Intel sees NAND flash hard drives in notebooks coming next year

Looks like we might not have to wait quite as long as we feared to reach that promised land of flash-based laptops for the masses -- at least according to Intel. They're expecting to start tossing NAND flash chips into notebooks beginning next year, mainly to benefit start times and lower power consumption. It sure is a convenient time for Intel, in light of their recent partnership with Micron to produce NAND chips, with first customer being Apple who took $500 million worth for their iPods. Also, Micron just today announced their purchase of Lexar Media for $688 million in stock, so there will be plenty of muscle behind these laptop flash drives when they do finally start to come around.

Read: Intel promises flash HDs next year
Read: Micron buys Lexar

[Alexandre Donzel @ Mar 8th 2006 2:40PM]

WOOHOOOOO!!!the end of hard-drives, magnetic problems, dropping problems, mobile parts, RAM (i mean these FlashBricks are basically a whole shitload of ram right?) pretty soon and, more modulability (you could split like 5 of these around your notebook/tablet/slate/origami computer wherever you have the leftover space. and you could finally get all-day-long usage with better graphics cards w/out needing an extra 15000 external cells. hell, THIS ROX, thx intel for making the effort/daring to do this

soon youll be telling yourself if 15 seconds is too much startup time for youre brand-new notebook :)
oh, and though doesnt really mean the end of RAM, itll give virtual memory a decent speed and allow integrated graphics cards such as those in UMPCs to make a huge leap forward into the area of HL1, and, who knows HL�!

[Anon @ Mar 8th 2006 2:47PM]

It's been a couple months...you guys really oughta start using the new Intel logo on any related posts.

[Clinton @ Mar 8th 2006 3:10PM]

Doesn't NAND storage have a write limit (~100,000 times), or has this been overcome?

[Tim Bobbins @ Mar 8th 2006 3:15PM]

Not to be a complainer, but why is the writing on Engadget so terrible? It takes all of my brainpower to parse most of the stories and understand what they are trying to say.

I am a fan of the site, but guys, please read a few books on English composition and journalism! This has been a problem here for quite some time.

[scott mcqueen @ Mar 8th 2006 3:21PM]

um, Tim?

I dunno what youre on about with Engadgets writers, but that had nothing to do with NAND memory.

I just hope they produce flash memory drives with the same shape/footprint as 2.5 inch drives, I don't wanna have to chuck my lappy just cause I bought it before this wonderful developement

[Derrick @ Mar 8th 2006 3:24PM]

In response to Tim -

Look out engadget it looks like the grammar nazis are not confined to Slashdot any longer!

[John Stracke @ Mar 8th 2006 3:27PM]

I wouldn't want a flash drive for swap space, not with that limit of, what is it, 20,000 writes?

[dungan @ Mar 8th 2006 3:28PM]

While I'd love to have NAND replace my HDD. The new is really only about Intel's Santa Rosa technology which integrates NAND with the microprocessor. It's only being used in capacities of about 128 or 256MB. This Is really just intended to cut down on load times for frequently used data.
Even given that the prices of memory get cheaper everyday, it would still cost a fortune to equip a notebook with the 40-80GB of capacity consumers have become accustomed to.

[totalundone @ Mar 8th 2006 3:30PM]

This is a logical extension of the hard drive. Any guesses as to how large the flash addon will be to these drives?

I mean, to boot up, I'd imagine that at *least* 128 megabytes would be needed (I'm sure they'll have Vista in mind). But then you have to figure that if they use the flash as a cache (*groan*, rhyming) drive, it'll need more memory than 128 megabytes.

In regards to Alexandre's post, this isn't going to replace 2.5" hard drives, just add to them to increase performance. They DO sell notebooks that use compactflash cards as hard drives (I think fujitsu sells a very thin and light notebook that does it) but it's still very expensive.

[Jason @ Mar 8th 2006 3:39PM]

so let me get this straight:

Now: CPU > CACHE > RAM > HD

Soon: CPU > CACHE > RAM > NAND > HD

Later: CPU > CACHE > MRAM > NAND.HD

A little later {?}: CPU > CACHE > MRAM.HD

[JohnnyC @ Mar 8th 2006 4:38PM]

This has existed for years... and in a much better capacity than what it seems to be headed for by intel.

Check it out: http://www.go-l.com/

Excellent systems, way ahead of the rest of the PC world, and the only windows based systems I would even consider. Boot times are literally instantaneous!

[Dan @ Mar 8th 2006 4:57PM]

JohnnyC is a blatant marketing zombie for Liebermann.

Buyer beware: http://tinyurl.com/j2rcc

- D

[Will @ Mar 8th 2006 5:02PM]

#10, libermann pc's are pieces of shit.

They are just rebranded sagers and a lot of their other stuff isnt even possible.

All in all, its a scam of a company.

[HyperHacker @ Mar 8th 2006 11:23PM]

Flash hard drives have been "coming soon" for a pretty long time now.

[JohnnyC @ Mar 9th 2006 12:56AM]

Hmmm... well then maybe I'm a fool. I knew a windows computer that is worth using was too good to be true!

[Dinesh Prakash Ahuja @ Mar 9th 2006 1:31PM]

Don't use these memories instead use a advanced hdd which requires neg. amount of energy and can transfer at a future rate of almost 10 Gbps with a single platter having amount of heads as many of the applications present on the computer then u would not need to improve in it.

[Tony M. @ Mar 10th 2006 11:53PM]

Flash memory would be perfect for the upcoming "Origami" ultra-mobile PC's. Hopefully, it will soon become affordable enough to be implemented in those devices.

[Mike D @ Jun 30th 2006 11:27AM]

"It's only being used in capacities of about 128 or 256MB. "
Think again, dungan:

http://msn.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126256,00.asp?GT1=8298
NO magnetic HD. The 16GB flash drive is not an extension of a hard drive. It IS the hard drive. It doesn't mention NAND technology so I don't know what they used. They need to bring it up to at least 30GB and put it in a Dell (VAIOs are too damn expensive anyway).