solid-state drive

Samsung develops 256GB solid state drive

Samsung has developed one of the largest-capacity and highest-speed solid state drives to date.

CNET site ZDNet Korea reports that Samsung announced the development of a 2.5-inch, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum in Taipei, Taiwan.

Typical solid state drives shipping in notebook PCs today have a storage capacity of 64GB.

With a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second and sequential write speed of 160MBps, Samsung is claiming some of the fastest SSD data transfer rates to date.

Like upcoming Intel SSDs, Samsung's drive will use multi-level cell (MLC) … Read more

Report: Toshiba sees 512GB solid state drives by 2009

Toshiba is planning to ship 512GB solid state drives by 2009 when it expects these storage devices to claim one-fourth of the market, according to Japan-based reports.

Toshiba is currently getting set to ship 128GB solid state drives (SSDs), which it plans to offer by June in its Dynabook SS RX1 and Portege notebooks. SSDs are based on NAND flash memory, a market that Samsung and Intel also compete in.

The market for SSDs used in notebook PCs will surge on average 313 percent per year through 2011, according to a report from Nikkei Business Publications. The report referred to … Read more

ThinkPad X300 solid-state drive shines

Solid-state drives continue to outperform hard-disk drives in tests, providing some consolation for the high price.

The X300 ThinkPad, which starts at $2,900, is one of the hottest--and most expensive--notebooks on the market now. The Apple MacBook Air is another. They both come with solid-state drives (SSDs) that perform better than standard magnetic hard-disk drives. And the X300's outpaces a 7200rpm hard drive by a long shot, according to review site Hot Hardware.

In a test, the X300's SSD "performed 2.75 times faster than the Dell XPS M1730 running dual 7200rpm drives," the review … Read more

Intel flash dicey, Netbooks solid

Comments by CEO Paul Otellini and CFO Stacy Smith during Intel's 2008 first-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday cast a pall over the chipmaker's flash business while boosting the outlook of Netbook chips.

First, a quick inventory of the comments made by Otellini and Smith about Intel's NAND flash memory business. Overall Intel gross margins were affected by collapsing prices in the NAND market. Intel is currently in a joint NAND chip manufacturing partnership with Micron Technology. NAND flash is used in large-capacity storage devices which are, in most cases, interchangeable with hard disk drives. Intel said earlier this year … Read more

STEC responds to Seagate patent lawsuit

STEC issued a formal response Tuesday to a patent infringement lawsuit filed by rival storage maker Seagate Technology and its subsidiaries.

STEC, which responded to the lawsuit Seagate filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, says it will "aggressively" defend itself against Seagate's four patent infringement claims and contends it was one of the first companies to develop, manufacture, and ship high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), predating the patents cited in Seagate's complaint.

Seagate is alleging STEC violated four of its patents relating to its SSDs, memory-backup systems, and self-testing … Read more

Toshiba delays 128GB solid-state notebook

Toshiba has postponed the launch of the Dynabook SS RX1 notebook slated to ship with a 128GB solid-state drive, according to an announcement on Toshiba's Japanese Web site.

The Japanese-market Dynabook has been billed as the first notebook with a 128GB solid-state drive, or SSD.

The notebook was originally scheduled for general availability in April but will be delayed until June, according to Toshiba.

Toshiba cited parts delays. It's not clear whether the delays are SSD-related, but Toshiba postponed the launch of a notebook last year with a 64GB SSD due to flash memory chip "procurement" … Read more

Thin Intel Netbook to vie with MacBook Air?

During a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, an Intel executive brandished a Netbook that looked Air-thin. Will inexpensive Linux Netbooks be a poor man's MacBook Air?

Most of the photos to date of upcoming Netbooks are ho-hum designs, engineered to be inexpensive yet practical for users such as young schoolchildren. But some upcoming designs look intriguing--and extremely thin. (See close-up photo here--PC Watch.)

"This Netbook is running Linux...As you see, this doesn't mean an ugly design. It's a really nice-looking, stylish design," said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and … Read more

MacBook Air verdict: Seminal computer, five reasons

The Apple MacBook Air is a seminal computer. There I said it. I'm not going to pretend that my opinion is the final word (or anything close to it) but I will weigh in by saying it's a ground-breaking product. After using it for about two months, here's why.

(Note: I am not a Mac enthusiast. This is the first Apple I've ever owned.)

This is not a CNET review. The CNET review is here.

1. Very thin, very light but comparatively fast. That's no mean feat. Subnotebooks I've had in the past (e.… Read more

Intel tempts with preproduction solid-state drives

An Intel executive demonstrated upcoming solid-state drives at this week's Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, noting that the chipmaker is on track to deliver the drives later this year.

Meanwhile, an Intel fellow describes his "addiction" to solid-state drives in a blog posted Wednesday.

SSDs, if you don't already know, are based on flash memory chip technology and have no moving parts. Hard-disk drives, in contrast, use read-write heads that hover over spinning platters to access and record data. With no moving parts, SSDs avoid both the risk of mechanical failure and the mechanical delays of … Read more