Hands-on with SanDisk's 32GB SSD

You love 'em, can't live without 'em... and sadly, can't afford them either. Yes, we're talking about that lovable slab of flash dubbed the Solid State Disk, or SSD. SanDisk is showing their 32GB madman right here at CES. Better yet, they're happy to let us know that within a year from launch, they should drop in price by some 60%. So we're talking 32GB SSDs for what, $250 by Q2 of 2008? Golly.

Hands on with SanDisk's 32GB SSD

[J @ Jan 8th 2007 8:11AM]

how are these on heat? more/less than a HDD?

[Zach @ Jan 8th 2007 5:13PM]

I would imagine there would be very little heat, seeing as there are no moving parts and presumably low power consumption.

[[e-mail] @ Jan 9th 2007 6:55AM]

practically no heat. NAND flash has no moving parts.
Also approx 10X faster than HDD.

[codepope @ Jan 8th 2007 9:07AM]

" So we're talking 32GB SSDs for what, $250 by Q2 of 2007? Golly. "

2008 surely.

[Adam Filipowicz @ Jan 8th 2007 6:54PM]

take too Raid them..
and you have a great boot drive

[Isaac @ Jan 8th 2007 10:05AM]

It's about time they finally came to market. I don't care about the price now, as with every new tech, it starts high and drops when the competition kicks in. I'm sure Kingston, Lexar, and a host of other flash drive makers are eyeballing this. I'm just glad they're finally *here*.

My only question is how fast the I/O is and how cool they are? I don't worry much about space, even as a gamer. I can keep my MP3's and pr0n on a seperate 250-500G RAID array if I want, as long as the system files and the few "playing right now" games are reading without having to spin up a platter.

I haven't been to the CES in 13 years, I miss it. :(

[Sean @ Jan 8th 2007 10:44AM]

$250!?! Just a couple days ago Engadget surprised everyone when they announced that these could cost as little as $600. Now they are saying that they will go for $250 by next quarter?!?
I think this is a situation where they are combining two separate statements. First, San Disk stated that these could impact the cost of a new laptop as little as $600 when released. That is not the same thing as saying their initial price at release will be $600.
Next San Disk stated that their price will drop 60% within the first year from launch. Combine the two statements and you get a $250 price tag in Q1 2008. Not sure how they came up with Q2 2007.
Even then the $600 may only be possible at OEM quantities with some subsidizing.

As far as speed goes, the previous Engadget entry stated this: "The 1.8-inch SSD delivers a sustained read-rate of 62MBps and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer – more than 100 times faster than most hard disk drives."

I am all over these even at a more realistic price of $1k.

[AyeRoxor @ Jan 8th 2007 11:14AM]

It would be worthwhile to make this your bootdisk and install on it your most frequently used apps. Not going to make it instant-boot, but it'll be the closest you can get.

[afterburner @ Jan 8th 2007 1:01PM]

Will it be possible to just swap your existing laptop harddrive with this drive without the need of modifications or laptops that are "SSD enabled(?!)"?

[PEZ @ Jan 8th 2007 3:52PM]

I guess this would be agreat for a laptop for a machine you sync with, and thats it for me. THe problem is the price.. though, I bet Apple will be buying all these up for a HDDless iPod :-P

[Karl Viklund @ Jan 9th 2007 6:28PM]

Wow.... 32GB SSD. When I can get a 300 GB SSD drive for the same price as a noraml HDD I will switch. 32 GB is just pathetic.

[Garrett @ Jan 11th 2007 5:17AM]

For what do you need more than 32GB of stuff to load that fast? 32GB is fine, but my price range is closer to 150 bucks. I'd rather not wait until 2010 though :(

[Monkey @ Jan 10th 2007 3:07AM]

Hurry up and get this thing into an mp3 player!

[Yubal @ Jan 12th 2007 12:03PM]

well, very literall hands-on... I thought you were puttin' it in a PC... bummer!

[MightyMike @ Feb 20th 2008 11:02AM]

The only place i've found these in the UK so far is here http://www.portableparts.co.uk/products/Sandisk_32GB_Solid_State_SDD_H/10902 for £250, is that about right price wise?