SSD

Samsung Electronics has begun mass producing 64GB solid state drives (SSDs) with a new high-performance interface and will begin shipping the drive to major notebook PC suppliers, the company announced Friday. This follows last month's announcement of plans to bring out a 128GB SSD.

The new Serial ATA (SATA)-II SSD is able to read data at 100 megabytes per second (MB/sec) and write it at 80MB/sec, 60 percent faster than SATA I drives, Samsung said.

Dell will be one of the first takers. "Today, I wanted to let our customers know that in the coming … Read more

In the wake of a series of technical announcements from flash memory supplier SanDisk, larger-capacity solid-state drives are on the way.

Flash memory is gaining as a replacement for hard drives in ultra-thin, ultra-small notebooks such as the MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC. Why? Flash uses less power, generates less heat, and has faster access times than hard drives. The Air, for example, offers a 64GB flash-based SSD as an option while the Eee PC is sold standard with flash storage.

There is a big catch, though. High-capacity SSDs are expensive. Prohibitively so. The flash drive in the pricier $… Read more

Considering how much we've heard of Solid State Disk superiority over conventional spinning hard drives which are often prone to hard disk failure, it's only a matter of time before vendors get on the SDD bandwagon. First up with a large-capacity external version is Buffalo's 100GB model in its SHD-UHRS series of external USB 2.0 drives.

However, as much as some of us would love to flaunt one, there's a hefty premium to be paid for being the Big Cheese among your tech geek pals. That 100GB Buffalo SSD will set you back a very … Read more

The hard drive will not die. Let's get this on the record now, at the beginning of 2008, because readers may see a fair number of stories proclaiming its demise. Though Friday's Intel-Micron high-speed flash memory announcement points to increasing use of solid state drives (SSDs) in digital products, flash is chasing prey that has eluded imminent death for years. SSDs are gaining acceptance selectively not broadly. SSDs in standard notebooks? No. And even if you're, for instance, a PC vendor trying to compete in the ultra-thin notebook market, chances are you will still opt in most … Read more

If consumers and businesses are going to be convinced to switch to solid-state drives over hard disks, it's going to take something more compelling than 16GB.

On Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard will introduce a new version of its Compaq DC7800 series desktop PC. The product line was initially introduced last September, but now has an option of adding a 16GB solid-state drive (SSD) from SanDisk.

Sure, fewer moving parts when storing data is more reliable and saves power, but when an audience is conditioned to expect 80GB minimum in a desktop, 16GB appears a bit puny. (That's like running your … Read more

Ultraportable laptops are usually pretty sharp-looking, but dressing one up in a leather-covered chassis is even better. Taiwanese PC maker Asus has had leather laptops for a couple of years now, but the latest version, called the U2E, packs in plenty of high-end computing features on top of the slick looks.

This 11-inch notebook weighs about 2 pounds and features a 32GB solid state drive, which helps with weight and heat, as well as power consumption. The LED backlit display also consumes less power and allows the screen to be thinner than traditional LCD screens.

The built-in Webcam offers an … Read more

In the old days, you'd buy a RAID adapter card to let your computer attach to multiple hard drives that provided data capacity and protection. Nowadays, with flash memory, the storage fits right on the card.

Addonics Technologies announced a $50 PCI card Tuesday that's got four CompactFlash card slots. The cards can be configured as four individual drives, a single large volume, or set up with RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) 0, 1 or 10 to stripe data across multiple cards or mirror data from one onto another.

Note that there's no support for RAID … Read more

We love solid-state hard drives--in theory. No moving parts, no noise, less heat, more energy efficient, and less prone to failure--what's not to like? Of course, when we're all used to low-cost 200GB-plus hard drives in our laptops, actually making the move to SSD drives can be a bit of a reality check.

While a single 32GB SSD drive in your laptop may set you back a few hundred dollars, Alienware is leading the pack by offering the most outrageous laptop SSD package we've seen. On its award-winning 17-inch m9750 laptop, which we recently reviewed very favorably, … Read more

If there's one buzz topic that has laptop fans excited right now, it's the transition from traditional platter-based hard drives to solid state drives (like the one in your iPod Nano). These drives, like that flash memory stick hanging off your keychain, have no moving parts, give off less heat, and require less power to run--all good things if you're packing a few thousand dollars worth of battery-powered technology into your carry on bag.

The ultramobile Latitude D420 and semi-rugged D620 ATG laptops are the first systems in the Dell line to get these 32GB 1.8-inch … Read more