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modding eee pc
storage
Century DIY SSD Now Goes Up to 2TB (in Theory)
While both Intel and Samsung are promising big drops in SSD prices by the year's end for now they still cost plenty. Unless you want to take the DIY route, and use this nifty gizmo from Century which uses compact flash cards for storage. The new version now accepts CF 3x cards and can create drives between 2GB and a crazy (and impossible, for now) 2TB in size. So you could buy a pair of 32GB CF cards for around $270, add in $192.57 for the DIY drive and you'd have a 64GB SATA SSD for about $460— less than half the cost of the 64GB MacBook Air's drive. Not bad, eh? Available from May 1st. [GeekStuff4U via Akihabaranews]
laptops
Toshiba Ratchets Portege R500 SSD Up To 128GB
Toshiba's under-2-lb. Portege R500 will get its SSD boosted to 128GB, though at a still undeclared but likely super high price, says UK's Register. The machines get a bit of a chip upgrade, too, from Intel's 1.2GHz U7600 Core 2 Duo to a 1.33GHz U7700. The R500 is, to my knowledge, the lightest PC with an internal DVD burner, at least in the US market, but I can't back it 100% because of a little problem called Vista. More »
speculation
20 Percent of SSD Notebooks Failing?
The whole reason to pay the obscene premium for a SSD is because it's supposed to be way more reliable than your average spinny hard drive. According to an analyst at Avian Securities, however, an unnamed "large computer manufacturer" is having 10 to 20 percent of its flash-based notebooks sent back because of technical failure—and still more are being sent back for not matching purchasers' expectations for a total of 20 to 30 percent of SSD-based notebooks getting the heave-ho. Update: Dell flat-out denies the return rates claimed by Avian Securities, saying "it's just not true." More »
ssd
Toshiba Dynabook SS RX1 Laptop First to Have 128GB SSD, Apparently
Toshiba's Dynabook SS RX1 now has an optional 128GB solid state drive built in, which Toshiba is claiming as a world first. It certainly beats the MacBook Air's SSD option, and is similarly slender, plus it squeezes in an optical drive. It has a 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel graphics and a 12.1-inch 1280 x 800 pixel screen, and a claimed battery life of 12.5 hours, which seems huge. It's also configurable without the SSD but with an 80GB hard drive and a CDMA card for mobile internet goodness. Available from April in Japan at first, for around $4,000. [Ascii]
storage
Intel Bringin' SSD Drama: 160GB Capacity, 50% Price Drop
We already told you about Intel's new ultramobile SSDs, but their tiny size means high cost and low capacities, only up to 16GB. That's why the company promised SATA-II SSDs in the 1.8" and 2.5" sizes with capacities up to 160GB, with read and write speeds exceeding Samsung's 100MB/s and 70MB/s, respectively. Best of all, Intel says its goal is to drive down the currently exorbitant prices of solid-state storage to something less punitive, predicting two subsequent 50% drops in 2009 and 2010. [Daily Tech]
hard drives
Samsung Planning on 256GB SSDs, Huge Price Drops by End of the Year
I told you SSDs would be plummeting in price this year, and here's Samsung coming along making me look like some sort of genius for finding an article that said that and then writing about it. I rule! Anyhow, Samsung is looking to double the size of its SSDs not once this year, but twice, ending up with a 256GB SSD by year's end. More »
storage
Flash on Flash: SSD Benchmarked Against SDHC
Tablet PC Review benchmarked the SSD storage format vs SDHC (high capacity SD cards), concluding that SSD substantially outperforms the other flash format. To SDHC's credit, it produced access times that rivaled SSD, but while a class 6, 8 GB SHDC card read at around 18 MB/s and wrote around 14 MB/s, a 128 GB SSD read and wrote at over 90 MB/s. The point? Just a reminder that not all solid state is created equally. [PC Tablet Review via JKK on the Run]
storage
Mtron's 128GB 1.8-inch SSD Breakthrough
Mtron's 128GB SSD drive isn't the highest capacity SSD around, but a quick Google shows it to be the largest 1.8-incher. That's the same size drive in many MP3 players and Apple's new Macbook Air. They're expecting nice 120MB/second reads and 100MB/second writes. Production will start in April, but as with all SSDs of this size, don't expect them to be affordable for the little people for a while. [MTron]
ssd
New SSD Tech Means Cheaper Drives With More Space Sooner
SSD prices might be trickling downward, though the performance/price ratio is still pretty low. But Sandisk and Toshiba have come up with new ways to cram more stuff into the same amount of space, to start tipping it the other way. They've both hit the 32Gb density point, which, combined with multilevel cell tech (storing bits in multiple levels of a cell), will "double the SSD capacity points." More »
disappointment
The gang over at Ars Technica got their hands on both an SSD-packed Macbook Air as well as a regular, HDD-equipped model and then put both through their paces to see if the $1,300 difference in price was worth it. So they had two computers, both exactly the same save a 200Mhz bump in processor speed and a swapping out of a 4200rpm PATA drive for a hot, hot SSD drive. So did the performance shoot through the roof, confirming all of our wildest wet dreams about SSDs? Uh, no, not really.
More »
The Macbook Air SSD Performance Boost: Pretty Much Non-Existent
The gang over at Ars Technica got their hands on both an SSD-packed Macbook Air as well as a regular, HDD-equipped model and then put both through their paces to see if the $1,300 difference in price was worth it. So they had two computers, both exactly the same save a 200Mhz bump in processor speed and a swapping out of a 4200rpm PATA drive for a hot, hot SSD drive. So did the performance shoot through the roof, confirming all of our wildest wet dreams about SSDs? Uh, no, not really.
More »
hard drives
1.6TB SSD is Largest Flash Drive Yet; You Definitely Can't Afford It
Yes, SSDs are dropping in price, but that doesn't mean you can in any way afford BiTMICRO's new 1.6TB SSD. Yes, that's a T for Terabyte there, folks. It's the biggest SSD yet, and while no price was announced, it's a safe assumption that it's absolutely bananas. But hey, if they can make it now for lots of money that just means they'll be able to make it in the future for a lot less money, so it's good news for the long run. [Ubergizmo]
apple
MacBook Air 1.8Ghz SSD Gets Benchmarked
The MacBook Air's $1300 upgrade to a slightly faster processor and SSD, has just been benchmarked by a MacRumors reader at the only place they could get their hands on it, an Apple Store. By running Xbench on the 1.8GHz SSD model and compiling the results with the same test ran on the 1.6GHz model, the difference in speed is not too surprising. The obvious increase in the .2GHz processor bump is noticeable, but the biggest difference is with the SSD.
More »
good news
SSD Prices Dropping, 32GB iPhone Not Too Far Off
While getting a laptop with an SSD inside is still ridiculously expensive, it won't be that way for long. That's because the price of flash memory is plummeting, with it dropping 75% in the last 5 months alone. In fact, 1GB chipsets are selling for as low as $2.23, with 4GB chipsets going for as low as $12.30. More »
nand
Ultrafast NAND Memory Reads 200MB per Second
Micron and Intel have co-developed a new 8-gigabit SLC NAND chip, which has data-read speeds of 200 MB/second and write speeds of 100 MB/second: five times faster than previous SLC NANDs. The 50nm-process node devices are available as samples to OEMs now, with bulk manufacturing planned for late this year. This means that sometime soon we'll have access to memory cards and SSDs for our cameras and laptops that are way speedier than existing ones, though you might expect insanely high prices for that speed hike—especially since SLC is expensive in the first place. [BusinessWire]
ces 2008
ASUS U2E Is A Light, Leather Bound Notebook That Is Heavy On Features
The U2E notebook from ASUS brings a 32GB SSD, an LED backlit panel and a small-lens webcam to an 11-inch, 2-pound, leather notebook. The coolest feature announced so far is definitely the Smart Logon Face Recognition. This software keeps the computer secure by using the webcam to scan the face in front of it and only grant access after a positive facial scan. The U2E will be available in brown or black, but pricing and availability have not yet been announced. See the gallery for more hot pics. [ASUS]
ces 2008
Ridata Intros 128GB SATA SSDs, Speeds Past Competition
Ridata introduced three SSDs today, in 32-, 64-, and 128GB capacities. We've seen SSDs this large before, but Ridata claims 170MB/sec read and 105MB/sec write speeds, blowing out their recent competition. Full release after the jump. More »
Sony VAIO TZ Laptop Gains 64 GB of SSD Storage
The Sony VAIO TZ was already a sweet computer before getting a 64 GB SSD inside. Now it has 314 GB of storage in all (64 GB SSD+250 GB HDD) and sells for $3600.
The Sony VAIO TZ was already a sweet computer before getting a 64 GB SSD inside. Now it has 314 GB of storage in all (64 GB SSD+250 GB HDD) and sells for $3600.
