solid state memory
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Viking Modular's SATADIMM jacks an SSD into your memory slot
Explaining the differences between DRAM and non-volatile storage is about to get that little bit harder, thanks to Viking Modular. The company's decided to "borrow" the DIMM form factor for its latest enterprise SSD offering, equipping it with a 240-pin array to draw power from your spare memory slots. Of course, you'll still need to hook up a SATA cable to get data flowing to this SSD -- at a very respectable 260MBps for both read and write -- but we must admit we're in love with the very idea of it. This new design offers another option for consolidating storage right onto the motherboard and should help case modders yearning for ever-slimmer enclosures. Alas, the SATADIMM is only available to enterprise and OEM clients for now, but we can't think of any reason why it won't test the consumer waters as well -- if not by Viking, maybe someone else? [Thanks, David]
Keio University and Toshiba ready tiny 1TB SSDs for 2012
Japan's Keio University claims to have developed, in conjunction with Toshiba, the technology to shrink the size of SSDs by a spectacular 90 percent while also cutting energy consumption by 70 percent. If that's not enough mind-boggling numbers for you, the final product of this partnership is expected to yield 1TB drives with 2Gbps throughput. The details of this are still somewhat unclear, but we're told researchers stacked 128 NAND flash chips atop one another, with the breakthrough being in the way they communicate -- using short-range magnetic signals --- which results in less wiring complexity and reduced production costs. We'll take some convincing to believe they can really put these to practical use by 2012 as promised, but if they do make it to any sort of commercial launch, you can bet we'll be queuing up through the night to get one. Note: Nikkei source link requires a paid subscription to access.
Will a solid-state drive speed up the PS3?
Tired of those slow installs the PS3 is so famous (or infamous) for? The guys over at ExtremeTech came up with a solution that will partially solve that problem, albeit at a heavy price. They replaced their 60GB PS3's hard drive with one of Intel's 80GB X25-M solid-state drives. The retail price for one of those babies is $598 ... about the same price as a launch PS3, and 50% more than the current 80GB SKU.Unfortunately, the results were a bit of a letdown. Installs off a Blu-ray disc were as slow as ever, due to the the limitations of Blu-ray drive speed. Downloadable titles and demos, however, were a different story. Installation speeds of that variety received a significant speed boost, about 40% faster. Startup and load times for games became 25-40% faster.So is it worth it? Probably not at 600 clams. Swapping out the PS3's hard drive is relatively easy though, so it might be something cool to do if you've got the cash to burn.[Via Engadget]
