Mtron’s SSDs: I’d rather have cheaper and sooner than faster
I don’t mean to make good news sound like bad news but I’m wondering if Solid State Disk makers will fall into the same trap that Intel did. Mtron announced that their SSDs will offer faster read and write speeds than competing storage devices from Samsung and SanDisk. Hey, 120 MBps read and 90 MBps write speeds for a 120 GB drive are nothing to sneeze at when the competition reports about 50% slower throughput. Believe me, I’m all for the new speeds.
My concern is that SSD manufacturers will fall into the "speed trap" and focus more on how fast they can move data. Point being: they can’t even move the drives yet since they’re not readily available and aren’t cost efficient for mainstream consumers over traditional magnetic storage. Hopefully I’m way off on this one but I’m still waiting to see a reasonable priced and easy to find 64 GB drive (or larger) for a UMPC or notebook. Let’s see what happens next month as Mtron is slated to make their 16-, 32- and 64 GB SSD drives available.
Man, if the fan were the only moving part, and the “drive” were silent and faster than waiting, waiting, waiting, that would rock!
But I fell off my chair when I saw the price of a non-existent 64GB SSD. Still, when I saw the first laptops back in the early eighties costing more like a car, I rolled my eyes, too.
I agree: speed? Just deliver it to market!
dvnation.com tested these in raid and they get over 300MB/s. incredible. there is a market for these even at these prices. i don’t understand why everyone needs to chug around GB’s of data. for a portable everyday device all i need is 8GB to install XP tablet edition. there is online storage and portable hard drives.
I’m still amazed at how many years we’ve been dragging around that huge millstone around our necks called hard drives. I keep harping on about how “moving parts are wrong” but that’s just… true. One of the most important components in our computing devices is… a clunky mechanical device producing heat, noise and breaking down regularly? What’s wrong with this picture?
Finally we’re seeing the beginning stages to getting rid of them. They still are a fixture in the server rack, unfortunately, because they do give good MB-for-the-money, but any area where we can get rid of them is good.
SSD’s with 120MB/sec read may be pricey, but it clearly shows that hard drives are inferior in just about every way, so it’s a good thing. Obviously, very high prices are not so good, but I’m confident things will sort itself out there too eventually.
I don’t think I can take even one more SSD press release that doesn’t end with “Now available through Amazon.com” or some other retailer. I was ready to buy one 8 months ago but I’m not into buying a UMPC as the blister packaging for it.