Dell will offer solid state drives in certain notebooks

ROAD_DOGG33J · Apr 29, 2007

xbitlabs.com
Dell, one of the worlds largest makers of personal computers, has announced that it would install flash-based solid state drives into select laptops in order to ensure that those machines have lighter weight and higher durability.

A solid state drive is an excellent storage technology for our mobile users. We are committed to leading the industry in delivering these new drives and will offer them across Dell's next generation of Latitude products, said Kevin Kettler, chief technology officer at Dell.

Dell said that it is offering a 1.8 32GB solid state drive (SSD) from SanDisk on certain Latitude D420 ultra-mobile and D620 ATG semi-rugged notebooks. The company is one the first to offer a flash-based drive as an alternative to hard disk drives (HDD) on corporate notebooks.

A SSD is a hard drive alternative based on flash memory. Unlike a traditional HDD which uses spinning discs and read/write heads, a SSD is designed with flash memory with no moving parts. The new drive has the same shape and size as a HDD and uses the same connectors for integration into existing systems.

According to Dell, engineering tests show that the SSD has an operating shock tolerance of up to 1300Gs, which is twice the rating of mechanical drives. . In addition, the drives are predicted to reduce the probability of failure by three-and-one-half times compared to standard mechanical drives. The new drives can also increase system performance by up to 23% and decreases boot time by up to 34% compared to traditional HDDs available with the Latitude D420 and D620 ATG.

http://xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20070426212428.html

opendriver · Apr 29, 2007

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&DEPA=0&Description=Solid+State+Drive&x=0&y=0

I wouldnt mid putting one in an external enclosure

That is, when they become a little less pricey...

V1P3R · Apr 29, 2007

Solid state makes sense and is promising but isn't worth it for a while.

BobK · Apr 30, 2007

DWA
Solid state makes sense and is promising but isn't worth it for a while.

I'd agree they have promise but I don't think the technology's there quite yet. Aren't they only good for 100,000 write cycles or somewheres thereabouts?

Robin · Apr 30, 2007

I think its great that they are starting to offer them but I reckon they should still be using both the technologies side by side till solid state gets cheaper, They should have laptops with about 10GB solid state drives to run windows and other apps, then an 80 or 100GB HDD for storage. This would increase battery life and speed whilst not being too pricey.

Actually thats what I want to do with my desk PC.... have a small solid state drive just for windows. I didnt know that solid state is not as reliable as HDD I thought it was super reliable and that it could be constantly read and written...

EDIT.... from wikipedia...

"Longer reliable lifetime - Back of the envelope calculations suggest that flash based SSDs can be written to at full speed continuously for 51 years before exceeding the flash memory's write endurance. This is in comparison to hard drives which usually last a decade before mechanical failure."

GilesGuthrie · Apr 30, 2007

opendriver19a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&DEPA=0&Description=Solid+State+Drive&x=0&y=0

I wouldnt mid putting one in an external enclosure

That is, when they become a little less pricey...

So you want a CompactFlash reader for your laptop then? The latest SanDisk cards are doing well in excess of 40MB/s, which puts them right up at the level of USB2.0.

I think that the 32GB drives are enough for most business uses. My ThinkPad has a 40GB drive, and after a year it's still got 18GB free. If you think of 15GB for OS+Apps, it gives you plenty space for user data.

If you combine this with the ultraportable laptops, and also with rugged laptops, then you're onto a winner.

SSDs kick HDD ass in physical size, speed, latency, power consumption, and shock resistance, leaving HDDs only able to fight on capacity and price.

Dead_Poetic · Apr 30, 2007

GilesGuthrie
SSDs kick HDD ass in physical size, speed, latency, power consumption, and shock resistance, leaving HDDs only able to fight on capacity and price.

I agree with you, but capacity is an extremely large factor right now. Until SDD drives come in sizes of at least 80 gigs, I just dont see there being much of a market for them. Not only that, HDD's come in the terabytes now.

standard235 · May 4, 2007

Biggest single hard drive is 1TB...

Then you have servers with huge RAID 0+1 redundancy arrays... oh baby.

jammyozzy · May 4, 2007

At the moment SSD's have little market, but so did DVD's at first, and CD's before them, and floppy disks, and a long time ago HDD's...

Once they begin to get cheaper, with greater storage capacities, I think SDD's will bury HDD's in the dust - it'll just take a while.

For small scale applications where you don't need huge amounts of storage (like, er, business laptops! 💡 ) they're already much better suited than HDD's, but for just about anyone else 32GB often isn't enough, especially not at those prices.

Tornado · May 4, 2007

I personally don't think the technology is reliable enough to warrant a purchase, especially at the price hike, but it is a start.

opendriver · May 4, 2007

GilesGuthrie
So you want a CompactFlash reader for your laptop then? The latest SanDisk cards are doing well in excess of 40MB/s, which puts them right up at the level of USB2.0.

I think that the 32GB drives are enough for most business uses. My ThinkPad has a 40GB drive, and after a year it's still got 18GB free. If you think of 15GB for OS+Apps, it gives you plenty space for user data.

If you combine this with the ultraportable laptops, and also with rugged laptops, then you're onto a winner.

SSDs kick HDD ass in physical size, speed, latency, power consumption, and shock resistance, leaving HDDs only able to fight on capacity and price.

Yeah, I would just use the SSD for OS and important documents.

I would have a ~60GB drive to be used as storage.

I think that think that this is going to bring more durable laptops to the market. When you drop a HDD, you might loose data, but with an SSD drive, you will have to run it over or stick it in a microwave or somthing like that to loose you data.

Cant wait for prices to go down:tup:

Tornado · May 5, 2007

opendriver19a
When you drop a HDD, you might loose data, but with an SSD drive, you will have to run it over or stick it in a microwave or somthing like that to loose you data.

Or you could use it alot. That also leads to data loss in SS drives.

Robin · May 9, 2007

opendriver19a
Yeah, I would just use the SSD for OS and important documents.

I would have a ~60GB drive to be used as storage.

I think thats the best way and the way most people are going to use SDD's at the moment, have a small SDD drive for OS and critical stuff then a huge 500GB or whatever HDD for all the other stuff..... then you get the quick loading benefit plus the large amount of storage.

standard235 · May 9, 2007

Robin ///////
I think thats the best way and the way most people are going to use SDD's at the moment, have a small SDD drive for OS and critical stuff then a huge 500GB or whatever HDD for all the other stuff..... then you get the quick loading benefit plus the large amount of storage.

Yup yup.

The $/GB is going to take a long time to rival conventional HDD's though...