Sweet merciful god of gadgets, we just snagged one of Samsung's new
64GB SATA II SSD drives, fresh from the NAND oven. If the prospect of gifting your laptop a ridiculously fast, low power hard drive free of moving parts (read: the thing that causes drives to fail) and with a two million hour MTBF doesn't catch your fancy, you should probably stop reading right now: we're unashamed to say SSDs make us swoon. Unfortunately we've yet to slap this slab of flash into a real computer and do some testing, but you can expect to see some more coverage there in short order. Those that don't want to wait can snag their own as we speak, but Samsung isn't selling to end users, so you have to snag a full machine from an OEM (like Dell's M1330, for example) and take a $950+ hit to get it. More shots of this sucker below.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
stitifier @ Nov 8th 2007 2:30PM
That's hot. Maybe not $950 hot, but pretty hot nonetheless.
James Cameron @ Nov 8th 2007 9:40PM
Where's the cheap chinese knockoff when you needed them?
Jason @ Nov 8th 2007 2:35PM
hot hot hot.
Now... when can I get one for my macbook?
Blackster @ Nov 8th 2007 2:40PM
more like cool ;)
can't wait for the mainstream ssds to pop out!
Joe @ Nov 8th 2007 2:48PM
Right now, for $950. Did you read the blurb?
Blackster @ Nov 8th 2007 2:51PM
@joe
but Samsung isn't selling to end users
just read it 'kay? ;)
kevinm @ Nov 8th 2007 3:23PM
You'll have to buy a Dell 1330 with this, then swap the harddrive of your Macbook. So it's a pricy endeavor for a lil bit faster Mac.
chris @ Nov 8th 2007 5:31PM
if youre in the uk you can get one at over-inflated prices
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-047-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=910
see link ^
coffee @ Nov 8th 2007 5:36PM
good price for that much storage. most of the currently available SSD drives (SATA) are almost double that.
check your favorite tech shopping sites, they have them by other various vendors. I've had an IDE one for awhile, and the SATA versions are out, just not at $950 for 64gb. not that i'd get one yet, but if you're dying to try one, the 16gb are halfway reasonable prices.
Harry Newton @ Nov 28th 2007 9:13AM
Anyone know where to buy a 64 gig Samsung SSD? I'd like to pop one in my laptop.
Allen @ Nov 8th 2007 2:38PM
Too bad this wasn't an option when I ordered my m1330, not that would have spent $950.... but still.
John from Buffalo @ Nov 8th 2007 2:38PM
What the hell?! No one has taken it apart yet?!?!?!
roger_huston @ Nov 8th 2007 3:09PM
or even tested it out.
A hands on review usually means putting it through its paces, here it looks like a hands on review simply means taking pretty pictures of it.
Guess we will have to go elsewhere.
- Roger
Joe @ Nov 8th 2007 2:49PM
It's got some Flash chips on a greenish circuit board. There's some small capacitors and resistors and some misc. other ICs. Not much to see. Move alone.
nikster @ Nov 10th 2007 5:58AM
It's really a hands on, as in, we got our hands on it. That's it.
mlb @ Nov 8th 2007 2:40PM
This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of [spinning discs] and will soon see the end of [hybrid hdds] [/Vader]
Brett @ Nov 9th 2007 1:24PM
Don't QUITE agree there. I predict something along the lines of a drive that includes this volume of Flash mem for a system/application drive, with rotating media for file storage (maybe with 3-4 GB cache to cut drive activity)
TRLK @ Nov 8th 2007 2:43PM
How long till the $950 becomes a $95? Anyone want to take a guess?
I sincerely hope it takes less than 2 years...
Spanky @ Dec 3rd 2007 2:10PM
Spankys says:
4years, 3months, 2 and a half days..
TRLK @ Nov 8th 2007 2:43PM
Oh and also, with SSD, am I right in saying that future storages will become smaller?
greg @ Nov 8th 2007 2:45PM
SWEET MOTHER OF DIONYSIS! THAT IS AWSOME!
getz76 @ Nov 8th 2007 2:47PM
I'm in at the $500 mark.
I think you will see these become useful as operating system (boot) disks on desktops sometime soon, with traditional platters used to supplement media storage. Hopefully price-feasible in the next couple of years.
Magnetic disks will not go away as long as media size is so big. My raw files from my camera are 15mb each, my music files are 5mb each, and my standard definition DVD ISOs are 8gb each. I have a 1.5tb NAS and I am out of room and need to upgrade to 1tb drives!
Looking forward to the full review, guys. Color me jealous...
Ireland @ Nov 8th 2007 4:52PM
When 1TB versions of these are available I'm selling my house and brining my mega-SSD set-up into my tent :P
Chris @ Nov 8th 2007 2:48PM
I'd be more than happy to test this for you - purely out of altruistic reasons, of course.
prateeko @ Nov 8th 2007 2:50PM
I cannot wait for the day when all laptops have SSDs as available options at the same size as HDDs are now. Oh how sweet it will be to be able to charge a laptop at night and use it the whole day!
Tyler S. @ Nov 8th 2007 2:53PM
I don't think anyone should be saying these drives are failure free... Sure there are no heads to crash, but I can't count how many flash devices (CF/SD/USB/etc.) I've had fail over the years... either corrupting files or flat out becoming un-usable. MAYBE the drives will be faster and they should easily use less power, but I'm not so sure that they'll prove to be safer for data than modern hard drives. I suppose only time will tell.
getz76 @ Nov 8th 2007 3:12PM
Right on, Tyler. Ask any professional photographer about how skittish flash memory can be! Why do you think big, pro dSLR's have two CompactFlash slots with redundancy as an option? :)
Bob C. @ Nov 8th 2007 3:21PM
..Um, did u read "2 MILLION hours MTBF"?
Jon @ Nov 8th 2007 4:00PM
Exactly. I have plenty of (authentic) flash memory fail in many years of using them. I always make a point of backing up content to my harddrive every few days because data corruptions tends to happens randomly causing total lose of content.
These failures are not permanent and a quick format would fix things. Not the data though.
Mii @ Nov 8th 2007 4:16PM
These don't use the same memory design as CF cards, which is why a 64gb SSD costs 3x as much as the same amount of capacity in CF/SD in a much larger form factor. They are designed to transfer faster (especially random read/writes), and have wear leveling. Consumer flash memory is designed to transfer fast in sequential access only, low cost, and for maximum density. Even now you can buy an IDE to CF converter, but it's mainly used for embedded systems that don't do a lot of writes.
dejitaru @ Nov 8th 2007 2:55PM
WANT! Hell I would settle for an IDE version at 40gb for my old school srx77 ultra portable.Im sure the demand will be huge for these once they start pumping them out the the price will plummet with a quickness. (wishfull thinking?)
STrRedWolf @ Nov 8th 2007 3:01PM
Needs more capacity.
nicholas @ Nov 8th 2007 3:06PM
If you put two of the 1.8" versions in a box, will they fit in a MacBook Pro?
And, I’ll just keep my rant going… If I can have a MacTablet with a real processor (not a large iPhone), I’d gladly drop a couple grand for 200 gigs of solid-state pleasure! 128 is so close.
Fate @ Nov 8th 2007 3:07PM
God I want one of these. After you're done testing it, please send it to me. k? thanks.
macmike47 @ Nov 8th 2007 3:21PM
make an iPhone out of that, Steve, and you're flying!
SteveMB @ Nov 8th 2007 4:48PM
A 2.5" hard drive in that? That thing would be pretty big... My Archos 504 has a 2.5" hard drive and it ain't small.
Adam @ Nov 8th 2007 3:27PM
Yes, yes. Very nice. But will it blend?
Hoag @ Nov 8th 2007 3:29PM
So, Engadget... Is this drive gonna show up in one of your famed leave-a-comment-get-a-prize giveaways? Or are gonna have to break up?
Hoag @ Nov 8th 2007 3:32PM
Erm... "Or are we gonna have to break up?"
ark_v2 @ Nov 8th 2007 3:33PM
$1000 for a SSD. I like them, a lot, for they cost a lot, too.
MasterCKO @ Nov 8th 2007 3:37PM
Sweet merciful crap that's expensive. I can't wait till this is in mainstream price range. Man, oh man, that's gonna be sweet.
schmolch @ Nov 8th 2007 3:55PM
It's so sexy.
I would spoon with it before putting it into my tablet.
MacroEQ @ Nov 8th 2007 4:07PM
I am warming to SSD the more I read about it and I can't wait till it becomes mainstream, although I must admit that when hard disks are finally gone, I will miss the reassuring ticking sound it makes as it works away... that sound will be all but a distant memory...
tiuk @ Nov 8th 2007 4:36PM
Yeah, about as much as I miss the screeching of my dial-up modem.
tiuk @ Nov 8th 2007 4:36PM
Yeah, about as much as I miss the screeching of my dial-up modem.
bw @ Nov 8th 2007 6:25PM
Seriously, those hard drive noises used to be the only way I knew my computer (running unnamed OS) hadn't completely locked up. If these catch on, what am I supposed to do?!
JLP @ Nov 8th 2007 4:19PM
WOW !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VKqXhvJ5Ic
kufans @ Nov 8th 2007 5:46PM
2,000,000 hour MTBF? That's like...
just a sec...
228+ YEARS! Sweet, my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren can laugh at what a tool I was.
wut @ Nov 18th 2007 10:55AM
2,000,000MTBF means diddly squat.
If you'd look at current mechanical hard disk MTBF's they are also pretty high, but some may fail a whole lot earlier than that and some may fail later. It's an estimate based on statistics and not an exact number.
umm....hello??? @ Nov 8th 2007 6:34PM
sweet, but not worth $950-upgrade price in addition to the price of the computer itself...guess I'll have to wait for the pricedrop...hopefully soon!!