When will SSD become mainstream?

goujon945

goujon945

goujon945

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Hiyo,

As per title really. After the OCZ price cuts, SSD's seem to be 'reasonably' well priced but whats everyones opinion on when they will seriously challenge traditional HDD? Competition is obviously important but im not aware of any other manufacturers producing SSD at this price point. Are there any or am i just being daft?

Goujon
 
Gonna need at least another couple of years I think. When you can buy a fast performing 128gb drive for about £100, which also doesn't have the short lifespan of these current 'cheap' drives, then I'll buy one. Until that happens, I'll be sticking with the traditional drives.
 
I'd have to agree with hohum, I imagine at least a couple of years until the drives are of suitable capacity, fast enough to be useful and the problems with limited writes are eliminated enough (or at least OSes with proper wear leveling to combat this) to become mainstream. They are certainly getting there but it'll be a while yet.
 
Thanks for your thoughts. I always thought the limited writes was a non-issue. I.e So many writes that it wasn't really a problem. I will openly admit i don't know much about this, so any info/links would be appreciated as google just throws up loads of numbers without any 'real world' info.

Goujon
 
Having checked into it a bit more it seems that the problem with limited writes was much more pronounced during the early stages of their release and has been improved upon, now anywhere between 1-5m writes seems commonly touted which is significantly better. The main links I'm finding are either Wikipedia or from people with a somewhat vested interest (SSD manufacturers/sellers) but I do believe they are getting better.

The other issues aren't quite sorted enough to convince me to buy though.
 
Sandisk blame Vista so probably wont be bothering full pelt till windows 7.


QUOTED :


"Sandisk claims Vista is not optimized for SSDs, delays next-gen controller


While Microsoft is trying to convince us that the world is flat and Vista is good (BEd: Or something around that line), flash storage specialist Sandisk has taken a swing at the OS (operating system) previously known as Longhorn by blaming it for the latest production problems. As stated by Sandisk's CEO Eli Harari, Vista is troublesome due to the fact that it is not optimized to work with flash memory-based storage solutions like solid state drives.

Harari said that since the current performance of SSDs, when paired up with Vista, "falls short of what the market really needs" the company is now forced to try and overcome the OS' problem with new, more sophisticated controllers. Since this is no easy task, Sandisk's SSD plans have fallen behind schedule with its next-gen drive controllers now expected to arrive either around the end of this year or in early 2009. In times like these, Windows 7 seems so far away. "


http://www.tcmagazine.info/comments.php?shownews=20961&catid=6
 
mainstream will be when £/gb is similar to normal hdd's and speed equal or matches in all areas, 2yrs off i reckon.

For us enthusiasts these ocz core and ridata drives will sell well if reviews are good as the 32GB is enough for a lot of people as an O.S drive and £115 aint too bad or £100 for the ridata. But 64GB+ is no where near mainstream, just too expensive.

Also these have just 1yr warranty which is a joke, the lifespan is low, if you use your pc for 6hrs a day then it may only last 1.5yrs. I'm not paying £115 for a harddrive that will die in 1.5yrs, no chance. If they give 3yr warranty then lots of ppl will keep for 2yrs 10months then sell it on if it hasnt died before then, you'd be a fool not to sell on before warranty as its a ticking timebomb.
 
So it looks like this is just a Vista failing. Since it makes no mentiomn of XP, 2000, NT, 98, 98Se, 95, ME etc. etc. etc. It implies that only Vista suffers from this. When in fact it most likely should say 'Windows'. People love to trash it. Why say that your product has a failure, when you can just claim its an OS issue.

How exactly is it not optimised . . Seems rather scant on the details here. Surely a disk is a disk. And the controller is still just the same when it comes to the PC end.
 
Yes, they were quick to blame Vista, yet neglect to give the reasoning behind it. I guess to sum it up, it's basically a corporation saying 'omglol vista sux xp for the win'. ;)
 
Strange how Mtron SSDs are like rocket ships in Vista. Could it be shock horror that Sandisk have not yet perfected the technology yet others have as Sandisk SSDs are usually the slowest in Vista benchmarks compared to other brands;)
 
AWPC said:
Strange how Mtron SSDs are like rocket ships in Vista. Could it be shock horror that Sandisk have not yet perfected the technology yet others have as Sandisk SSDs are usually the slowest in Vista benchmarks compared to other brands;)
Click to expand...

He just needs to actually explain what the problems are, we all know that a new filesystem would be the good thing for SSDs, but the bad thing is that his words are already echoed throughout the internet and a lot of people will read it and actually buy into it. Automatic defragmentation on Vista is a dealbreaker however, terrible forward planning.
 
PhillyDee said:
So it looks like this is just a Vista failing. Since it makes no mentiomn of XP, 2000, NT, 98, 98Se, 95, ME etc. etc. etc. It implies that only Vista suffers from this. When in fact it most likely should say 'Windows'. People love to trash it. Why say that your product has a failure, when you can just claim its an OS issue.

How exactly is it not optimised . . Seems rather scant on the details here. Surely a disk is a disk. And the controller is still just the same when it comes to the PC end.
Click to expand...

I don't think it implies that XP, 2000.. are better compatible. Sandisk is simply not attacking these OSes because they were around before the current gen of SSDs was envisaged. It would be a little unfair to criticise XP for not supporting a product which would only be available 7 years later!

With vista, MS had the opportunity to implement wear leveling in software (cheap) but instead they have left it to the hardware vendors (expensive).
 
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