AfterDawn: News

SanDisk shows faster SSDs at CES

SanDisk Corp. has shown off speedy solid-state hard drives at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The company's new G3 series of SSDs will go on sale later this year with capacities of 60GB, 120GB and 240GB, with the 240GB model costing $499. The SSDs are designed specifically for notebooks, as replacements for traditional HDDs. SSDs are popular for notebook use because they consume less power.

SSD technology is coming along, and is expected to be the next major step for the industry. SSDs contain no motors or moving parts, consume less power and have the potential to offer significant performance advantages. Granted, the prices are still higher, and performance in the current SSD models falls short of traditional hard drives in many areas, but as the technology advances the prices will fall.



SanDisk claims that the G3 models are more than 5 times faster than the fastest HDDs now on the market, and twice as fast as SSDs that shipped in 2008.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 9 Jan 2009 23:59

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• 18 comments

• Morreale

  $500!?
  
  SSDs just piss me off.. Yea they save power, no moving parts, more reliable and so on but it's just sooo expensive for just a little bit of space!
  
  I just wish their prices would fall down some stairs...

  10.1.2009 01:10 #1

• ZippyDSM

  So its about 2$ a gig?(1TB drive would be....2G? *dies*)
  With 1 TB going for 80-120$ on the low end its about a tenth of the price.
  
  If drive makers want to do something about the cost of RMAs for their units investing in this while sharply bringing the price down would be more of a an advantage than a debt...,when the price halves.......twice......LOL

  10.1.2009 01:46 #2

• Pop_Smith

  While it is new technology (and, as such is expensive) I would be willing to pick up a 240GB if the price was $250.
  
  Yes, even $250 is expensive compared to regular laptop HDDs.
  
  However, considering the greater battery life, less heat and now (extremely) better performance vs regular HDDs it would be a great deal in my opinion.
  
  Peace

  10.1.2009 04:44 #3

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith: While it is new technology (and, as such is expensive) I would be willing to pick up a 240GB if the price was $250.
  
  Yes, even $250 is expensive compared to regular laptop HDDs.
  
  However, considering the greater battery life, less heat and now (extremely) better performance vs regular HDDs it would be a great deal in my opinion.
  
  PeaceEven more so looking at fast enterprise class drives that's 300-500$ for 200-500GB 0-o

  10.1.2009 04:47 #4

• ThePastor

  Size requirements are much less for an SSD. There is no need for TB drives just yet. A 250GB SSD would be overkill for most notebooks. My notebook gets along just fine with just 80GB.
  You extend storage with cheap external drives.
  I'm glad to see these prices fall and would love to be able to afford a small SSD for my notebook. I wouldn't be looking for the most massive one, just one big enough to hold my programs and OS.

  12.1.2009 18:35 #5

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by ThePastor: Size requirements are much less for an SSD. There is no need for TB drives just yet. A 250GB SSD would be overkill for most notebooks. My notebook gets along just fine with just 80GB.
  You extend storage with cheap external drives.
  I'm glad to see these prices fall and would love to be able to afford a small SSD for my notebook. I wouldn't be looking for the most massive one, just one big enough to hold my programs and OS.WEll we are more talking aobut when the price is about quadruple of normal hard drive tech is at half the size.
  
  IE if 500HD is roughly 70$ to make then for 280 you can get a 500GB SSD drive that have just about everything over current HD tech thats when the desktop market will get on it.
  
  Frankly for a OS and application drive this would be prefect ona desktop, have 1 or 2 drives to run the OS and programs at higher speeds and let older HD tech take over for archiving.

  12.1.2009 18:43 #6

• borhan9

  I prefer their USB disks instead i am not sure about their hard drives but if its based on similar to same technology as the usb's then i would be a consumer if the products

  13.1.2009 19:43 #7

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by borhan9: I prefer their USB disks instead i am not sure about their hard drives but if its based on similar to same technology as the usb's then i would be a consumer if the products
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive#Advantages
  
  Ooo tricky tricky the failure from writing on it over time is the only real issue for future devices to deal with, price always coem down with time and speed becomes optimized but the issue with writing to the drive makes it a interesting conundrum as they tend to not fail to be read but fail on write instead..

  13.1.2009 20:48 #8

• ericg8

  These drives substantially improve system performance. Especially when paging memory and accessing small files. Boot up almost instantly. Dramatically improves performance when doing virtualization.
  
  As demand increases, price will come down. It has already, and it will continue to do so.
  
  For the price whiners here, bear in mind that pressure from solid state drives is the reason that we have such big drives and the low prices for same. The mechanical hard disk industry is trying to buy precious time with bigger-faster-cheaper, but they are dead in the long run.

  16.1.2009 19:50 #9

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by ericg8: These drives substantially improve system performance. Especially when paging memory and accessing small files. Boot up almost instantly. Dramatically improves performance when doing virtualization.
  
  As demand increases, price will come down. It has already, and it will continue to do so.
  
  For the price whiners here, bear in mind that pressure from solid state drives is the reason that we have such big drives and the low prices for same. The mechanical hard disk industry is trying to buy precious time with bigger-faster-cheaper, but they are dead in the long run.Ya but the write limit limits its life span even if the parts can last longer than a normal HD it still have write limits on its chips that makes it not the best for day to day OS use..

  16.1.2009 20:18 #10

• Mez

  Being an old fogy, is this new math?
  
  Quote:SanDisk claims that the G3 models are more than 5 times faster than the fastest HDDs now on the market, and twice as fast as SSDs that shipped in 2008.
  
  It was stated SSD are slower than HDDs. How can they be 5x faster than HDDs and only twice as fast as current SSDs?
  
  Salesmen!
  
  I am looking forward to this new technology. For laptops extending battery life could be worth double the price. I Do expect SSD to be much faster and cheaper then HDs one day. We can expect SS mp3 players to continue to grow at a rapid rate. SanDisk will take the lead from Apple probably in this year. Apple is terribly mismatched in the SS player race. I heard their new disk players are not very reliable. You need to keep them under warrantee. Many diehard iPod users are not buying iPods when their expensive iPods die after a year’s use. I expect to see Sansa 30 g SS players comming out this year at least by X-Mass and before Apple. After that Apple will be left in the dust, just as the PC kicked Apple’s ass in the personal computer market.

  20.1.2009 11:02 #11

• ZippyDSM

  Mez
  Well new math is to blame for younlings not being able to count...and the EDU system for them not being able to think/talk...but I am regressing here :P
  
  Anyway I believe the new tech they have for it allows for much faster data rates, I wonder if the write limit is enhanced any?
  The write limit is still prevalent SDD tech.
  
  
  Still in 5-10 years we might see a real mag drive HD disc alternative in both speed/price and true longevity.

  20.1.2009 11:11 #12

• Mez

  Hey, Zippy, I was just telling someone the other day about reading about a new HD technology. That was when they were playing around with multi-layer HD technology. This was in the spring or summer and they claimed they would be selling HDs of almost a gig by the end of the year. I thought they were full of sh1t! 500 meg drives cost a few grand at that time. Gig drives came out in the fall. By the end of the year they were selling bigger ones. That was only 7-10 years ago. I mark time by remembering where I read the article.
  
  I also remember laughing with a few hundred others in the early 80s when the speaker claimed personal computers would have 1 meg of memory in them by 1990.
  
  I don't laugh anymore.

  20.1.2009 14:23 #13

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by Mez: Hey, Zippy, I was just telling someone the other day about reading about a new HD technology. That was when they were playing around with multi-layer HD technology. This was in the spring or summer and they claimed they would be selling HDs of almost a gig by the end of the year. I thought they were full of sh1t! 500 meg drives cost a few grand at that time. Gig drives came out in the fall. By the end of the year they were selling bigger ones. That was only 7-10 years ago. I mark time by remembering where I read the article.
  
  I also remember laughing with a few hundred others in the early 80s when the speaker claimed personal computers would have 1 meg of memory in them by 1990.
  
  I don't laugh anymore.I will laugh at nano tech, the "blanket" computer is still 100 years away, the wireless central computer system that runs or networks out wirelessly or even wired that has parallel data transmission at speeds so that all devices have equal access to it that's a good 50+ off, the wireless desk that powers keyboard,mouse,speakers,printer and possibly the monitor with no wires but for the base of the desk should show up in 20-50 years we have the wireless energy tech(thank you Tessla may you rest in piece now) some things we have that can be attained in 10-30 some need a true innovation that will take 50+ for us to figure out..
  
  SDD has a achilies heel in the write limits but that will go away in time. We should see 8-12GB of ramm as the norm in as little 5 years, seems 4 is about the norm now since alot of sub 1K laptops have 3-4 on them.
  
  I hope to see cheap 5-10TB HDDs in less than 5 years, I also would like to see BLu ray DL discs be about 70% for 50 in that time frame.

  20.1.2009 19:07 #14

• ZippyDSM

  DP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  20.1.2009 19:09 #15

• ThePastor

  Yep, the history of storage on the computer has been an interesting one.
  I remember just the other day, paying $250 for a 300MB <--- (that's MEGA byte) drive aand being the guy on the block with the "biggest HD"!!!
  I remember backing movies up to CD... getting tired of that and switching to DVD... getting tired of that and finally settling on an external 750GB drive.. I'm sure I'll "get tired of that" in a few years and I'll be looking at multi-TERRAbyte drives for under a hundred bucks...
  
  Will it ever end???
  

  Unfortunately for them, all Blu-ray protections have been broken and BD rips can be found around the Internet, usually before the retail even hits shelves.

  20.1.2009 20:11 #16

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by ThePastor: Yep, the history of storage on the computer has been an interesting one.
  I remember just the other day, paying $250 for a 300MB <--- (that's MEGA byte) drive aand being the guy on the block with the "biggest HD"!!!
  I remember backing movies up to CD... getting tired of that and switching to DVD... getting tired of that and finally settling on an external 750GB drive.. I'm sure I'll "get tired of that" in a few years and I'll be looking at multi-TERRAbyte drives for under a hundred bucks...
  
  Will it ever end???When we hit the limtis of HD tech and disc tech, but that will be awhile with 100GB disc tech in the labs and god knows how large single drive HD tech has gotten in the albs.
  

  Fallout 3 has stole my soul, for about 30 hours till the paint wore off.... even if its a action focused FPS RPG, at least its a FPS RPG not a under deved shooter like Bioshock!

  20.1.2009 20:49 #17

• Mez

  No I am convinced it will never end. When we all laughed that PCs would have a meg of RAM by 1990 we had hit "the wall". The wave lenght of visible light was the limit or was that the CPU transistor limit? It does not matter the group was well informed and at that moment there was no way to make RAM more compact. I do remember when the wall was broken the RAM did not double one chip was the equivelent of 8. The memory in a PC did not stop or even slow down as we all expected. The curve stopped becomming a straight line. We all had the impossible meg of RAM years before 1990. Someone will always figure out a way to get around limitations.

  21.1.2009 11:25 #18