over 150,000 I/O requests per second, all with an average of 0.0% CPU utilization. This translates into an effective desktop business productivity of up to 100 times faster than the fastest available hard disk design at any price or configuration. These are non-volatile units just like a regular hard drive with a permanent storage cycle. There are no more virtual memory or swap file delays (since now they are as fast as RAM) and there are no more System Disk Defrags (memory is random so it does not need defragging). Windows boots-up in seconds, load your games and apps in seconds, and start any program virtually instantly. Also moving, copying, or working on large files has literally no slow-down affect in the blistering fast computing speed. Furthermore, PuRam™ Drives are extremely resistant to shock, vibration and temperature variations, while providing unprecedented performance and superior durability. Allied to our CacheFlow™ technology, the PuRam™ Drives give your audio, video, CAD, graphic, gaming, industrial or scientific applications the most, compelling and unmatched data through output speeds. Absolutely like no other.

I can find no working links though. This:
http://www.go-l.com/ only the front home page works. I think they may have gone bust...

I saw laptops advertised with that storage system also, but they were way too expensive:)

"Q: Can I put a page file on a RAM disk?
A: Yes, starting with RamDisk Plus version 8.0. The expected release date is 31 March 2005. RamDisk and RamDisk Plus version 7.0 do not support page files."

I have version 7.0, crap :/

Ok I have 2 final links.and 1 download:

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-buyers-guide.html

http://www.storagesearch.com/bitmicro-art1.html

and the savrow specs of their solid state based Diamond system.

http://www.savrow.com/docs/savrowdiamond.pdf

As if this affair wasn't expensive enough, it now gets a bit confusing too. And I still haven't found a place which sells solid state flash disks as system disks. Where do SavRow get theirs? (Jmke, perhaps you should ask them...and for a sample machine too, just to see how fast it is!)

I apologise for drulling... :)

Ok, I sent this yesterday and this is the reply I got:
--------------------------------------
I am interested in your product but:

1) 4GB is not enough. WinXP and a game like Doom3 would fill all of that. I want to house all my programs in a rocket drive and leave my data in other disks.

We will have an 8 GB out next year.

2) What about a PCIe version of the rocket drive? Wouldn't that be faster? Would it choke the PCI express lane though (if I had a GeForce 6800 Ultra for example running alongside)?

Again, more on this next year.

3) What latency does your RAM have (if that applies)?

The drive latency is 0.6 us (microseconds)
---------------------------------------

So how does microseconds compare to nanoseconds.

And this is the answer I got from Texas:

-----------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your recent inquiry for information on RamSan solid state disks (SSDs). I appreciate your interest in Texas Memory Systems (TMS) SSDs, but I may have to disappoint you. Because of the expense of the systems (the introductory 8GB system, the RamSan-120, costs $24,000), there are no immediate plans to introduce a retail model.
----------------------------------------------------

:( Ouch! That's going to leave a scar:grum:

500Mb Ramdisk here really pays off; games load instantly from that drive :)

What's the procedure like because I can devote whole GB to it.

Get http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php ramdisk :)

version 8.x if possible; worth the $; allows you to create ramdisk to use for pagefile

Ooooooooohh, now I get it. Ooops :rolleyes:

I certainly can't devote a GB to it.

I have 1 GB of 2-2-2-5 ram.

Let's say I wish to improve the performance of Doom 3. Is there a point in using RamDisk 8 ? What's the max Ram Doom3 can use at any given time? If there is any Ram left would there be a point of allocating the rest for the pagefile (or some other file which would increase Doom3 performance)?

I am usin Doom3 as an example because it is a widely used application and a very demanding one.

You'll need 2gb+ RAM to make RAMdisk useable for larger games like Doom3/FarCry/etc..

Let's say I do buy another GB of 2-2-2-5 RAM.

What then? I allocate that second GB to the pagefile?

I won't be able to run the RAM at 2-2-2-5 though, so I'll loose some performance, and some more because I will have all 4 DIMM slots fitted with RAM (I don't remember why exactly but when all 4 are fitted I think the Frequency drops on most motherboards).

But we can skip that and assume that the system was designed with RamDisk in mind and 2x1GB modules were purchased.

Will there be a considerable gain in performance? Will it have a decent value? (given that we were forced to buy 2 GB of RAM).

Couldn't you turn this into an article and test such a rig (I'm just saying)?

the maximum I can fit is 3 slots in my A64 testrig; which would be 1.5gb at PC3200 CL2.5 2-3-7 2T

not good enough for page file action though; I only have version 7 of ramdisk; might need to contact them for a higher version, but not without sufficient hardware to do a test. don't have time/resources to it anyway now though...

having 2GB with 1gb ramdisk and your pagefile on there will increase performance quite a bit when swapping between programs. but I have not tested this yet; would be interesting to see how it will work out.

I've only experimented with putting game demos on the ramdisk; and loading times are instant, 5x-10x faster then on 10000rpm 74gb Raptor

I think most ASUS motherboards will tolerate all 4 DIMM slots filled with RAM. Don't you have one lying around (in your vast, underground, JamesBond style lab :) )

1 GB of pagefile might just be enough. I currently have 2GB solid (perhaps another article idea there...)

However, Diskeeper 9.0.515.0 advises to increase over 2GB. (how about a software review of defragmentaion progs, like Diskeeper, the best I think).

I like O&O defrag also:)

only have DFI A64 nF3 mobo; 3 dimms

What's O&O ?

What! No vast, underground, nuclear-proof lab?

When are you get that DFI A64 nF4 mobo Ultra-D ?

Never :-)
spend enough money on hardware to last me a life-time

http://www.oo-software.com/en/index.html

Sorry, no time to test the swap file

works only with RAMdisk v8 and above

Yeah, looked for it one or two years ago, it's called SSD (Solid State Disks).

In my opinion, only viable when we finally get that f*cking MRAM...

MRAM has all advantages we can dream of:

° non-volatile
° as fast or faster then Static RAM
° as cheap as Dynamic RAM
° similar densities as Dynamic RAM

So, you got MRAM, you can make THE SSD =)

Too much money on hardware? But you are a professional !

You're not shopping. You are investing! (sounds better doesn't it?):D

To XploitedTitan:
Indeed, they are taking the piss with those prices, and until then we are f***ed (to use your rough but precise language) in the hard drive performance sector.

Yeah, sorry for my language :( I don't hide behind eufemisms ^^

where do I state this? I'm no pro; I do this as a hobby, I got a 38h/week job :)

The fact that these new NAND flash disks have no mechanical parts anymore should already be enough for the power consumption to drastically lower. Though as with any technology not already mainstream the prices are not worth it for PC users.
Also you data is safer against random accidents. Imagine yourself having spinning conventional HD's and then shake them a bit. Then imagine yourself after that :)
That problem is partly solved i think. I also heard this kind of external data storage was used in tanks in the first gulf war because of its shockproof status though it could just be some kind of myth :D
The MRAM is also something i'm eagerly awaiting for :) I'm not a pro on memory usage but i can already imagine some of the possibilities.