Intel launches solid-state drive

12/30/2010 12:40 PM EST

If I am getting this right, a few days back I read that Samsung also had launched SSD models built with consumer-class NAND flash. The new SSDs from Samsung have capacities of 100GB, 200GB and 400GB. Are they based on similar technology used by Intel? Has anyone made techno-commercial comparison between these SSD products from Samsung and Intel?

12/30/2010 1:34 PM EST

This kind of drive will be OK for most casual users, but not for long-term, archival use: Flash or other electric-field storage designs imply that the bits stored are defined as 'i' or '0' by the strength or polarity of an electric field.

This means that there is a nonminimal potential difference involved. Over time, by design imperfection or quantum tunnelling, the electrons will leak away, reducing the bit potentials to intermediate states. By contrast, magnetic media store both logic levels in domain configurations which are at energy minima. The bits don't decay except over archeological time intervals.

Intel should publish the expected lifetime of data stored on these drives. One might guess that data on a solid-state, nonmagnetic drive would last at least ten, maybe 20, years -- but, who knows?

You would not want to store birth certificate images or family photo images on a solid-state drive. For example, I have a print of one of my great uncle's baptismal photos, from the 1890's -- I would expect that a copy on my hard drive should last at least a century, so that I could pass it down for generations.

12/30/2010 3:41 PM EST

And, of course, that hard drive has some mechanical parts that probably won't last that 10 or 20 years either.

12/31/2010 4:23 AM EST

This is a great innovative product from Intel, but the interface and the price is somewhat specific, it needs to be USB Option and price should be compatible with Magnetic Drive.

12/31/2010 7:11 AM EST

Their dual-drive selling point looks weak.w

12/31/2010 10:35 AM EST

Intel seems to be the only US major tech firm that is innovating. Good scores from all angles.

12/31/2010 12:30 PM EST

Maybe Apple will replace the HDs with these SSDs as it will only add 10% more cost to the existing price of Macbooks.

12/31/2010 7:11 PM EST

Does anybody know how are these NAND flash chips packaged? What package type, how many dies in a package? What else (controller?) might be in a package? Intel is a formidable player and clearly committed to SSD drives. Many thanks in advance and Happy New Year to us all !!

1/1/2011 12:01 PM EST

New Apple MacBookAir already uses flash drive. Only to save space they have not used disk enclosure. They are available in 64GB and 128GB configuration. As per Apple, their future products will be mainly based on Flash SDD.

1/2/2011 10:58 PM EST

Excellent, I would say. It adds more punch to the portable computing devices. However it still needs to be determined how widespread that pcie interface will be supported by vendors.

1/2/2011 11:27 PM EST

@JMWilliams: NAND flash has its own read/write limitations and so will need to have a lot more space as buffer, just like the hard disks do, but for a different reason. NAND flash needs bad block management and wear leveling and this affects the throughput. In regular PCs, this is not a big deal. But, if you want to keep data safe for decades, no hard disk is good enough either. I guess keeping it online (gmail?) is a better bet.

1/3/2011 2:28 PM EST

It's hard for me to imagine paying that much of an overhead for a flash drive. It seems as though my computers are pleny fast enough for pretty much anything I do, particularly if you got your DRAM loaded up to 8 or 16 gigs.

1/3/2011 7:30 PM EST

Who would use a laptop/Pad more than 5 years or even 10 years? If id keep my first toshiba running i guess id be really really patient guy or not? :)

SSDs are digital based, logic based structures, of course have problem of loosing some data (bits) by time, but with great respond speed, would let OS to boot up in a glance. If someone would like to store data, wait up cloud is almost here, or go for Blu-rays they also offer much reliable storage.

1/4/2011 8:25 PM EST

I have over a dozen laptops and a handful of desktops. Yes, most laptops don't age well, starting with battery wear, then hard drive crashes, panel bad pixels and so on. My estimate that every 3 to 5 years most users replace their main computer has been accurate. However, with the masses moving to super phones this issue is going to be diluted some more.
Boot time was a concern in early systems due to self test and other legacy starting enumeration. However, with portable devices been less flexible those issues will fade to a minimum and little relevance when comparing netbooks vs. super tablets. IMHO.

1/5/2011 3:15 PM EST

10 grams? Really? Or did someone loose a significant digit?

1/6/2011 5:52 AM EST

@SEofLC - now if that doesn't highlight the need for a handy international weight reference for comparison...
I'd say 10gm is nearly a third of an ounce... 150 drips of water... can anyone think of a handy electronics-based object to use as a an internationally available weight reference, other than the gramme itself?

Luckily I know the phrase 'nickelled and dimed to death' but can your car 'turn on a sixpence'?

1/6/2011 11:55 AM EST

Come on!!! Most of us here are engineers and we now that SSD can hold a certain amount of data, for long enough. The only problem is that it can't cycle - erases and writes. That's why you put an OS into the SSD and have all the swaps, temps, virtual, backups and everything that cycles a lot, on a magnetic thing. That's it.
Talking about capacity, this issue should be brought back in another 5 years. I have a hard drive that's 5 years old and has only 20GB. Moore's Law!!!! Now, go back to work!

7/17/2011 12:37 AM EDT

Sounds interesting. HDD has serious reliability issue due to the mechanical parts.