Solid-state hard drive in action

[zuludelta]

We don't have a "Tech" forum so I'll just post this thread here...

... Solid-state hard drives have been commercially available for PCs for at least a couple of years now (although they haven't really gone down in price until last year), but I've never actually used one. I know they're supposed to be faster than your standard motor-driven hard drives but I only fully realized the speed difference when I saw this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I-wvet8-Lg&feature=related

To your left is the Toshiba Tecra A9 (retail price: approx. $1700) fitted with a standard motor-driven hard drive, to your right, the diminutive Asus EEE-PC (retail price: approx. $350 without Windows XP), fitted with a small solid-state hard drive. The Asus boots into Windows XP a full 25 seconds before the Toshiba. That doesn't sound too impressive until you consider the processor and RAM difference between the two: The Tecra has a 2.20Ghz T7500 Duocore proc and 2Gb of RAM while the EEE-PC has a 900 Mhz Celeron M and a piddling 512Mb of RAM. That means the decrease in required boot time for the Asus laptop is probably due almost entirely to the decrease in latency time associated with using the solid-state drive.

Obviously, the SSD won't help the EEE-PC all that much in processor-intensive tasks, but I can imagine it equaling or even outperforming the much more expensive Tecra in tasks that require a lot reading and writing to the hard drive.

EDIT:

Found videos of people playing FPS games (with a decent framerate) on the EEE-PC that are supposed to be beyond its processor and video chipset capabilities:

Half-Life 2 (remember, the minimum system requirements for HL2 are a 1.2Ghz processor... the EEE-PC has a 900 Mhz proc that's only a little faster than a 10 year old Pentium III) 
Unreal Tournament 2004 and Halo on an 800 Mhz EEE-PC using a reformatted iPod as an external hard drive.

It really makes me think about how inefficient and how much of a bottleneck standard hard drives are... and how hard drive technology has only just now caught up with processor technology.

[detourne_me]

I never knew this lil guy existed.... WOW!
do you know of any other SSHD computers?   I'm really tempted to get this EEE PC since its cheap, and i could probly run FF on it (it has a monitor output too)  but i'm afraid my fingers might be too big for the keyboard... of course thats what USB if for.

really, the only things i need right now in a pc are:
FF, photoshop, nifskope
Office
iTunes
Skype
and space for my nintendo stuff.

I was planning on picking up a slim desktop for around $3-400 (electronics here are really cheap)  but i may look into a laptop now,  so i can write up assignments and create puzzles for my students while at work

[Epimethee]

> do you know of any other SSHD computers?

A few very high-end ultra portables offer SSHD; the most famous being the new MacBook Air. The price isn't there yet, though (80 GB mechanical HD MacBook Air: $1800; with 64GB SSHD instead: $3100) and the performance improvements may not always be there — the one test result I saw was definitively lackluster... with may explain why Apple is pushing the SSHD as a durability/shock-resistance upgrade.

[detourne_me]

yeah,  i'm definately not in the market for the macbook air.
although the 20 inch imac's within my range,   i'm really leaning toward something like this Asus EEE PC,  it's looking pretty nifty, and i don't mind the 8GB limit,  i just found out about portableapps.dom and i can now run openoffice and firefox (among other programs) through a usb drive or ipod :D

[zuludelta]

do you know of any other SSHD computers?

A lot of the newest UMPCs from Taiwanese and Japanese notebook manufacturers use SSDs, although none are as cheap as the EEE-PC, AFAIK. A quick search on e-Bay turned up an 18Gb model (basically a 4Gb model with all the memory card expansion slots filled) selling for about $500, and the standard 4Gb model selling for as low as $270..

Personally, I don't really have a need for something as portable as a EEE-PC, what I'm more excited about are the SSDs themselves... they haven't gone on sale to the public (they're only available to hardware manufacturers so far, and I'm sure anything bigger than 32Gb will be prohibitively expensive for at least a couple of years), but if they can help get a pokey 800 Mhz Celeron-based machine to run Half-Life 2 (essentially increasing its rendering capabilities by half), imagine what the performance gains would be using one on a typical current PC or laptop or on a full-blown dedicated gaming rig.     

[stumpy]

[...] they haven't gone on sale to the public (they're only available to hardware manufacturers so far, [...]

That's too bad. I thought you could buy them here, if you had a spare wad of cash whose presence was annoying you. I won't be buying one anytime soon, but the fastest way to drive to prices down is to expose them to the bargain-hunting public...

[JeyNyce]

These drive are great, but it is still consider new tech so wait a year and a half until the wants/ needs catches up with the tech, then you'll have bigger drives for a lot less money.

[zuludelta]

[...] they haven't gone on sale to the public (they're only available to hardware manufacturers so far, [...]

That's too bad. I thought you could buy them here, if you had a spare wad of cash whose presence was annoying you. I won't be buying one anytime soon, but the fastest way to drive to prices down is to expose them to the bargain-hunting public...

I wouldn't be surprised if they started selling them to the public on some websites already. The first one I ever saw going on sale was an early (and quite impractical) 16Gb model that sold for ten grand back in 2002 or 2003. Needless to say, it didn't really shake up the hard drive market. I know that SanDisk and other manufacturers are planning on selling 72Gb, 64Gb, and 32Gb SATAII-compatible SSDs starting this summer, and most people estimate the smallest model to retail at around $400 or so (about two to three times the cost of the high-end 10,000 RPM hard drives on the market), although it would probably be cheaper if bought as part of a branded system.

I'm not that sure if the price of SSDs will go down as quickly as we've seen in the past with older hard drive technology, though. Solid-state memory doesn't go down in price as quickly as other PC components (RAM prices have been relatively stable over the years compared to the cost of processors and boards), but maybe once the market for SSDs matures, we'll see more competition and cost-cutting.

[thalaw2]

My co-worker saw the ASUS laptops for sale downtown. The price tag is RMB 2800...about $350....I'm thinking of getting one now.  I was going to go all out for a nice fast laptop, but this seems to be able to do all that I want to do.

[detourne_me]

Awesome,  for some weird reason i didn't think they were available in Asia yet.....
things like ipods here are released a little later than in the us.
i'm going to Yongsan electronics market next weekend.  fingers crossed.

[zuludelta]

You'll probably want to look at the following forum for some advice and tips on installing Windows, overclocking, and doing other potentially warranty-voiding things on your EEE-PC, if you intend on using it for ultra-portable PC gaming:

http://forum.eeeuser.com/

Let us know how it works out for you once you purchase one.

[thalaw2]

Nice link!  I would really like to try it with Kubuntu.  I just wish Linux gaming was up to par with Windows gaming.

[Protomorph]

I would have been more impressed with the demo video if they were doing equal tasks. The little guy was quick in loading XP, but the big Toshiba was loading Vista! Vista takes longer to load on equal computers.

[zuludelta]

I would have been more impressed with the demo video if they were doing equal tasks. The little guy was quick in loading XP, but the big Toshiba was loading Vista! Vista takes longer to load on equal computers.

that's the first thing i thought. the next thing i thought was my imac boots up that fast already and it's probably cheaper.

Are you talking about the current price of a 5 year old iMac? Cause I haven't seen any current iMacs selling for less than $700 (the laptop in the original post sells for around $350).

[thalaw2]

Isn't one of the big boasts about Vista is that it boots faster than XP on equal systems?  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  Xandros Linux is a great OS and this little machine isn't for gaming anyway.  My only gripe is the hard drive capacity.

[randyripoff]

I've been considering this one for a while now.   The small hard drive really isn't an issue since it comes with an SD card reader, plus it would not be my main PC either.  What I really love about it is the portability.  What I'm concerned about is the keyboard--I haven't been able to demo one yet, and I'd need to know that I can type on it.

Initially, I want to wait a little bit longer too, just to see the next generation machines when they become available.

[zuludelta]

Yeah, waiting for the next-generation machines at this point will probably be better. From some of the trade publications I've read, the word is that the next generation machines will have the newer, low-wattage Intel Merom processors (rumoured to run at around 2Ghz), larger stock hard drives, and an option to have Windows pre-installed for the Linux-shy. Even if you don't plan on buying the next-generation models, their introduction is sure to drive the prices of last year's model even further down (maybe into the $150-$200 neighbourhood, which would be an insanely cheap price to pay for a full-featured ultraportable).

[thalaw2]

Agreed.  I'm not one to jump in on new tech until it's been through a few growing stages.  Problem is I'm in really bad need of a machine.  I've gone 3 months without a computer at home.  I can afford a serious laptop, but I also want to be cool and hip and with the times  :lol:

[detourne_me]

Well, This weekend I got a new toy...but it wasn't the ASUS Eee PC....   Nobody had it in Seoul,  they all told me to order one online.

Not wanting to go home empty handed, I bought this:
Intel Pentium Dual CPU
E2140 @ 1.6 GHz
2 GB Ram
250 GB S-ATA HDD
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS

for 500 000 Korean Won (around 500 bucks)

but when the second generation of those little things comes round, i'm jumping on it!

[randyripoff]

Well, This weekend I got a new toy...but it wasn't the ASUS Eee PC....   Nobody had it in Seoul,  they all told me to order one online.

Not wanting to go home empty handed, I bought this:
Intel Pentium Dual CPU
E2140 @ 1.6 GHz
2 GB Ram
250 GB S-ATA HDD
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS

for 500 000 Korean Won (around 500 bucks)

but when the second generation of those little things comes round, i'm jumping on it!

Unless you are doing some heavy duty processing, that should get you by for a couple of years.

[thalaw2]

The EEE PC is for sale all around China.  I'm waiting until the next generation too because the specs seem to be more what I need.

[stumpy]

Just because I saw it and remembered this discussion, a 128 GB SSD (NAND) is selling for US$400. That's getting in range of many people shopping for notebook drives, etc.

[stumpy]

Did I say 128 GB for US$400? I meant US$300.

Seriously, several weeks ago I replaced the 40 GB drive in my old laptop with a 160 GB (normal) drive for like $120. I think if I had known these were coming on line, I really would have gone this route. (Assuming I could have found an EIDE version...)

[Epimethee]

Nice. However I'd wait for a performance benchmark before jumping in. SSD performance seem to vary quite a lot from a model to another.

[GogglesPizanno]

SSD performance seem to vary quite a lot from a model to another

I still here similar things myself, along with the for 'x' its absolutely amazing but for 'y' not so much.
There is also the lifespan issue. Early versions of the SSD's seemed to have significant failure rates. I know that each subsequent version improves things, but I'm still on the bandwagon of wait a year or two to get the kinks out.

That and I do a lot of audio projects which fills up drives really fast, so I'm also waiting for the capacity to increase a bit.

[stumpy]

I think reliability is really pretty good at this point, compared to mechanical drives. I don't recall the exact spec, but I think I read the drive could write 50 GB a day for over thirty years. I tend to be dubious about these metrics, but a drive that will last me ten years has probably gone past the technology horizon, not to mention outlasting many mechanical drives I've had.

I agree that the capacity isn't there yet for many uses. I think 128 GB is very usable for notebooks. If I were designing a desktop machine around one of these drives where I would be doing lots of large file manipulation, then I would set up the SSD as the home for the OS and apps, then use a mechanical drive for data storage. That way, you get the really fast bootstrap and app loading (which are mostly read operations, where the SSDs shine) and keep the capacity for lots of data on the traditional storage.

[zuludelta]

I've been reading conflicting reports on SSD reliability and data integrity/durability. Granted, most of them come from popular publications, so a lot of it is probably just speculation and baseless editorializing. I don't see any reason why SSD reliability shouldn't follow that of smaller solid-state memory devices like portable drives and media players, though. To put that into perspective, I've been using a powered 2Gb solid state memory device for over three years now, reading, writing, and deleting upwards of 1Gb of data on an almost daily basis and I've yet to see any performance dips. Still, it is certainly possible that that reliability doesn't exactly translate with bigger capacities and read/write operations. The prices on these things are quickly getting low enough, though, that I think that I'd be willing to try one out as a back-up drive if something in the 40Gb range starts selling for under $100.