Faster NAND Flash (SSD) in Late 2008

[MacRumors]

With the introduction of the MacBook Air, Apple offered a new mass storage option for the first time -- Solid State Drives (SSD). The Solid State Drive takes the place of the traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as the place to store your files. Being based on NAND Flash ram, SSD boasts the advantages of being more reliable, using less battery and being faster in certain circumstances.

Intel and Micron announced last week that they have developed a new high-speed NAND flash chip which can reach speeds up to 200 Megabytes/second reads and 100 Megabytes/second writes. Conventional Single-Level-Cell Flash memory is reportedly limited to 40 Megabytes/second reads and 20 Megabytes/second writes.

Mass production of an 8GB Solid State Drive based on the technology is expected by the end of 2008. This "high-speed" drive is expected to carry a significant premium and will first be targeted at the professional market.

Meanwhile, for general consumers, prices on more conventional NAND flash appears to be falling, with prices dropping as much as 75% since August 2007. The dropping price of NAND Flash made the offering of SSD possible in the MacBook Air, though still at premium prices. These price drops should also trickle down to Apple's other Flash-based products, such as the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone has been rumored to be due for a revision sometime this year, with the possibilities of increased storage and the introduction of 3G networking.

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[Eidorian]

It's not like you can't add a SSD aftermarket to any other Mac.

It's kinda obvious that the technology is going to get faster and cheaper with more consumption. Does anyone know of any hard drive makers on the SSD field?

[Di9it8]

Who is going to post the first diy SSD upgrade for the iPhone

[arn]

Originally Posted by Eidorian

It's not like you can't add a SSD aftermarket to any other Mac.

It's kinda obvious that the technology is going to get faster and cheaper with more consumption. Does anyone know of any hard drive makers on the SSD field?

MacLife wrote about a 32GB SATA SSD 2.5" installed in a MacBook Pro.
http://www.maclife.com/article/dv_na..._32gb_sata_ssd

Cost? $725 for 32GB.

arn

[Eidorian]

Originally Posted by arn

MacLife wrote about a 32GB SATA SSD 2.5" installed in a MacBook Pro.
http://www.maclife.com/article/dv_na..._32gb_sata_ssd

Cost? $725 for 32GB.

arn

Still not worth it to me at that price. As much as I want more drive space in my MacBook, I haven't used more then 45 GB of my ~115 GB.

[DMann]

It would be nice if we could move to directly PMC (programmable metallization cell) which is 1,000 more effective than existing flash memory, at 1/10 of the size. Hopefully by 2009.......

[noodle654]

SSD is too new for me to buy. I mean 32GB for over $900??? Totally not worth it for me. I give it about 1-3 years for the prices to drop.

[eddx]

When I read 128gb SSD option for half the price of the current SSD upgrade, thats when I start to get my credit card out.

Reading 8gbs makes me think of an iPhone, not a portable computer.

[mkrishnan]

It might be entertaining if someone managed to mod a 1.8" magnetic drive plus a SSD like the upcoming Sandisk Vaulter into the 2.5" bay in a notebook. I think the two together might weigh less than a 2.5" drive, and might be a really interesting combination.

[Eric Lewis]

just make a faster 1.8'' plater that runs 5400?

[Diode]

Originally Posted by Eric Lewis

just make a faster 1.8'' plater that runs 5400?

You run into physical limitations of the components. Not to mention higher seek times (the heads need to physically move and the disk needs to spin up).

[dual64bit]

Originally Posted by noodle654

SSD is too new for me to buy. I mean 32GB for over $900??? Totally not worth it for me. I give it about 1-3 years for the prices to drop.

I'm with you man, it's price vs. tech advancement

I'm willing to hold out a little....

[Doctor Q]

A little more competition between technologies will do us all some good.

Let each consumer make their ideal choice based on the capacity, cost, and speed of their "disk."

[syklee26]

BREAKING NEWS: Samsung in 2020 will release 100TB flash NAND drive with the search speed of 1tb per second.

more news to follow in 2019.

[Sandfleaz]

What's your prediction?
How many years until SSD is the standard?
I'm guessing 2-3 years.

[Macmaniac]

Glad to see prices will keep falling, makes sense for laptops to go with this, the less moving parts the better. I think it will be awhile before we see this become standard in desktops, although it could be the next SCSI solution.

[dual64bit]

In today's world, as companies come out with higher capacity HDD, consumers seem to be finding more and more ways to fill them up. Therefore, I think it would be difficult for SSD to be the standard in 2-3 years. I can see companies making the standard a 32Gb SSD (os load) and secondary 500+gb HDD a standard. People need 250Gb today, 500Gb by the end of the year, and will require 1Tb by the end of 2009 just to do their "everyday" computing. It will be hard for SSD to keep up with the capacities. Again, as I mentioned would be nice if SSD is adopted as a startup disk-type standard.

[Cybergypsy]

Thats one reason I waited on the macbook air ssd, they will grow larger and cheaper soon

[amacisbetter]

The benefits aren't enough to justify the added cost.

[ipedro]

Originally Posted by dual64bit

In today's world, as companies come out with higher capacity HDD, consumers seem to be finding more and more ways to fill them up. Therefore, I think it would be difficult for SSD to be the standard in 2-3 years. I can see companies making the standard a 32Gb SSD (os load) and secondary 500+gb HDD a standard. People need 250Gb today, 500Gb by the end of the year, and will require 1Tb by the end of 2009 just to do their "everyday" computing. It will be hard for SSD to keep up with the capacities. Again, as I mentioned would be nice if SSD is adopted as a startup disk-type standard.

Totally agree. 32GB SSD for OS and main apps. 1TB GB HDD for storage.

I was absolutely impressed by the MacBook Air today when I had it in my hands.... but I'm going to hold off 'til WWDC for either a MBP with similar tech and nearly as slim (with more ports) or the 2nd Generation MacBook Air.

[SthrnCmfrtr]

It's about damned time, that's all I have to say. Goodbye, platter hell!

[BornAgainMac]

Probably another 6 to 10 years before the Mac Pro just comes with SSD. It would be nice to see major jumps in performance, capacities, and low cost that make standard drives obsolete.

[ArchiMark]

Originally Posted by Sandfleaz

What's your prediction?
How many years until SSD is the standard?
I'm guessing 2-3 years.

My guess is 3-5 years before they get cheap enough but with adequate capacity to get everyone to get one...

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by BornAgainMac

Probably another 6 to 10 years before the Mac Pro just comes with SSD. It would be nice to see major jumps in performance, capacities, and low cost that make standard drives obsolete.

At least, yeah... the MP and computers like it won't switch until development of the kinds of things people do on them reaches a space where disk size is not a premium. Magnetic HDs will also increase in capacity, and when there are multi-TB magnetic drives on the market, you know MP owners will be going after them, because they can use them.

On the other hand, I could see something like the MP coming with a Vaulter type option that puts the OS on a SSD, perhaps.

[wizard]

This is what I gather from the info I've seen. The SSD manufactures just have the price of their hardware way to high. Lets face it the price of Flash storage has been dropping like a rock, I'm not convinced that the costs of the so called SSD are worth what is being asked for them.

In any event what is really needed is an update to the Touch and iPhone. These are the devices that cry out for more Flash right now.

Dave