256GB SSD from Samsung in September

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/25/samsung-announces-crazy-fast-256gb-ssd-our-knees-buckle/

literally, that's all you can say

 

You probably have to take out a mortage to buy that hard drive.

 

Only gonna cost $4,000+++

 

With all the space you get its like a house

I want one, but not the pricetag

 

or maybe it will replace the current 128 in terms of price and the 128 will fall down to the 64 level... maybe, hopefully?

 

if i divocre my wire "if i was marride" i'd say keep the kids ill take the ssd

 

ive sucessfully severed my leg off... now i just have to do an arm for that SSD drive

 

watch it's gonna drop to $400 in 2 years

 

ya in 2 years when 1 terabyte drives are the norm in laptops for a small fraction of the price....

 

Looks like they are ahead of schedule. They originally planned for this to come out in December 2008 or early 2009.

 

WOW, if only I had money...

 

Well this is the same speed and size that intel is also targeting for the summer so hopefully a bunch of new players in the market reduces prices.

I'd say by the time it actually ships it'll be under $1,000.

 

I'd agree that this drive won't be that far out of reach by then. With Intel in the game now, the competition is strong and the prices and capacities should get better.

 

I'm like all of you -- itching to get an SSD once prices come down and capacities get better.

 

And it`s only going to cost you a kidney and a fetus.

 

The speed is incredible for MLC - I wonder how they made it so fast! The use of MLC should lower the price a lot, just look at Super Talent's SSD. Les, time for another SSD upgrade

 

this will force other ssd manufacturers to up their ssd's capacity/ performance

 

When they come out with an even better way to store data that cost $4,000 and no one will want an SSD

 

Yeah, the use of MLC should drastically reduce the price as compared to a SLC 256 GB version.

Samsung is leading the SSD game it seems!

 

i don't think any new technology will replace SSD in next 5-10 years

 

Exactly! HDD has been here for a long time before SSD even came out and now is still holding strong...The same thing would be for SSD when its time comes.

 

SSDs competition is other SSDs, just like every other flash memory market. It's improvements within the segment that will drive it forward and prices down, not competition from things like holographic memory.

It's competitive, and there's more players in the game, which benefits consumers greatly.

 

It will be one of the more interesting business strategy plays to see how Intel handles its entry into the field. As I recall, Intell was into memory and modems and video cards and lots of other stuff 10 to 15 years ago. It got out of much of that. Now, back into the storage business. I have a hard time wrapping my mind (what is left of it) around having an INTEL SSD hard drive in my computer. I am hoping it will BLAST the prices down so we can all get a nice 128GB speedster for 250-300. SWEEEEEEEEEET. Dave

 

Dave:

Intel has some distinct advantages such as low trace size fabs which would improve yield which would lower prices.

I can see them using excess capacity on 62nm fabs to get great yield. The performance will only improve with time. We're seeing the first generations of technology starting at or slightly below the older technology level and it will only go up from there.

And if the price scales, I'd rather pay 500-600 for 256GB.

Cheers,

 

I do not believe SSD is super expensive to manufacture, I think they charge what they do because they can. When it becomes more common technology and other brands start selling the price wars will start and then we can see prices drop to a much more realistic level.

 

16GB is about $5/GB at retail for USB flash.

Scaling linearly we have:

16GB $80
64GB $320
256GB $1280

The new 60 and 120GB drives from Supertalent fit right in line with this pricing. It'll get cheaper and hopefully very rapidly.

I could see $3 / GB by year's end if the competition improves.

Cheers,

 

This is not the same type of flash memory, I do not believe. It is MUCH slower. I would think that a current HARD DRIVE company would get some fingers into this. It HAS to be easier to produce memory than to polish those platters, not to mention produce the motors and electronics and casing.

I do believe that Intel should have a pretty good advantage here as well. They sure do know their way around a FAB, I can personally attest to that Dave

 

Yeah exactly, and their competition mentioned on this page is the #2 chip maker in the world. Yeah I like those odds of reducing costs.

Both have excess capacity and even if they use their older fabs like you say the 65nm (optical shrink to 55nm possibly), then they have completely changed the supply side of the market. Both are already, and have been involved in other flash storage for quite some time, but putting their efforts into this ne MLC process and selling SSDs is good they have the knowledge, and the distribution channels (better than smaller companies with higher overhead). To them it's also likely they think if they can get in on the ground floor they can dominate, and could pretty much take alot of Seagate and WD's sales replacing them in the long term as supppliers of storage space. intel already got their deal with google which is a nice guaranteed stream of products/testing/revenue.

Yeah I think most people would, and that's the point. Once you reach that magic tipping number magnetic storage becomes the second fiddle relegated to very large storage sizes that aren't speed sensitive.

 

I'm not sure which you mean about slower, but that's actually more a function of interface than fabrication limits. As for the legacy makers getting into this, I doubt they'd have the ability to compete. Fabs are expensive and long-way-off concerns, and even then for intel and Samsung, this is almost their cast-off fabs that already have been used to make CPU, GPUs, Chipsets, Telecommunication ICs, etc. which was their primary intent, and this is like very rich gravy for their production lines.
Even if Seagate and WD contracted out a 3rd party like TSMC or UMC, they likely culd never match Samsung and intel's cost with them essentially just using their excess capacity not new fabs for this (yet). you'll likely see many of the RAM makers switch to making SSDs now, and maybe other players who have excess fab capacity or aging fabs that need a new raison d'etre.

 

lol I remember when 1 TB drives hit the market for desktops and cost $1,000.

Good times. Now if only I had the money to waste so I could have one instead of just look at and imagine the possibilities.

 

OK, I see there is much I do not really understand. It is a huge force at play here. I guess I was thinking of read/write speeds for USB sticks being slower than an SSD. Of course, the interface woud make it slower.

One thing I do know for sure is that the companies would make just as much money selling MORE drives at a lower price than they would selling FEWER drives at a higher price. So, there may be some sort of supply/demand type of thing happening. And I am not sure that plain old POLITICS does not raise its head at some point. I mean that SEAGATE, it makes one hell of a lot of hard drives, and it may not be too happy about the SSD revolution. Just a guess

I just want a good 128/256GB SSD, and by good I mean FAST AND RELIABLE for a reasonable price. THAT, I know for sure )) Dave

 

Yeah, eventually they will come down, and be priced similar to magnetic storage. But right now it's that whole economies of scale issue.

The technology has finally caught up to make SSDs viable competition for speed, so now it's just a question of ramping up production, at a time when there are also solids demand for memory sticks and flash memory for cameras and mp3 players, etc.

Hopefully they will reach large production volumes by then end of this quarter and have drives to us in late Q3 or early Q4.

The unfortunate thing for Seagate is what do you do, because politics won't stop intel from seeling in it's largest market, ever, basically. And as a reseller that wouldn't work as well unless you can offer some premium above Samsung or intel as a value add. Their best bet would be to leverage some other areas, because unfortunately it's expensive to get into the Fab business and that's where they need to be to make future drives.
Perhaps their best bet is to make the best controllers and such to interface with Samsung and intel's drives, but long term you have to think they will both do that as well.

Anywhoo, yeah I agree, a nice fast (200MB/s) and large enough 128GB drive would be a good addition to most laptops, I'd personally like 2 please one 80GB intel one 256GB Samsung maybe.