First Notebook With NAND Solid State Disk Announced

The days of notebooks with spinning hard disk drives are going to come an end. Samsung hopes to start the demise of hard disk drives this June when they launch the first solid state disk in their Q30 notebook this June.

What is a Solid State Disk (SSD)?

Solid state disks are NAND flash-based memory drives. This concept isn't entirely new. Digital cameras use flash memory to store pictures, as do many MP3 players to store songs. The main problem with flash-based drives is larger capacities are very expensive and they have limited write cycles. These issues are being overcome though and flash memory has several advantages over hard disk drives like lower power consumption, more durability, more compact size, less heat dissipation, quieter operationand faster speed.

The SSD reads 300 percent faster (53MB/s) and writes 150 percent quicker (28MB/s) than normal hard drives. As a result, multiple application programs can operate simultaneously and large volumes of data can be edited and reproduced more efficiently.Microsoft Windows XPwill boot up 25-50% faster on the SSD than on other drives. Moreover, the typical 1.8-inch hard disk drive weighs around 50 grams; whereas the SSD is 20 to 30 grams lighter, depending on the package type.

More on the Q30

Since the Q30 will leverage this new type of data storage, beyond the benefits listed above, it will be dead silent. Since there are no moving parts outside of the optical drive. The full specs are listed below:

Samsung NT-Q30-SSD Specifications

• Processor: Intel Celeron M 753 (1.2GHz)
• Memory: 1 SODIMM Socket, DDR2 400 MHz, 512 MB
• LCD: 12.1" WXGA (1280 x 768) TFT-LCD
• Graphic: Intel GMA 900
• Video Memory: DVMT
• Storage: 32GB SSD
• External ODD: Ultra-slim (9.5mmH), Super-multi Drive (Red)
• Communications: Modem/Lan Combo, WLAN (802.11 b/g)
• TV/DMB: Embedded DMB
• Keyboard: 83-key Korean Keyboard
• Audio: SRS 3D Sound Support, 16-bit Stereo, SB Pro compatible, Internal Stereo Speaker (2W x 2)
• Power: 60W AC adapter (110-240 free volt)
• Battery: Li-ion Battery - Standard 3-Cell, Extended 6-Cell
• Dimension: 287.7 x 197.5 x 18.0 ~ 23.8 mm (without battery)
• Weight: 1.14 kg (HDD onboard notebook: 1.16kg)

The Q30 won't be sold in the US, it looks to be a Korean release only in the short term. Based on current conversion rates, the Q30 would come out to about $3700 US, a heft premium for a flash-based disk.

 

Any idea when these dirves will become more common and availible?

 

It's going to be another year or two before the cost will justify even niche manufacturers taking a look. So, it's going to be a while.

 

Not sure if you have anymore information, but are these drives "compatible" with current drives, I.E. would it be possible when these become more mainstream to replace the drive in a current notebook (regular hard drive) with one of these NAND drives?

Would seem like a good idea to allow that, but just because it's a good idea doesn't mean it will happen.

 

I think they are talking about the drives that have about to 512mega bites solid state built in and then also is a regular harddrive. Kinda enhanced cache. Because those are supposed to be comming to the market soon. Vista supports it i believe.

 

It says solid state disk and noiseless...that makes me think it is wholly solid state. I've been waiting for years for this...no more head crash issues, no more seek times, no more platter limitations. As for interoperability with older technologies, I bet they could package it to work with EIDE and SATA, but both would be ridiculously restrictive buses for throughput from a solid state drive. However, there are still enough advantages (once price drops) I'd think that you'd be able to do obtain some sort of converter. Just think of striped RAID of solid state disks....mmmmmmmm

 

I thought they were supossed to be like any regular drive only faster , like going from 5400 to 7200 is .

 

Specs from a WD2500JS (Western Digital SATA II):
748 Mbit/s buffer to disk (buffer is 8MB)
300 MB/s buffer to host (burst speed)

So, gilo, you could have it there. The solid state numbers in the post are well within the buffer to host capacities of SATA II, so the bus should be fine. The post said "reads 300 percent faster (53MB/s) and writes 150 percent quicker (28MB/s)".

 

No, SSD are like a big memory card, zero moving parts. They are not compatible with current notebooks, the size and connection are both different.

 

It is conceivable that converters could be made available for retro-fitting

 

I guess this one is pure flash drive.
Look at the size; it's only 32GB.
The hybrid ones you talked about have much higher capacity.

 

I wonder how well they have solved the problem of limited lifespan of a flash device.

 

They dont have to because its still higher than the life span of a reg Hard drive. I think its going to be a while before these are used alot. THe new hybrid drives with solid state and regular disks already is faster than a reg harddrive quieter, stays cooler, uses less power, and increases the life span like 2-3 more years. So i think they will milk that tech for all its worth before we see complete solid state.

 

I'd be interested in seeing how it improves battery life...

 

I wonder how this is going to play out. I remember reading before that Panasonic is trying to put Perpendicular HDDs too. If this thing gets promoted enough, it may initiate something on the lines of the HD-DVD vs Bluray.

 

when i think flash hard drives i think of those little flash memory cards...i wonder if it'll be possible to easily swap out these hard drives like one does with the memory cards. that'd be pretty neat.

 

well, wouldn't want to make it so easy that people would yank the HD while the OS was running on it.

 

That would be pretty cool.

So how long will this new SSD drive last? And has there been anyword on if they can achieve capacities greater than 32 gbs?

I'm excited about the prospect of having a solid state drive in my laptop. Could you imagine what it would do for gaming rigs?

 

I can't wait for this to get a little more popular and common place. It is gonna rock!!! Just think how much lighter laptops and cooler they will be. It won't have as much of a benifit for desktops though. I was drooling just reading this article. It will definately be nice once they start making drives around 100GB.
Tim

 

I don't think Samsung is going to revolutionize the way we store our data just yet. At this point, it's too early for this to spark any huge change, but it's good that they're getting started.

 

So will the drive be unusable after...say 4 years since it's been written on so many times?

 

SSD technology is already here, and hybrids are already here. They are used a lot in the Army (US).

The problem is it is not mass produced for the public. Yet you can get them, the hybrids cost roughly 1000$ per gb!

Capacity is up to 80gb, maybe now 100gb. Speeds are just getting faster and faster. Hybrids support all hard drive types, SATA, PATA and anything else.

Power consumption is 0.5 watts, compared to a Hard Disk 1.5 watts.

Real flash memory cost 45$ a megabyte, now were closer to 9$ per megabyte. (some cases cheaper).

The estimated time in which this becomes pratical for the average consumer to use SSD and Hybrids is roughly 2010+ and prolly later. The reason why it's gonna be so late, is because of prices and the lack of demand and mass production.

Once mass production hits, we need to see all top manufacturers, WD, Maxtors, Fujitsu and others to adopt this technology in order to give awsome prices.

Upon release of the SSD/Hybrids to the public, the prices will be high, it will take one extra year before anyone would wanna change their Hard Disks to SSD/hybrids.

BTW SSD is like a memory card, yes they can physically change the size of the SSD to fit anything, im sure there will be a standard once it becomes mass produced.

This is truly some amazing peice of technology! But don't wait for a laptop to support it, it is simply not worth the wait, especially if you needa laptop now.

Once laptops no longer require hard disks, and use SSDs then just buy a new laptop with SSDs and then your good to go.

At this time flash memory is sorta limited, we would need the technology to revolutionize itself, so that bigger SSDs to be created without increasing the physical size of the SSD. And then you can have laptop with 2 SSD slots and run them in Raid.

Nice technology, but will be executed a long time from now

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

I really don't think the NAND Flash Drive is enough to justify the very steep price tag. I think I'll stick with magnetic drives for the time being!!

 

Solid State Disks (SSDs) are available from www.dvnation.com/ssd.html right now! So you can drop one of these in your notebook, or have them do it in a single-core or dual-core notebook. These devices DO HAVE notebook size ATA connectors or SATA connectors! They fit right into your current notebook, and with a $10 adapter, fit your desktop PC. I built one of those Aopen Pandora miniPCs with a 16GB NAND SSD! The speeds claimed by Samsung for that price do not make any sense. 10 Year data retention claimed by all OEMs makes it outlast any mechanical hard drive, justifying the higher price. 1250G or more operating shock! The NAND CHIPS may be capable of those speeds, but when you package it into a drive form, it must have a translating controller. And the faster that controller is, the more exponentially expensive the device becomes. But you can take you pick at that website from a 8.5MB/s device (good enough for a quiet HTPC, fast enough for HD) to a 65MB per sec part.

 

The 28mb/sec write time is still not fast enough. I am waiting for an 11 second boot time from XP. This will require a read and write time of 80-90 mb/sec. It will eventually arrive but till then don't get your expectations up too high with the fast ms access times. They help a bit but it isn't as big of a deal as the read and write time acceleration.

 

This man here lurked for three years and just made his first post.