Samsung's 64GB SATA II SSD drive hands-on

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.

Samsung's 64GB SATA II SSD drive hands-on

[ummhello Posted 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!!

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 8th 2007 6:46PM]

In Samsung Korea, you no price drive. Drive price YOU!!!

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 8th 2007 7:55PM]

Ya, But can it play DOOM?

[daveosaur Posted Nov 9th 2007 3:39PM]

Just die, please?

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 8th 2007 8:47PM]

I don't know much about this. Can you just place it where a normal HDD would go in any other laptop, if you theoretically had this SSD?

[Thunderbuck Posted Nov 9th 2007 1:24PM]

Yes, provided your laptop has a SATA interface (not widespread, even now)

[jahman Posted Nov 8th 2007 9:06PM]

My M1330 with one of these babies is due early next week. Can't wait. I expect Engadget will have a review up before then but if not, I'll pop back and let you know how it goes;).

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2007 3:07AM]

You early adopters are good for 2 things: paying WAY too much for the first wave, knowing that the price will plummet in the next year, and making me SURER FREAKING JEALOUS!!! I want one of these. Bad. Can't wait for the review.

[jahman Posted Nov 9th 2007 10:53AM]

I don't have the patience to wait until the price drops before I buy. I've been waiting for this for months and I'm just going to go for it. Besides, it's tax deductable and in a year or two there'll be the next new technology at a premium price and I'll probably buy that too;). It's a three year investment so not that expensive all told.

[CoolTri Posted Nov 9th 2007 6:19PM]

envy ...

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 8th 2007 9:24PM]

So wait... you got the drive but you haven't even bothered to take the 15 minutes to put it into a machine to run even a basic HDD test?

So it's simply bragging at this point.

[Zzephyr Posted Nov 8th 2007 11:29PM]

This is the size of SSD I have been waiting for. Anything smaller would require too many compromises for storage. But, I can live with this size, and the low power, quiet operation, low heat production would be sweet!

[Sengoku79 Posted Nov 9th 2007 5:01AM]

oooooh can I have it when your finished please!

[Thunderbuck Posted Nov 9th 2007 1:27PM]

I'm inclined to agree, but I'd like to see this kind of non-volatile memory built into the laptop, with provision for an extra rotating drive, if desired.

Put the OS and apps on the SSD for performance and power savings, and maintain a conventional HDD for cheap file storage.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 10th 2007 10:57AM]

I thought Samsung had dumped the brushed metal look... Oh wait.

[jahman Posted Nov 16th 2007 8:33PM]

Juat took delivery of this in my XPS M1330. Fantastic. Fast, cool, energy efficient and very desirable;).

Boot times are great. App load times are fast. The future of ultraportables is definitely here;).

Get one;-).

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 3rd 2007 2:16PM]

when I can buy an 8gb SSD to try for less then $50, I'll jump...

not a flash drive mind you, but a real SSD.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 7th 2007 12:44PM]

Thanks for the scoop, interesting information. FYI I wanted to point out some facts here. Did you all notice the label on the SSD pictures were noted as SATA I, and Engadget labeled this review SATA II? Also, Samsung's site does the SATA II labe. However, SATA-IO.org clearly states this product to be under the SATA I classification, see references below:
REF:
http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/semiconductor/newsView.do?news_id=871.0
Just stating the facts tersely, and flaming anyone.
Let the drooling continue please B-)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 9th 2007 11:47AM]

Please , You bring about MTBF laptop

Now I study University Wolvehampton.

I need this information urgent

Thanks so much
Reagard

Patricia