Toshiba Launches Industry's First 512 GB SSD

www.physorg.com ^ | 12/21/2008 | Staff

[Red Badger]

Toshiba announced today the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSD's based on 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND.

In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules.

These 2nd generation SSD's offer increased capacity and performance for notebook computers. They utilize an advanced MLC controller that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to optimize performance, reliability and endurance.

These drives enable improved system responsiveness with a maximum sequential read speed of 240MBps and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps. This faster response time enhances overall computing experience and allows for faster boot and application loading. The drives also offer AES data encryption to prevent unauthorized data access.

Toshiba as well as many market analysts expect SSD's to begin significant deployment in the market in 2009. With further growth, in the notebook market, expected around 10% by 2010 and 25% by 2012.

The new drives provide a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems. These SSD's will be showcased at International CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 - 11, 2009. Mass production will begin in the second quarter of 2009 (April to June).

[Red Badger]

[Red Badger]

Ping!..........

[AU72]

When I managed a computer retail store in 1980 in Boston we had MIT engineers pop by telling us about designs for computers with 1 gigabyte capacity.

Had a good laugh as we were selling 64k ram business systems for $6,000.

[ShadowAce]

[Slapshot68]

Nice. Do SSDs run cooler than regular HDs?

[Red Badger]

Had a good laugh as we were selling 64k ram business systems for $6,000.

My company had one of those............

[Red Badger]

They should. No moving parts..............

[Westlander]

Cool!

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Let me know when Win-doze allows boot-from-flash. I’ll be carrying my PC in my wallet!

[From The Deer Stand]

...line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSD's based on 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND..."

You lost me in the first sentence!

[newfreep]

I ordered a Dell Mini9 netbook (6"x9")with a 32GB SSD to replace my bulky laptop for business travel. Arrives this morning and eager to see how it performs.

I have NOT seen these SSD drives marketed to desktops - any reason why not?

[Red Badger]

Let me know when Win-doze allows boot-from-flash.

Bill Gates: When they pry my cold dead hands off your BIOS..............

[RetroSexual]

Amazing, isn’t it?

Around the time you were managing the store, I was hired to program a computer controlled (CNC) machine tool. The company had spent literally millions on this machine and the 10 MB hard drive on the machine was it’s pride and joy.

The entire computer (with hard drive) was housed in it’s own air-conditioned walk in cabinet. The hard drive was belt-driven, and if the machine was down for a while the hard drive would throw it’s belt upon reboot. I had to go into the cabinet and fix the belt whenever the machine was cold!

[Red Badger]

I have NOT seen these SSD drives marketed to desktops - any reason why not?

$$$ maybe? I don't know..............

[InterceptPoint]

As I recall, my original 1984 IBM PC came with 256K. I paid about $250 hard earned bucks to add a 256K expansion card. That got me up to 512K, some of which I would carve off for a “virtual disk” that I would use to load up Lotus 123. We were strictly text mode in those days but Lotus 123 was a remarkable program for it’s time. It was small and it was fast even on my ancient IBM.

[Red Badger]

Translation:

It’s smaller, faster, cheaper and more reliable because it has no moving parts...............

[Oztrich Boy]

Had a good laugh as we were selling 64k ram business systems for $6,000.

"within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them."

Those were the days

[AppyPappy]

Visicalc was cool too.

[pburgh01]

The days of the clunky CPU sitting on your floor are going the way of the CRT monitor. Everyting offered by the big boys like Dell, HP will be all in ones like the iMac. A wireless keyboard and mouse with a slim 24 inch monitor. Expect prices to fall even further with the average quad core SSD driven, 8 gig of RAM machine running about 700 bucks. With consoles nudging out PC based games even further video card guys like ATI and Nvidia will have an even harder time selling stand alone video hardware.

[PreciousLiberty]

I’m eyeing the currently available Intel SATA SSD for a new Mac Pro tower. It’s “only” 32 GB, but offers seek times in the microseconds, 250 MB/s reads and 170 MB/s writes. Plus no noise and low power consumption - it’ll be the spot for OS, swap file, and critical apps. A bit expensive at $700 or so, I’d like to see pricing on these Toshibas. I bet the 512 GB model costs a pretty penny!

BTW, there’s no need for “boot from flash”, these look like regular hard drives to the OS.

[AU72]

Lotus 123 was the DOS version of Visicalc which it was derived (or copied) from. It ran in assembler thus it's speed.

Accountants happily paid 5 to 8 thousand dollars for hardware to run 123 on.

[tacticalogic]

$$$ maybe? I don't know..............

I haven't seen any pricing on these, but Samsung recently annouced that they would begin production on their own 256GB SSD's, expected to sell for $1,000 - $1,400.

[Red Badger]

I bet the 512 GB model costs a pretty penny!

Mucho Dinero, mi amigo.............

[Red Badger]

Double that...........

[tacticalogic]

Double that for the Samsungs, or the Toshiba 512’s? I’d expect a near doubling of price on the 512’s because they’re twice the capacity.

[Red Badger]

Toshiba’s.........

[tacticalogic]

Sounds about right.

[devane617]

First computer system I worked on had 32k memory, only 16k available for program space. Had a 10M disk drive. It was housed in a huge box measuring 5’h x 6’d x 4’w, with a cyclops display and toggle-switch input. Those were the days.

[CholeraJoe]

How much? Six months ago a 16G flash drive was over $150. Now they are $50-70.

[Red Badger]

The price of “New” is always high for a few ..............

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Since there are no moving parts like traditional HDD’s, what’s the big deal in scaling up memory with more silicon?

[Red Badger]

It’s all in the reject rate.............

[Rummyfan]

I've been in the biz long enough to remember IBM disk drives that had all of ten-gig capacity, and even before that mainframes with only 512K RAM. Of course they were the size of a large side-by-side Amana refrigerator and had power and interface cables six inches thick. So..... 512 GB SSDs are pretty impressive!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Translation:

It’s smaller, faster, cheaper and more reliable because it has no moving parts...............

You may notice that the price of this Toshiba SSD isn't mentioned in the article. That will not be because it is cheaper than mechanical drives, unfortunately. If that were the case, they would be proclaiming the death of the mechanical drive. Not yet.

I am however seriously considering the addition of an SSD to a system which needs significantly better performance to fulfill its mission. If I find that a $50 RAM upgrade can't get the job done for me . . .

[Red Badger]

Eventually, SSD’s will supplant the traditional HDD in virtually all applications.............

[Red Badger]

...IBM disk drives that had all of ten-gig capacity...

You mean 10 Meg?............I remember those...........

[The Great RJ]

Mechanical hard drives will soon become as obsolete as floppy drives.

[edh]

“Since there are no moving parts like traditional HDD’s, what’s the big deal in scaling up memory with more silicon?”

Probably the number of chips you can fit on a single board....just a guess there.

[reagan_fanatic]

My first computer was one of these. Bought it at the old Venture department store for $99.95. Boxy, black & white graphics and a membrane keyboard that would wear out rather quickly. Took forever to load programs from the cassette recorder (it's hard drive.)



Introduced: July 1982
Price: US $99.95
CPU: Zilog Z80A, 3.25MHz
RAM: 2K, 64K max
Display: 22 X 32 text
Hooks to TV
Ports: memory, cassette
Peripherals: Cassette recorder T/S printer
OS: ROM BASIC

[Red Badger]

Ever used an 8 inch floppy?.........

[Red Badger]

I had one of those!!!! Won it as a freebie gift from a time share...............

[mylife]

remember this?

[NRPM]

I had (still have, actually) one of those!

And with the massive 16K memory add-on. I used electrical tape to try to stabilize it, but sometimes it would still jiggle and freeze the computer.

I wrote some good programs on that thing.

[zeugma]

Ever used an 8 inch floppy?.........

Yup. Reloaded a DEC 8810 from floppy once. Took forever.

I now carry more memory in my pocket every day than we had in our entire datacenter back in the day.

[Sender]

[George from New England]

“Had a good laugh as we were selling 64k ram business systems for $6,000.”

I had one of those, a North Star Z80, as a house controller. It ran until December of 2006, when I left the liberal north east. I found after shutting the boxes down that I had hidden any humidity problems in my basement for decades. The heat they generated always kept any dampness from coming in.

[George from New England]

I still use Borland Quattro Pro for a spread sheet. It does work on XP.

[martin_fierro]

Ever used an 8 inch floppy?.

Routinely.

But I suspect we're not talking about the same thing.

[Red Badger]

[George from New England]

We now know that anyone left on this thread is a solid, super-duper, senior.