Posted on 08/31/2009 9:02:59 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Milpitas (CA) - Solid state disk (SSD) drives are likely to see further speed increases from the currently fastest drives that provide read speeds of about 200 MB/s to the theoretical maximum of 300 MB/s. Silicon Valley startup Indilinx says it has developed a technology that will boost the speed of SSDs by more 15% and is already working on SATA III interface version that should double the bandwidth provided by today’s SSDs.
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Indilinx says it has developed a new "high-performing solid state drive (SSD) controller" built in 90 nm process technology that is currently shown at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara and promises much higher data transfer speeds for SSDs.
The device, called Barefoot, delivers a read speed of 230 MB/s, 30 MB/s above today’s fastest SATA II SSDs, and support for storage capacities of up to 512 MB. Indilinx claims that it is first to "fully utilize" the SATA 2 interface and noted that it is already working on an interface compatible with SATA III and a bandwidth of 600 MB/s.
(Excerpt) Read more at tomshardware.com ...
Up to 512 MB? That seems kind of small, even for a SSD. Do they put these together in groups to achieve a larger capacity?
Call me when an SSD won’t fail after a year of heavy use.
Was just plowing thru this tour de force in benchmarking at Anantech...link to the Finalwords of the article:
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We’ve become complacent. In today’s world of netbooks and nettops where performance is cast aside, we’ve let far too much slide. The bar of acceptability is too low. A good SSD is the anti-netbook, it is the most believable proof that PCs aren’t fast enough today. We don’t need good enough, we need orders of magnitude of performance improvement. And that's exactly what a good SSD can deliver today.
The performance improvement isn't limited to high end machines. In fact, some of the most perceivable differences in performance are on lower end machines, netbooks and nettops. The combination of a slow CPU and a slow hard drive is horrendous; the SSD allows you to at least alleviate some of the bottleneck in these slower machines. And today we actually have affordable options that make sense to even put in a netbook.
A year ago the market was full of worthless SSDs being sold at a premium. Today, we have two real contenders for the throne: Intel and Indilinx. Let me start with Indilinx.
Indilinx is a company that no one knew a year ago, nor would anyone even begin to trust back then. I remember talking to OCZ about the problems with their JMicron drives and being told that their next-generation drive would have a controller by a new company. They told me the name and I was more than skeptical. JMicron couldn't do it, why would this strangely named new company be able to get it right? Even when I first tested an Indilinx drive I was hopeful but still cautious; it's something I used in my system for a short period, but nothing I would commit to. If you wanted an SSD, Intel was still the only way to go.
When I started writing this article I took a big step. I felt that Indilinx drives had reached the point that their performance was good enough to be considered an Intel alternative. I backed up my X25-M, pulled it out, and swapped in an OCZ Vertex drive - into my personal work system. I've been using it ever since and I must admit, I am happy. Indilinx has done it, these drives are fast, reliable (provided that you don't upgrade to the latest firmware without waiting a while) and are good enough. We'll see how the drive holds up over the coming months but I don't have any regrets at this point.
If you're trying to move to an SSD at the lowest possible cost, there's finally a real alternative to Intel. We also have Indilinx to thank for driving SSD prices as low as they have been. If these drives weren't actually competitive, Intel would have no real motivation to deliver a sub-$300 SSD so quickly.
I read it, but still don’t see anything explaining the 512 MB thing. They better be able to package dozens or hundreds of such things together in a small footprint if they are going to take on traditional HD’s. I’m looking forward to the promise of high-speed SSD’s. I just don’t want to blow my retirement funding to have one!
Use the SSD for high activity files....like operating system stuff and rotating storage for lower activity stuff....what is wrong with that?
...have you encountered the problem that is talked about in the full article...see post #6...and an unhappy user at post #3.?
I think that is an engineering...business choice ...in the early stages of this technology coming to the marketplace....but I would like to see a good article on it too.
CLick ...hitting my forehead...
Article title can be read as though Indilinx is building SSD's....they are not...but they are supplying the controllers....which is why the 512MB is an improvement....
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That makes sense to me. Kind of a supersized system cache for mid to high end systems.
DOH!! Controller, OK. I was thinking HD. OK, Ok... mind not up to snuff this week...
I use my existing ssd just for the OS and have it set to read-only.
Makes sense....Would be ineresting to hear some of your technical details....MS Windows?
ineresting>>>interesting
bfl.
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