Toshiba's new 128GB SATA SSDs -- hello, SanDisk?

128GB of SSD. You long for it, you need it, and with any luck you'll have it when Toshiba starts churning 'em out for production by May. The new 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch MLC NAND slabs with SATA interfaces will ship in three capacities: 32GB, 64GB, and the big daddy 128GB. The new SSDs are based on the new 56-nm processes announced back in January. Of course, with Toshiba and SanDisk bedfellows in flash we're also expecting a SanDisk announcement on the quick -- certainly no later than CES in early January. No prices announced, though we anticipate the year-over-year reductions to continue, right boys?

[Via Impress]

[Kevin @ Dec 10th 2007 2:15AM]

I know we're all thinking the same thing...

C'mon Steve, put these in those new subnotebooks... Do it... DO IT!

[Mayank Agarwal @ Dec 10th 2007 2:27AM]

Though, we should probably ask Jonathan Ive first. Just in case he wants gumdrop colors for the drives first.

[JB @ Dec 10th 2007 4:53AM]

Actually I was thinking... Will it play Doom?

[bondsbw @ Dec 10th 2007 8:52AM]

Actually I was thinking... Will it blend?

[rockintom @ Dec 10th 2007 10:45AM]

Actually, I was thinking... Stop with those fucking memes. They are so goddamn overused, and you are not funny or clever for using them.

[Stephen @ Dec 10th 2007 4:37PM]

All your meme anger are belong to us

[brando_commando @ Dec 13th 2007 7:43PM]

Toshiba just annoucned they want these to cost less than 100000 yen (about $890) ... Maybe we'll be able to grab these bad boys for lik $850 when they launch in May :)

[Mark @ Dec 10th 2007 2:26AM]

it'll be way more expensive then a hard disk that has the same storage space. Sorry, but until Solid State can compete with Hard-Disk with pricing and capacity, I'm keeping with hard-disk.

[dj-kenpo @ Dec 10th 2007 1:30PM]

well, that's it then, stop the presses.

[Ghen @ Dec 10th 2007 3:15PM]

You've obviously never loaded a game before. Or had a disk failure after a lightning storm. Or dropped your notebook while editing an excel document for your boss. See where I'm going with this? SSD has numerous benefits that people will pay for beyond capacity and price.

[Jeebus @ Dec 10th 2007 3:36PM]

"You've obviously never loaded a game before."

You seem to think that these SSD drives will be faster than a regular magnetic platter. They are not. Your other reasons are valid, but speed is not a good reason to go SSD.

[kyle allen @ Dec 10th 2007 2:32AM]

dude!!! SSDs will probly be worth the price in just a few years, i remember back when a 10gig cf card would set you back 10 grand!

[Wwhat @ Dec 10th 2007 2:32AM]

Last few months every manufacturer announces new SSD's and improvements and they NEVER give prices.
I'm assuming it's all PR vaporware.
Perhaps AMD should start announcing SSD's, they have experience with vaporware :D

[Wwhat @ Dec 10th 2007 4:58AM]

I really don't get why I'm voted against this time, but don't bother telling me, I probably won't see it.
I'm guessing people don't get my sense of humour though when I made an AMD joke.

[Wwhat @ Dec 10th 2007 8:25AM]

Dumbasses :)

[Andir3.0 @ Dec 10th 2007 8:55AM]

It might have to do with the fact that you're a well known troll here? Just a guess.

[Wwhat @ Dec 10th 2007 9:52AM]

Well known troll? WTF???!
Ok I give up on you losers, go suck an apple.

[Ghen @ Dec 10th 2007 3:16PM]

Yep, time to delete the user name and start fresh lol.

[Reader @ Dec 10th 2007 2:43AM]

Even if it is 10 grand, it still made me wet myself.

[Blackster @ Dec 10th 2007 2:45AM]

hmm, year over year recuction. so you mean they could be affordable in 2011? ;)

[Pete Steege @ Dec 11th 2007 9:05AM]

That's a pretty good guess, at least for disk drive-comparable capacities. 128GB will remain pricey beyond that.

[cromas @ Dec 10th 2007 2:59AM]

2011 is only three years off. Long time in some senses...but not THAT long. We'll all have SSD before you know it, and by then, we'll be complaining about how expensive 1TB SSDs are =)

[dj-kenpo @ Dec 10th 2007 1:33PM]

my wager is a 1tb ssd will be less than $500 by 2011. which is still pretty damn expensive really...

flash drops in price by half every year, or so it seems..

[prateeko @ Dec 10th 2007 3:22AM]

I can't wait until these become a feasible option for DAPs. Imagine a 128GB Flash iPod Touch-esque with massive space and battery life. That would really be kick ass for movies and videos!

[Pentium @ Dec 10th 2007 3:30AM]

nice....this SSD thing is going really fast!

[Karim @ Dec 10th 2007 3:38AM]

Put it in a mac and we'll all have a merry christmas and an empty bank account.

And ya, an ipod touch with 128Gb...that would be UNREAL - imagine how much time we could all waste watching everything we download wherever we go...

[P Sin @ Dec 10th 2007 4:42AM]

now if only we could have an mp3 player with the appropriate battery life (wheres my 10hrs worth of video?)

[ntrgc89 @ Dec 12th 2007 9:01AM]

but you won't even need new batteries! think about it, you no longer have to keep your platters spinning and your access times become next to nil.

with such reduced hdd use and power consumption, this could possibly enhance battery life by a lot (anyone got a way to calculate it?)

[Julian Bond @ Dec 10th 2007 3:41AM]

When do the price-performamance curves for SSD and Hard disk cross? That may depend on how many more breakthroughs you expect in Hard Drive technology.

The one thing that might be interesting about this is that 1.8" and 2.5" SSDs can have the same capacity. So we might see a 256Gb SSD 1.8" before we get a 250Gb 1.8" hard drive. The other interesting point is the way that Flash based PMPs and thumb drives are now severely lagging SSD state of the art. 8Gb PMP? Pah! 128Gb Nano anyone?

[nikster @ Dec 10th 2007 3:47AM]

Wake me when I can buy it in a store.

[paul-engadget @ Dec 10th 2007 4:01AM]

thinking of a laptop computer, do we actually *need* more than 32G of hard drive? OK, Vista eats 12G at least, so business users carrying documents etc should be more than happy with 32G. Problem is that once you *can* start carrying round movies and music, you tend to want to keep *everything* with you - it's easier than having to be selective!

[Rynth @ Dec 10th 2007 4:17AM]

"OK, Vista eats 12G at least"

You what?!

Don't be an idiot. Vista might need 15GB to install, but certainly doesn't need once installed. I believe it is a little over 6GB.

[Reader @ Dec 10th 2007 7:54AM]

Well think about it this way. Do you actually *need* a computer? No, you could use a notepad all the same, but it's convenient. More GBs is always better, and I think I can handle being decisive about which file to open (best argument ever I might add).

[thethirdmoose @ Dec 10th 2007 8:31AM]

If you aren't decisive about which file you open, who will be? Show those files who's boss!

[phlavor @ Dec 10th 2007 3:06PM]

64GB is just about my tipping point for a laptop drive and I would want to access more data as my battery life is extended by not having to power physical mechanisms so... well there you go.

Actually, the more the better, if I could get 1TB solid state in a laptop, I wouldn't need a desktop. Sounds good to me.

[Alexeon @ Dec 10th 2007 4:13AM]

Well, yeah. Duh. Games take up a lot of space, too. Besides, the bigger the drive, the bigger the man. Its basic math. =) (j/k on that last part.)

[Jimbozu @ Dec 10th 2007 4:28AM]

I thought that SSD wasn't even all that useful until we give up on the old Flash Memory/HDD combo we've got going on in computers these days. I mean, with a SSD your still gunna be limited by your RAM arent you?

[Numetheus @ Dec 10th 2007 8:44AM]

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with RAM. And there are many advantages to solid state including the lack of generated heat, lack of vibration, performance, and the fact that it has no moving parts, so less likely to break down.

[Patrick @ Dec 10th 2007 4:34AM]

Exactly!

What I'd really like is an SSD drive in the 16-64GB range that fits in a 3.5" enclosure. That would be plenty to load OS, swapfile, and some primary applications/games on. I can dump large media files on a cheap spinning disk.

Also, why can't these manufacturers stripe data? It seems if they're going to use multiple NAND chips that they could stripe them for massive data throughput. No seek time either!

I'd really like to boot Windows in five seconds.

[Ghen @ Dec 10th 2007 3:22PM]

I'm also surprised that they aren't using last year's technology to bring us 3.5" desktop drives on the cheap... Or just add another 50% on to these laptop drives for us. I said this on the last SSD topic that came up, but I'd totally buy a 80GB SSD for $200 for extreme loading times and page file usage in games.

[me @ Dec 10th 2007 6:00AM]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609245

not the toshiba or sandisk version, but it's one that is out there. $3.3k!

[mike potter @ Dec 10th 2007 6:06AM]

a little bit off topic but this is essentially an ad (and not a very good one it just makes me wonder what will really show up).While this MAY be a great product there is no real info just glitz.

[tamoghno @ Dec 10th 2007 8:12AM]

how many TBs of hard disk space would we get for the price of this 128 GB ?


still long way to go SSD ,

[Denver_80203 @ Dec 10th 2007 9:26AM]

Perhaps, if you are considering storage of all the mp3s but when your talking about your OS/Applications drive 128GB is a sufficient start.

Of course in 3 years when it's affordable, the next version of Windows will install to 150GB but, we'll worry about that then.

[zag @ Dec 10th 2007 8:47AM]

I have just got an 32gb Samsung SSD upgrade for my home theatre pc and all I can say is these things will revolutionize the modern day PC. Applications launch instantly and no more disk thrashing at any point in windows. And the best thing is my htpc now boots in 18 seconds flat!

The entire XP based system takes up 4.7gb of space if anyone was complaining about the size of these things have a little think first.

[Ghen @ Dec 10th 2007 3:26PM]

Thats a great idea, HTPCs are notoriously bad at keeping system parts cool... SSD drives are a perfect fit.

[TheCow5 @ Dec 10th 2007 10:29AM]

I am missing something.
An MP3 player would benefit greatly from this and the instant on would be great for your PC, but I can't see it helping too much on making your PC much quieter. On my Mediacenter PC the noise comes from the CPU's fan, if only a CPU can be cooled passively which can run Vista Mediacenter and play HD .avi files, the HD .avi files consume all the CPU resource and keeps it running way too hot.

I would like a 32GB SSD for the OS but would still use the two 500GB SATA on the system for storage. The noise will still be coming from the CPU’s fan (I know your all thinking water cooling)

[cduran01 @ Dec 10th 2007 11:16AM]

Actually it would make it a little bit quieter, first you don't have drive motors spinning or drive head servos moving. Second, the SSD have much less power usage which means that your power supply fan shouldn't turn on as often or for too long at all, assuming your power supply only turns its fan on only when the temperature goes up and not leave it on constantly.

[devether @ Dec 11th 2007 7:13PM]

When I'm watching movies on mylappie late at night on Power Saver, the fan is not spinning, so the only noise comes from 7200rpm hard drive, and the noise at night is not awesome. Laptops with SSD could be completely noise free! (except typing noises, there won't be a technology to cancel those noises at least 20 more years:) )

[hh83917 @ Dec 10th 2007 11:50AM]

Now 128GB is more usable for present OS installation, but I'm still not rich enough to buy one...