SSD review

[jtr1962]

If interest remained at it's current levels and the technology proceeded at it's current pace, you would be right. While I don't share JTR's degree of optimism, I suspect most of us with tech fetishes will own an SSD by this time next year.

Knowing how everything else with chip manufacturing works, I basically just feel that at a given price point the available capacity will probably go up by a factor of four each year on account of increasing density, at least until we start to bump up against real physical limits as is now happening with magnetic drives . You can get sub-$100 SSDs by using a CF card and adaptor right now. They're just not very big or very fast.

So we're at ~$2K for 64GB now, and perhaps $500 for 32GB. That probably means next year you can get 256GB and 128GB at those price points, respectively. 128GB for $500 starts to cater to the enthusiast market, so I concur with your prediction. Still too pricey for me, though. I'll wait until that size is $99 or less. My guess is that happens by 2010.

In the meantime since the pace of things like this is often market driven, let's hope brother Steve decides to put much more storage in the next iPod™®© or iPhone™®©.

 

[ddrueding]

Typically these things drop in price once they hit numbers that are just better than existing tech. As we discussed in the car thread, people aren't likely to buy something that offers less than they currently have in any category.

So, for the laptop market, that means ~128GB and ~50MB/sec?

Next year? I hope so, but 2009 sounds more likely. And where will platter-based 2.5" drives be then? Will we need 256GB and 100MB/sec? Better make it 2010.

It's not until at least one major manufacturer ships them as standard in a high-volume product that the prices will come down.

 

[udaman]

http://www.ryanblock.com/2007/11/the-first-macbook-pro-with-a-64gb-ssd/

Older 'new' Samsung 64GB SSD (only just available at retail for $2k ) in a Macbook Pro.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/10/samsungs-64gb-ssd-better-faster-stronger/

Anecdotal review of performance (again older model, not prototype recently announced @120/100MBs RW) but I'm sure some of you will get all excited about this one...until next year when the 120/100MBs version comes out and smokes this one, perhaps even in a 128GB version.

 

[timwhit]

I think I'll wait for that new Samsung one to come out. Hopefully, it won't be $1000 for a 32gb model.

 

[Bozo]

Another new SSD:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9047158

Bozo :joker:

 

[Will Rickards]

But it is Fiber channel based.

 

[Fushigi]

Micron is entering the SSD fray. Volume shipments early next year with entry capacities of 32 & 64GB.