[jcoley2]

Thinking about the new MBA overnight, I was estimating I would buy one with a SSD if the price went down and capacity went up. My guess is I would spend an "extra" $500 for a SSD option but it would have to be north of 100 GBs in capacity.

It got me thinking--what would be a reasonable timeline for a manufacturing learning curve before we could see this type of capacity at this type of price point? Is it more like 6 months or 2 years (or never given physical limits)?

(Note: If this should be moved to Speculation, please do so.)

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Since this is solid state, I think you could attribute the same pace of improvement as we've seen in the various flash RAM devices. I haven't done any research on it at all so this is completely uninformed but I'd imagine that as the solid state portion shrinks in size, capacity will go up and cost will go down. This will be due to being able to stuff more transistors in the same space and having fewer defects due to smaller die size.

As far as a reasonable timeline? Depends on how adoption kicks up. If Apple and other vendors sell decent amount of SSD drives, more money will be available for R&D. people buying the MBA or other computers using SSDs are paying the R&D bill to economize production just like early adopters of HDTVs, CD, DVD & BD-ROM players and other tech items.

[psmith2.0]

Is this the "way of the future", though? Will these SSD drives, once the capacities are up and prices are down, be legit replacements to the hard drives we know today? There's no physical or technical limit to the type of work they can do, is there?

Anyone ponying up $999 for that 64GB SSD on the MacBook Air...they'll install Adobe CS3 and Microsoft Office 2008 just like any other hard drive, and work on it all day long?

In other words, five or so years from now (just picking a number out of my head), is it likely that all Macs - even towers - will have these drives? Is this "where it's going"?

In a nutshell, what are the benefits of SSD over the other?

Or will there always be a need for 2.5" and 3.5" traditional hard drives (and least inside computers...I'm not talking about external drives/storage). I'm talking specifically about Macs...Mac mini, MacBook line, iMacs, Mac Pro, etc. all coming with SSD drives stock, and nobody blinks an eye?

[Mugge]

Eventually, the spinning platter may eventually be a thing of the past, but for now there's a long way up to 1 TB, and there's no reason believe that the traditional HDs won't become even more capacious until they hit some post-perpendicular physical limitation.

Just note how long tape drives stayed with us after the introduction of the harddisk.

[Taskiss]

Moore's Law -

Computing power per unit cost. It is also common to cite Moore's Law to refer to the rapidly continuing advance in computing power per unit cost, because increase in transistor count is also a rough measure of computer processing power. On this basis, the power of computers per unit cost - or more colloquially, "bang per buck" - doubles every 24 months (or, equivalently, increases 32-fold every 10 years). Hard disk storage cost per unit of information. A similar law (sometimes called Kryder's Law) has held for hard disk storage cost per unit of information.[14] The rate of progression in disk storage over the past decades has actually sped up more than once, corresponding to the utilization of error correcting codes, the magnetoresistive effect and the giant magnetoresistive effect. The current rate of increase in hard drive capacity is roughly similar to the rate of increase in transistor count. Recent trends show that this rate has been maintained into 2007. RAM storage capacity. Another version states that RAM storage capacity increases at the same rate as processing power.

I'm guessing a more aggressive curve. Shoot me if you don't agree.

12 - 18 months, price will halve. Another 12 - 18 moths, price of THAT will halve.

$1000 today = $250 in two or three years.

In 5 years it'll be like hard disks today - you'll spend about $100 - $200 for the then-current sweet spot which will be 1 TB.

[709]

Hitachi and someone else (was it Fujitsu? I can't remember at the moment) recently announced they were getting out of the 1.8" drive business to focus more on flash, so it's definitely picking up speed. That said, huge storage capacities (at a reasonable price, at least) are way off barring some eureka moment.

[psmith2.0]

Okay. So it just sounds like a timing thing, a natural process (I spent $259 for 8MB RAM in 1996, after all ), so "down the road", when it all shakes out, this will probably be what we see in Macs.

The MacBook Air is just the tip of that particular spear (the "iMac with no floppy drive" guinea pig)?

[bassplayinMacFiend]

I'm thinking SSD is definitely the way to go in laptops. No moving parts, don't have to use serious amps to crank up a motor to 4.2 / 5.4 / 7.2 KRPM. Also, RAM is about 100,000 times faster than accessing the same data from a HDD (see virtual memory). I'm thinking there's a HUGE benefit to eliminating HDDs from laptops and most likely desktops once price / space ratios get to where they need to be.

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend I'm thinking SSD is definitely the way to go in laptops. No moving parts, don't have to use serious amps to crank up a motor to 4.2 / 5.4 / 7.2 KRPM. Also, RAM is about 100,000 times faster than accessing the same data from a HDD (see virtual memory). I'm thinking there's a HUGE benefit to eliminating HDDs from laptops and most likely desktops once price / space ratios get to where they need to be.

http://www.pureoverclock.com/story1687.html

Samsung produces 128GB MLC SDD Two months ago, it was 64GB, today, 128GB! The 128GB drive has a promised read speed of 100mb/s and a write speed of 70mb/s. Performance, unfortunately has dropped since the 64GB versions. Expect to pay a couple of thousand dollars for a 128gb drive, Dailytech reports. These drives will be available in the first half of 2008.

Not 100,000 times faster... 2X faster, in some cases, yes.

[psmith2.0]

Yeah, it makes more sense on notebooks. 64GB isn't horrible. It would hold all my data (barely). But when the 128GB one is affordable, years from now, that'll be a nice one to see in MacBooks (and any other weirdo offshoots they want to add to the line between now and then...MacBook Nitro, MacBook Extreme, MacBook Green, MacBook Glass, etc.).

[Banana]

What about the lifespan? I recall SDD being very short-lived compared to platters?

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by Banana What about the lifespan? I recall SDD being very short-lived compared to platters?

Depends.

In fact, that's the selling point, as far as I'm concerned. The life span of a traditional hard disk in a portable device is probably much shorter than a SSD because of the mechanical failure due to vibration and such.

Here's the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Limited write cycles. Typical Flash storage will typically wear out after 300,000-500,000 write cycles...

[Dave]

Didn't Intel or somebody else come up with a new solid state way to store data that didn't have write cycle limits, or am I making things up again?

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Mugge Eventually, the spinning platter may eventually be a thing of the past, but for now there's a long way up to 1 TB, and there's no reason believe that the traditional HDs won't become even more capacious until they hit some post-perpendicular physical limitation. Just note how long tape drives stayed with us after the introduction of the harddisk.

I read an artical a few weeks ago about a new SSD that will be released this spring or summer that is already up to 832GB with a 2.5" SATA interface, so size wise they are catching up fast. The price is the real issue, as you can imagine that drive will cost at least $10,000.

Found a link.
http://www.dailytech.com/BiTMICRO+Pu...ticle10232.htm

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by Taskiss Depends. In fact, that's the selling point, as far as I'm concerned. The life span of a traditional hard disk in a portable device is probably much shorter than a SSD because of the mechanical failure due to vibration and such. Here's the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Better hope you never swap to your SSD, because that will use up all your write-cycles in a hurry. I'm thinking the real average lifespan of current SSD tech to be within the range of 3-4 years MTBF. HDDs are warrantied longer than that, and I have several HDDs that are between 6-9 years old that still work fine. Of course anybody willing to drop $1000 on a 64GB SSD obviously doesn't care how long it'll last him. A 64 GB SSD would probably be replaced within 1-2 years considering how fast this tech will move.

[Yonzie]

Originally Posted by Dave Didn't Intel or somebody else come up with a new solid state way to store data that didn't have write cycle limits, or am I making things up again?

It's true. Intel has something on the way in a few years.

[BlueApple]

There is no point in getting the MacBook Air without the SSD Drive, in my opinion. I'm sure SSD Drive will be standard when its cost comes down significantly, that might probably be a year from now.

[Yonzie]

Oh, IMHO, Flash prices more than halves every 12 months. SSD prices will perform better than that, since they currently need specialized chips to stripe the data over the flash chips. These controllers and the packaging will dramatically fall in price as production volume increases.

[psmith2.0]

If I ever got the MacBook Air (I'm not, I'm just saying this for an example), I'd want the SSD drive too, just so it's as "new" and "on the edge" as can be, taking advantage of everything "forward-looking" as possible.

Some day, 3-5 years from now, I may have another Apple notebook and it'll be that way (and affordable).

But I just can't swing/justify $3,000+ at the moment for such a purchase.



But it certainly sounds promising, down the road.

I'm assuming this type of storage is of the 32/64/128/256/512, etc. type? Doubles on itself? Those will be the capacities (well, 64GB and up) we'll be dealing with in the coming years?

[Yonzie]

If we're talking GB, yes, something like that. Probably also somewhat oddball capacities like 384GB and 768GB.

[scratt]

Just throwing this out there..

With the write limit on Flash memory, how will the lifetime of system drives made from flash compare to modern HDs.. I did some maths (admittedly in my head) and worked out that unless the drive's mapping is doing some very efficient (and hopefully low overhead) calculations on use / re-use then these drives will fail about the same time as a normal HD.

Off to do some reading to see if these drives even do do any kind of usage mapping..... 'cos if they don't then they are gonna be terrible! But I am sure I read somewhere they do do something like that. But even so...

[Yonzie]

scratt: They do. That's one of the major things that makes SSDs expensive (IMHO) since you have to somehow remember how "used" each part of the drive is and even it out.

[scratt]

I always had a problem with RAID as I thought the whole thing was flawed as most likely each of the drives would fail at about the same time, unless you mix and match manufacturers / batches. People used to Poo Poo what I said, but I noticed an article from an MIT professor last year saying something similar.

OK, you'd keep your data, but there is a small chance of a total catastrophic failure, or more likely a bad week when you need to buy 4 or 5 HDs in quick succession!

I wonder if SD HDs will end up being just as annoying as the lottery we have with modern HDs. The difference being that with an HD you can get lucky and get one that's lasts a long time (rarely these days!), and when they fail they are at least somewhat useable / rescuable.

But with SD on similar systems they are going to have a finite life, with no real wiggle room, and a 'digital' (i.e. Works / Doesn't work) style of failure for each storage cell. I wonder how much real research has been put into this, and what kind of warning we get from any management software.. Do they, for example, let you know that over 50% of their capacity is about to go down, or that they are approaching a critical point in their lifetime?

What about people working with huge massively changing datasets? Those people are going to go through drives a lot quicker IMHO.

[rollercoaster375]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I'm assuming this type of storage is of the 32/64/128/256/512, etc. type? Doubles on itself? Those will be the capacities (well, 64GB and up) we'll be dealing with in the coming years?

While those are probably the sizes we'll end up seeing, there are no technical reasons for that to be the case (At least, hardware wise. There might be something on the software end that makes use of power of two) for it to be that way. At least, I recall reading that somewhere.

[scratt]

Well, chip sizes might have something to do with it also.

I don't think we'll ever see an SSD with an odd number for it's size, for example.
But I bet it still says it has more on the box, than you get in reality!

[rollercoaster375]

From what I can remember, it was based on the fact that Flash Memory isn't given in proper GB anymore /anyway/. The GBs they use aren't actually powers of two. They're 1,000 MB as opposed to 1024 MB. That suggests that they're only made in those sizes because people are used to them...

I could be completely wrong, however :P

[scratt]

I thought the 1,000MB thing is marketing spin so they can claim an 8.6GB HD is actually 9GB or something stupid. Basically they divide the real power of two value down into "1000byte K's" and then give you an "overly optimistic" drive size.

And it all comes from K meaning 1,024 to us, and (conveniently) 1,000 to marketing / accounting scum.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by scratt But with SD on similar systems they are going to have a finite life, with no real wiggle room, and a 'digital' (i.e. Works / Doesn't work) style of failure for each storage cell.

I believe that it's just the writing part that fails. As far as I know, the reading part never goes away. I think.

[scratt]

Well there is no limit on the amount of times you can read..

I am not sure if once a bit has failed if it locks into a predetermined reliable state, or if it simply becomes unstable. I suspect as they are basically glorified fuses they lock into one state when dead, but I presume clever firmware locks those bits out before that. Or not. And I don't think / expect that that portion of the drive will then become read only, as that would require even cleverer firmware.. But perhaps it will.

My point is that as a system drive they will need to be both readable and writable to work.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by scratt My point is that as a system drive they will need to be both readable and writable to work.

Oh, absolutely. But if your SSD fails because you've run out of write cycles, then you can still easily get the data off of it. I think. As far as I know.