Are the SSDs Going to Replace HDDs?

Although many vendors are claiming a remarkable speed-up in their Solid State Drives (SSDs), still the industry has to mature to offer the right kind of products, in terms of price, capacity, form factor, speed and interface. Thus, for a few years ahead Hard Disk Drives will continue to retain its indispensability in the market. However, there is tremendous potential for the SSDs.

In a recent report, John Chen, senior director of TrendFocus, a known supplier of data storage market intelligence, has pointed out, As flash costs fall and SSD designs improve, the battle between HDDs and SSDs for market leadership will last for years.

The report further points out, 2 HDD market segments are exposed to future SSD incursion enterprise and mobile PCs. SSDs in enterprise systems and servers achieve high IOPS (I/O per second) at low power consumption. Due to the high displacement ratio of one SSD to multiple HDDs, a modest penetration of SSDs as forecasted may cause enterprise HDD growth to peak within four years. HDDs will not be completely displaced from enterprise systems as higher capacity, cheaper HDDs will still be needed.

Already laptop vendors like ASUS and Del have announced their products with SSDs. And the trend is likely to continue. To quote Chen, SSD invasion of the notebook PC space would have a profound effect on the HDD market. According to TrendFocus, Notebook PCs used in the corporate environment and a new class of low-cost, minimal function entry-level notebooks typically need lower storage capacities and are therefore a target market for SSDs.

According to their estimate, at this moment SSDs can cost 10 times more per gigabyte than HDDs, so the price premium must fall dramatically. Chen recalls, Early-generation SSDs have not wowed users prices are too high and performance advantages have been minimal.

However, while commenting on the future possibility, he says, The maturation of SSD designs and controllers, along with a clear NAND flash development roadmap, lays the foundation for SSDs to be a mainstream mass storage device. With aggressive adoption, we could see the HDD market erode by well over 50 million units yearly by 2012.

The discussion remains incomplete if we do not focus on any SSD manufacturer's view. Recently in Computex 2008, Taipei, SanDisk has launched a line of flash memory-based solid-state drives (SSDs). According to the company, those are designed for an emerging new category of portable consumer electronics called Ultra Low-Cost PCs (ULCPC) or netbooks.

SanDisk claims these devices allow users to surf the Internet using wireless communication. The SanDisk pSSD (Parallel ATA solid state drive) eliminates the need for a hard disk drive, and can store both the operating system and application data for these new devices.

Then what are they up to? The company is now making SSD modules in 4-, 8- and 16-GB capacities, with a streaming read speed of 39 MB per second, and a streaming write performance of 17MB/s. The products will support both Linux and Microsoft Windows XP operating systems. SanDisk's pSSD solid state drives are expected to be available from August. The company is targeting the emerging Ultra Low Cost PCs (ULCPCs market).

Thus, it can be concluded that although not immediately, HDDs will have to stand aside in a few years. That is we are on the way to a new era, wherein with the transition we will be relieved from the troubles of heating and extra power consumption.

 

MTI, Neosolar Plan Mobion Fuel Cell Technology

MTI MicroFuel Cells, a provider of Mobion off-the-grid portable power solutions, has joined hands with Neosolar to develop Mobion fuel cell technology. Neosolar, a provider of portable digital devices, will use this technology into its future models of portable devices, including ultra mobile portable computers (UMPCs).

Both the companies will develop, test and evaluate Mobion prototypes for their integration with a number of Neosolar products. It could lead to the use of external Mobion power sources like chargers, snap-on attachments and embedded Mobion power sources.

Commenting on this partnership, James Y. Yu, president of NeoSolar, said, "We want to incorporate the best technologies available into our products, and provide our customers with the most advanced features and cutting-edge functionality. This co-development agreement with MTI Micro will give us the opportunity to provide fuel cell technology with incredible benefits that may allow us to bring a new class of digital products to consumers."

According to the company communique, UMPCs are much smaller than traditional portable notebook computers with enough processor strength to support a full operating system with complete browsing, communication, video and gaming capabilities in a compact package. According to Frost and Sullivan, the annual portable power market for UMPCs is projected to cross the half billion dollar mark in 2010.

Adding more to it, Peng Lim, chairman and CEO of MTI, said, "Working with Neosolar gives us access to a new segment of the consumer electronics market. Neosolar's UMPCs are well-suited for a new power source that can take them to the next step in their product evolution. This announcement is also an important step for MTI Micro toward our goal of becoming a leading provider of portable power for handheld electronic devices." MTI Micro recently opened a representative office in China, and entered into agreements with representatives in both Korea and Japan.

Gigabyte Intros Nvidia Geforce 6100 Motherboard

Gigabyte Technology (India) recently launched a new motherboard, GA-K8N51GMF-9, featuring high definition video for the AMD64 platform. Powered by the Nvidia Geforce 6100 GPU and nForce430 MCP, the GA-K8N51GMF-9 is ideal for digital media enthusiasts who are looking for the ultimate home theater quality sound effects, the company said.

Rajan Sharma, general manager-motherboards & peripherals, Gigabyte Technology (India), said, "When we talk about graphic performance on socket 939 platform, Nvidia C51 solution will standout as it performs better than the competition. Nvidia didn't make any integrated graphic chipsets for a while, but it did a good homework with C51."

Introducing the new Geforce6100 GPU to the PC market, the new mobo boasts enhanced graphics performance from a shared memory architecture platform. With the Nvidia Cine FX 3.0 Engine, the Geforce 6100 supports Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0. The combination of the 6100's high-definition video processor and Nvidia PureVideo DVD decoder software delivers optimal picture clarity, smooth video, and precise image scaling for all video content in home theater applications. With HDTV-out functionality, this platform is ready for the most demanding HDTV applications, the company said.

The advanced nForce430 MCP delivers all the latest security, storage and connectivity technologies. Features of GA-K8N51GMF-9: supports AMD Athlon64 X2/ Athlon 64 Processor (Socket 939); Nvidia Geforce 6100 GPU, nForce 430; PCI Express X16 Graphics interface; PCI Express X1, 2 PCI slot; DDR400/333, 4 DIMMs, 2 Channel; Gigabit Ethernet Connection; Nvidia Firewall support; 4 x Serial-ATA 3Gb/s interface; Nvidia RAID 0,1, 0+1, 5 support; 2 UDMA ATA133 Connectors; 1 IEEE 1394 ports (Support 1port); 2 USB 2.0/1.1 Connector (Supports 4 port); TV-out connector; audio (4 x Line-out/1 x Line-in/ 1 x MIC) connectors; download center; Norton internet security; and Xpress Install, Xpress Recovery. The GA-K8N51GMF-9 is available in the market at an approximate street price of Rs 5,300 with a three-year warranty.