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Samsung 4GB Flash Disk: Windows Vista Performance Booster

Samsung is beginning production of a special 4GB solid-state disk (SSD) it says will dramatically speed up notebooks and PCs when using Microsoft Windows Vista. Using a Vista feature called Windows ReadyBoost, Samsung says this little flash disk will eliminate hundreds of exasperating multi-second delays when working with the operating system. According to Samsung:

"The Windows ReadyBoost feature of the Windows Vista operating system will intelligently populate the SSD with the data a user needs before they ask for it. It readies a user's favorite applications and data in the background, accelerating everyday actions such as starting applications and switching users. When a user requests that data, rather than being limited to servicing 100-200 requests per second (as with a traditional HDD), Samsung's SSD can service up to 5000 request per second, virtually eliminating data seek delays. The 4GB SSD can work in tandem with a hybrid hard drive, coming into play as a secondary source of cached data."

Samsung says this little performance booster can be hooked up via the ATA port, and located pretty much anywhere on a motherboard. We're hoping this device will also make Windows Vista start up faster. Will we see this on Macs, too? – Charlie White

Press Release [Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.]

10:39 AM on Wed Jul 26 2006
By Charlie White
2,737 views
7 comments

Comments

Guy Esquire at 10:38 AM on 07/26/06
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What of the 100,000 read/write cycle limitation of flash drives? Will I be opening up the computer case to replace this unit every year? This sounds like a perfect candidate for Freescale's MRAM.
nweaver at 10:40 AM on 07/26/06
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You don't need to see it on Macs: Apple already does this. They trace the boot process, precache the results, and put a copy all on the hard drive in a nice linear strip which can be quickly read off as the system starts up. Why do you think Macs boot so much faster than Windows?
nweaver at 10:43 AM on 07/26/06
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guy: This actually is the perfect app: the cache structure doesn't change often, and there is no limit on READS to flash, just writes.

Its just not that big a win, because on the hard disk, this is all linear access (one big strip of data). Thus the typical 7.2k RPM disk can read it out at ~70+ MB/s. Since you are populating, at most, 1 GB of ram with preloaded information, this takes only ~15 seconds. Since you prioritize things (the first 256MB to get the system running, the rest later), having dedicated flash doesn't help that much.
scorpicon at 10:51 AM on 07/26/06
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I think you guys are missing the point here. It doesn't make Windows boot faster, it makes applications boot faster. Though it would be nice if Vista started up faster as well.
Guy Esquire at 11:02 AM on 07/26/06
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That's how I understood it, scorpicon. Samsung's SSD is suppose to be used in tandem with the hybrid hard drive, which is the SSD used to accelerate boot-up. Samsung's SSD is suppose to be used to predict the users actions, e.g., app loads, windows resizing, etc. Consequently, the data involved must be rather extensive and the OS probably has to read/write to the SSD all the time.
nweaver at 11:11 AM on 07/26/06
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You can get a very good feel on the number of writes needed from Apple's work on the subject, which I believe includes apps as well as the OS core.
Worf at 12:54 PM on 07/26/06
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Wonder how much it'll cost - looking at the size, it shouldn't be too much considering 4GB CF cards and 4GB iPod Nanos...

Though, it beats the CF card adapter since most (all?) CF cards don't support DMA operation...