Intel readying 320GB SSDs?

Hot on the heels of the news that Intel's shutting down a big old manufacturing facility in the Philippines, we get a little unrelated ray of sunshine out of the company. We're hearing they'll apparently debut some new, 320GB solid states this fall, about doubling the capacity of its current models. None of this has been confirmed by Intel, of course, but the reports are that the company is telling PC manufacturers to expect them. That's all we've got on it for now but we'll let you know when something more concrete appears, okay?

[insky @ Jan 21st 2009 7:38PM]

Nice, now when it becomes affordable I can finally start on my Carputer. Hopefully 7" or so touchscreens will start coming out more so the prices of those drop too.

[Flashpoint @ Jan 21st 2009 8:40PM]

Finally. A Product I really want from a company whose products I really like.

[Estrelo @ Jan 22nd 2009 3:45AM]

I'm actually thinking of doing that with a EEE T901 and DIYing a dock. I'm just wary of the crap Asus SSD option... 4 Gigs kinda fast SSD + a 16 GB slow ass internal usb drive is not enough for 7... I'm getting loads of errors on my dad's EEE901 even with (or because) loads of junctioned folders...

[tobz1000 @ Jan 21st 2009 7:41PM]

But...but that's not even a power of 2!

*explodes*

[Sreenath Are @ Jan 21st 2009 8:42PM]

It is 2^5 * 10 or 2^6 * 5...

[LiQuiD_FuSioN @ Jan 21st 2009 9:13PM]

"It is 2^5 * 10 or 2^6 * 5..."

Funny, but.. incorrect.

[someone @ Jan 21st 2009 9:25PM]

you realise that when you buy say a 1gb flash drive you will only get around 800-900mbs of storage

[a ham sandwich @ Jan 21st 2009 10:39PM]

@someone, you realize that that's due to formatting and has nothing to with this whatsoever. SSDs need to be formatted too...

besides that tho, i actually would like to know why some SSDs follow powers of 2 and some follow the HDD "path" which i could best define as 120, 160, 250, 320, 500, 750, 1TB plus a few others i'm sure i'm forgetting

[Suijin @ Jan 22nd 2009 1:24PM]

"@someone, you realize that that's due to formatting and has nothing to with this whatsoever. SSDs need to be formatted too..."

@a ham sandwich - you realize it has nothing to do with formatting, but instead marketing people wanting to inflate the numbers on the box to their maximum. The numbers on the box by the manufacturer are essentially different units than those displayed in Windows.

From: Wikipedia
"There are two different definitions of gigabyte in general use:

1,000,000,000 bytes or 109 bytes is the decimal definition, used in telecommunications (such as network speeds) and most computer storage manufacturers (such as hard disks and flash drives). This usage is compatible with SI. Quote from Seagate: "For drive storage capacity, 1 gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes (or one billion bytes).",[1] Similar quotes are found on the websites of other storage manufacturers.
1,073,741,824 bytes, equal to 10243, or 230 bytes. This is the definition commonly used for computer memory and file sizes. Microsoft uses this definition to display hard drive sizes[2]. (The Linux kernel uses the SI value.) Since 1999, the IEC recommends that this unit should instead be called a gibibyte (abbreviated GiB)."

So the box uses 10^9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes = 1 GB and Microsoft uses 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes = 1 GB

[SirMasterboy @ Jan 23rd 2009 12:18AM]

Suijin is close. Formatting doesn't take any noticeable space. So it has nothing to do with the apparent difference in size. Here is where you are confused. When you buy a 1GB flash drive, you get exactly what you payed for, 1 Gigabyte of data storage. 1 Gigabyte is = 1000000000 bytes or 10^9 bytes. When you view this flash drive in Windows it is displaying the capacity in GiB but Microsoft just labels it GB which is technically valid. A GiB or Gibibyte is made up of 1,073,741,824 bytes or 2^30 bytes. 1 GB does indeed equal .9297GiB or 929.7 MiB (Mebibyte) and since Windows displays data in base 2 (Kibibyte, Mebibyte, Gibibyte) this is the amount you see. But don't get it wrong 929.7 MiB (or .9297 GiB) is equal to 1 GB which is what you payed for.

[Danny @ Jan 21st 2009 7:42PM]

Price: One gazillion $.

[JerJer @ Jan 21st 2009 7:50PM]

more like a gazliion EUROS! (scary!) haha

[Rotaryfan @ Jan 21st 2009 10:07PM]

the euro isn't what it once was a few months ago.

[r3loaded @ Jan 22nd 2009 3:47AM]

With current exchange rates, 1 gazillion^2 pounds :(

[Ignatius @ Jan 21st 2009 7:47PM]

How long have SSDs been around, 2 years? Jeez. I can't wait to see 10TB drives pop up.

[haX0r @ Jan 21st 2009 8:58PM]

hey playa, play with this:

http://product.pelltechnology.com/SSD_320GB_Hard_Drive_Upgrade.asp

SSD 320 GB Desktop Hard Drive for this model for Sale Price : $200.00

Now go playagame!

[Game_playa @ Jan 21st 2009 7:58PM]

4 of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319 in raid will still destroy this.... And be MUCH MUCH cheaper.
4 of THESE in raid though, lets not think about that.....

[Lando Calrissian @ Jan 21st 2009 8:45PM]

Four 320GB SSDs in RAID = instantaneous nerdgasm upon file transfer of any kind...
That would make it difficult to use a computer, I guess I should stay away from SSDs if I want to get anything done...

[haX0r @ Jan 21st 2009 8:58PM]

Whoops, wrong reply button:

hey playa, play with this:

http://product.pelltechnology.com/SSD_320GB_Hard_Drive_Upgrade.asp

SSD 320 GB Desktop Hard Drive for this model for Sale Price : $200.00

Now go playagame!

[Game_playa @ Jan 21st 2009 9:07PM]

I call fake, they cant possibly be SSDs

[sjdurfey @ Jan 22nd 2009 12:16AM]

oh yeah, gotta love PLATTERS in your SSD *rolls eyes*

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5132&Itemid=67

[Sea Urchin @ Jan 21st 2009 7:59PM]

I predicted in here few months ago that in 2-3 years SSDs will kill HHDs and unless Wester Digital, Seagate and others do not expend into SSDs they will go the same way GM and Ford went, but they won't get a bailout.

Looks like i was wrong, this all could happen by the end of the year. 320GB is huge, once SSDs will reach 1TB at about $500 the market will change.

[haX0r @ Jan 21st 2009 8:25PM]

And it'll only cost $999 each! What a deal!

[Hayden @ Jan 21st 2009 8:35PM]

Ive been hearing reports that Intel will be offering 1TB SSD drives to OEMS in early 2010. This news is old!

[dahv @ Jan 21st 2009 9:13PM]

intel has competition early this year already.

The GSkill titan has specs close to the intel x25-m and doesnt have the stuttering problem common to ssds using jmicron controllers (the titan version uses 2 controllers).
500$ for the 256GB and 270 for the 128GB kills the current intel offering.

the upcoming ocz apex ssd seems to have an internal RAID 0.

corsair is getting into the game as well.

On a side note, shouldnt we consider that ssd have almost reached the capacity of HDDs ?? 256GB SSD have come out and 500GB/1TB have been anounced ( i think) in a 2.5in form factor , to which comparable HDDs are at 500GB and 750GB have been announced.

just saying....

[crawdad689 @ Jan 21st 2009 9:24PM]

how does the speed on these SSDs compare w/ a 7200 rpm SATA drive? 7200 rpm USB drive? I'm still unclear whether these mainstream SSDs are any faster than mainstream HDDs for 20% of the price, though obviously SSDs can withstand shock, and will theoretically last forever. Help?

[TechMage89 @ Jan 21st 2009 10:33PM]

I believe that in terms of *read* performance, the SSDs (good ones, anyhow) are substantially better than HDDs, but in terms of *write* performance, they tend to be the same or worse.

[Patriks7 @ Feb 2nd 2009 5:15PM]

That's not the case with newer SSDs. For example, the announced Samsung 256GB has around 200MB/s read! And a current G.Skill Titan at 256GB has 160MB/s, which is also damn impressive. Give it another year, and these things will just be purely awesome!

[Dafrety @ Jan 22nd 2009 7:35AM]

I think it sucks that you're spamming your shitty site.

[louden @ Jan 22nd 2009 1:52PM]

I'll predict we'll be able to buy 250 GB SSDs with 250/200 speeds for $500 by the end of the year.

I'll buy at that point.

I'll predict that this will be one doozy of a cutthroat business...