OCZ reveals Core Series SATA II 2.5 SSDs: 128GB for $479
By Darren Murph 
posted July 1st 2008 9:18AM
posted July 1st 2008 9:18AM
[Via Electronista]
posted July 1st 2008 9:18AM
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These new drives are out in uk on 07/07/2008 (6days time):
32GB (£118) - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5983607/-/Product.html
64GB (£180) - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5983593/-/Product.html
128GB (£320) - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5983593/-/Product.html
The specs according to play.com are:
* Read up to 100MB / sec
* Write up to 80MB / sec
After reading ocz forums they say that the product and actual specs will be on their website today at some point.
ignore my previous post here is updated info, unfortunately we cant edit our posts:
unfortuntely these forums dont allow you to reply to other people's posts otherwise i would have done that.
These new drives are out in uk on 07/07/2008 (6days time):
32GB (£118) - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5983607/-/Product.html
64GB (£180) - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5983593/-/Product.html
128GB (£320) - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5984278/-/Product.html
The specs according to play.com for the 32GB + 64GB are:
* Read up to 100MB / sec
* Write up to 80MB / sec
The specs according to play.com for the 128GB are:
* Read up to 143MB / sec
* Write up to 93MB / sec
I agree that the price isn't cheap, but the impact it will create in the hard drive market is tremendous. The average price for a new 120GB SATA drive is about $50.00; I imagine that the SATA II 2.5 SSDs will force manufactures and sellers to lower the price for a 120GB SATA to below $20.00, with other HDs prices coming down as well. Though large HDs are great, I like the smaller drives because I can maintain different type of data on separate drives instead of in just one drive that can go belly up at any time. This is a win win for consumers.
If it is as good as their RAM then count me in.
The question is will they launch a 3.5" version so I can use it as a boot without needing one of those lame 2.5 to 3.5 adaptor things.
Looks like SATA II is the same for both notebook and desktop. You would just need a bracket or something.
It'll work - it just won't take up the entire slot.
Cheaper within 8 months of release of course. More volume sold = cheaper for everyone.
I'm in. me likey.
Is it viable to use a SSD as the system drive? Does it boost startup speeds of the OS and the applications? I'ld think so, but maybe someone knows ...
It is a much better option to have this as your system drive, and maybe keep a few games that you are playing now on the SSD drive. Because your system is always reading from your main drive for one reason or another, this drive eliminates head movements and seek time, which is really what drains performance and causes your system to drag ass.
I, personally would get a pair of these on raid (2 32GB maybe) and keep traditional drives for things that require much more storage.
Just from the sheer fact that your games and large applications are installed on a drive separate from your system drive, you will gain performance, as your traditional drive will concentrate on retrieveing game data, while your SSD's are taking care of loading drivers, without having both installed on the same drive, thus causing the head to jump back and forth between locations.
This is still way too expensive to fill your desktop system with exclusively, but it makes lots of sense to keep as a main system drive. I wouldnt expect shocking performance improvements, as none of these have introduced that, but it will make things smoother, and the price OCZ has set for these drives make it worth the money (mainly for the cheaper drives).
It is a much better option to have this as your system drive, and maybe keep a few games that you are playing now on the SSD drive. Because your system is always reading from your main drive for one reason or another, this drive eliminates head movements and seek time, which is really what drains performance and causes your system to drag ass.
I, personally would get a pair of these on raid (2 32GB maybe) and keep traditional drives for things that require much more storage.
Just from the sheer fact that your games and large applications are installed on a drive separate from your system drive, you will gain performance, as your traditional drive will concentrate on retrieveing game data, while your SSD's are taking care of loading drivers, without having both installed on the same drive, thus causing the head to jump back and forth between locations.
This is still way too expensive to fill your desktop system with exclusively, but it makes lots of sense to keep as a main system drive. I wouldnt expect shocking performance improvements, as none of these have introduced that, but it will make things smoother, and the price OCZ has set for these drives make it worth the money (mainly for the cheaper drives).
I wonder how fast will Vista come up from standby when using a SATA II 2.5 SSDs. I have felt all the way that a computer should be just like a stereo system, you press the power button and the music is on. Perhaps with a solid state drive we'll be moving to that direction.
Asus offers something similar in their systems/mobos now. It boots to an embedded linux though.
Availability... Should I start opening the case of my MacBook Air yet?
No, the Macbook Air uses a PATA drive, not SATA.
I'd like to see how fast this boots my stripped down copy of XP! =)
My thumb drive debian will crush your modded XP anyday.
ethana2, my desk ligth will crush your debian anyday.
I just flick a switch and on it is, ready to go. Cool eh?
It's not just about how fast it boots, it's also about what you can do with it ...
A solid state drive will surely increase the boot up time of the OS as seek time will decrease tremendously. The issue, which I'm not sure about, is whether or not startup info can be stored so the computer doesn’t have to go through the same process every time it’s started. When the PC is placed in standby mode, the information is saved to ROM so it can resume much faster when it’s awake, but the information is lost if the power is turned off. Technically, with a solid state drive, the information is maintained even when the power is lost. So perhaps the computer will resume where it left off when it was shutdown. Of course there are many variables and only an expert could answer that question.
Vista (and i believe XP) have a hybrid sleep, which saves your RAM contents to the hard drive), so if your PC goes to sleep and the power goes out, you can reboot exactly where you left off from the sleep, albeit with a longer initial boot process.
This isnt the same as hibernate, which requires that longer boot process every time. In Hybrid sleep, your PC can resume instantly, but you are rest assured that you can resume where you left off should the power go out.
"A solid state drive will surely increase the boot up time of the OS as seek time will decrease tremendously."
I suspect you meant to say 'decrease'.
"When the PC is placed in standby mode, the information is saved to ROM so it can resume much faster ..."
Data remains in volatile RAM not ROM.
"Technically, with a solid state drive, the information is maintained even when the power is lost."
This is completely innacurrate. The OS would have to page all memory from RAM to disk (i.e. hibernation). When resuming from hibernate, this memory must be paged back into memory from disk. Faster reads/writes on SSD may make this process faster than HDD. However, the process will remain far from instant resume from hibernate (esp. considering the ever increasing RAM sizes)
@Papo:
That's what Apple's OS X does actually, it sets boot caches that load up directly to ram (as in an hibernated windows), leaving a small amount of stuff to process on the CPU. That's why it boots up much faster than Vista..
PS: Not an apple fanboy
PS2: I'd say that even if these are cheaper than what we're used to, they'll be half in one year, and half again the next one...
Looks really good, the (32GB) price is really similar to Raptor's when they were released (and way less noise, power, heat... all good)
That 32GB is only a little more than a CF.
Would this work on my Macbook 2.0 Ghz released november 07 ??
If not, which harddrive should i choose to make my macbook faster ?
url for the drives are up now: http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_core_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd
think the 32gb+64gb will at the slower speed and the 128gb the faster speed.
Is the macbook pro a SATA II? will this work inside the macbook pro??
should be, yeah
uh huh
To the writer of this article: the Spanish expression you used to open this entry should be: '¡Hay Caramba!"
Ay, caramba...
Nope, "Ay, caramba" would be correct.
HOLY CRAP! I remember arguing with a guy only a few months ago who said SLC NAND SSDs won't be under $10/Gigabyte until 2011 !!! This is about $4/GB in 2008!
The SSD revolution is coming my friends.
But dont be fooled, what appears to be the year's best deal today will make you cry in a couple of months.
Why?
Believe it or not, but early 2009 256MB SSDs with 400MB/sec read&write specs will be sold for less than 200$.
Source: my step-bro working at Samsung, Korea, HDD R&D departement.
Internal studies are: 2/3 of computer users will have switched to SSD as a System drive by 2012. Again believe it or not.
"Believe it or not, but early 2009 256MB SSDs with 400MB/sec read&write specs will be sold for less than 200$."
256MB? Uh, no thanks.
He means 256gb.
Samsung are due to release a 256gb SSD with read of 200MB/sec, write of 150MB/sec towads the end of the year.
The price point will be nothing like as low as $200 but it would be very nice if it were. ;P
If they do indeed have a 400MB/sec version in the works that is also great news.
Personally I have pre-ordered 2 of the 32gig drives to use in RAID 0 as a system drive. I like many millions of users have long suffered with magnetic hard disks and have waited almost a decade for this day. I'm so happy.
UK people can preorder from Play, Aria, Overclockers, Specialtech or Ebuyers. However I think by now you will be very lucky to get one of the first shipment from the far east as most sites are reporting ENOURMOUS demand for these babies.
When the 256gb Samsungs come out I will be switching to 2 of them in a RAID 0 as my main system drive.
Ummm, 1.5million hours = 171 years.
So is this claiming it has 171 years of mean time?
Am I suppose to believe that?
There's an interview with the CEO of OCZ here:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/ocz-super-affordable-core-series-ssds-use-mlc-flash-will-reach-256mb
Turns out this "Core" series uses MLC flash versus SLC. I think that if you have a high enough capacity drive you can hide the MLC slowness by doing internal "RAID". Disadvantage is larger block sizes though - tradeoffs, tradeoffs.
Still, I'm pretty sure my next laptop will have an SSD drive. If not from the supplier then at most 2 weeks later :-D
Available Now:
http://www.lagoom.com/OCZ_64GB_Core_Series_SATA_II_2.5/OCZSSD2-1C64G/partinfo-id-583115.html