Samsung will early next month ship the first notebook PC and the first ultra-mobile PC fitted with 32GB of solid-state NAND Flash storage instead of a regular hard disk drive, the company announced today. The two machines – respectively, a version of Samsung’s Q30 12.1in notebook and its Q1 UMPC – are both fitted with the 32GB SSD (Solid-state Disk) the company unveiled in March this year. Both PCs will go on sale in South Korea for KRW3.5m ($3700) and KRW2.3m ($2430), respectively.
Well the obvious question is, when will someone get GNU/Linux running on it?
You can already run linux on it, why not? You don’t need special drivers for it.
OpenVMS runs on it for a while!
These are battery-backed memory modules, not flash. Flash would be slow, and expecially, have a too limited number of writes, compared to normal hard-drives. The problem with writes to flash memory is that you have to write the whole sector (several kilobytes), and even that is true only for sectored flash ram.
You sure about that?
Let me put it this way: I warmly hope they are not using NAND Flash for these drives, and then run WindowsXP on them, because these users will notice pretty soon that there’s something really, really wrong with their drives.
100.000 writes happen awfully quickly with WinXP.
NAND Flash offers the highest density of all Flash RAM types, sure, and has pretty decent access times in read (much worse in write), but it sure isn’t very good in write cycles.
Check http://mhonarc.axis.se/jffs-dev/msg01140.html to see what sort of problems one has to plan for, when trying to run an OS and apps on a flash drive.
Said all this, I admit that Samsung -may- be actually using Flash RAM for the drive. It just means you’re putting your data on an awfully unreliable media, that WILL fail sooner rather than later. Thanks, not for me.
Alot of talk from various folks that don’t know much about semiconductor devices and reliability.
I used to design memory chips at one time in particular EPROM chips which are several technologies before modern Nand Flash and hardly heard of anymore. Flash does go back far enough that the technology of early Nand devices hasn’t changed that much except for sheer density, size, performance, reliability etc and lots of neat control stuff must be going in these days that I don’t have details on, I am sure Samsung.com has pdf specs.
Whatever OS is running, writing back almost never happens to what 99% of the files in the OS directory unless installing, patching and so on. The swap file would need to be in DRAM and written back on shutdown. The time during a power failure is plenty enough to write back critical stuff.
Over writing files would be done to different locations so no one part of the device takes all the write hits. Same is also mostly true of HD writes but for different reasons. The directory structure could probably do the same. I would suspect the reliability has more to do with the sustained rate at which typical writing occurs on a long term basis. It already takes takes quite along time to write 1GB of Flash data, writing 32Gb 10,000 times would take an eternity. The OS or a user app might try writing 1 file location millions of times but it really would be spread all over. As the device fill up though, the remaining locations would get hammered more often. Well thats how I would build the part.
As for size my only laptop 1998? has a 3Gb drive which was obviously fine for W2k a few years ago, not big enough for bulk media though. Before media files took over disks, most files tended to be small, my avg was 50Kb, once media files added, the avg went way up but almost all of that is read only. I reused it again recently in an open desktop as a substitute for an old quiet 3.5″ drive, it is orders quieter but the performance was maybe 3x slower.
off to sleep
Over writing files would be done to different locations so no one part of the device takes all the write hits.
There can be a problem with fixed location disk structures. It could be solved by making them movable and store the location somewhere in dedicated nonvolatile memory. In case of this memory failure, flash need to be scanned for the blocks with latest timestamp.
So, flash-friendly filesystem is waiting to be written.
Btw, it have a valid sense for $100-pc project.
———-100.000 writes happen awfully quickly with WinXP.———
———–Said all this, I admit that Samsung -may- be actually using Flash RAM for the drive. It just means you’re putting your data on an awfully unreliable media, that WILL fail sooner rather than later. Thanks, not for me.————–
If you disable virtual memory you’d be OK.
These are battery-backed memory modules, not flash.
Colour me confused:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_disk
But I believe you’re wrong, and that the SSD is of the flash memory variation. This particular product is even mentioned in the article.
I think the real question is, will this result in longer battery life? Transmeta and Via processors supposedly draw much less power, but such notebooks still have rather average battery life. Hard drives are supposed to be another of the heavy spenders in the power budget.
F I N A L L Y ! – I say .
Maybe one day we will actually finally also get to use RAM as permanant storage – for way superior performance
What makes RAM as permanent storage so problematic ?
BTW how are flash drives for reliablity & data integrity ?
Edited 2006-05-23 22:57
What makes RAM as permanent storage so problematic ?
Because it’s volatile? A power outage, no matter how short it could be, would wipe its contents.
Anyway, that’s why I wouldn’t trust RAM-based storage, even with redundant secondary power sources.
Here’s my take on it. HDD’s are pretty bad because:
* there is almost no way to determine when it’s going to fail
* once it failed you can’t recover any data from it
* it consumes a lot of power
* it is slow and big (and microdrives pretty much sucked because of mechanical failures)
* sequential reading/writing of data is much faster than random
* it makes noise
* it produces a ton of heat
* it is so susceptible to falls and hits
On the contrary Flash based storage is great because:
* it can tell you when and which sectors of the drive are failing
* it only fails in the write direction. you can still read the data off of it after a sector dies.
* it consumes little power
* it is of comparable speeds (see more below) and it is tiny (how many SD cards can you put in the space occupied by a 2.5″ HDD?)
* it can read/write data in any order with the same speed
* it’s silent. completely
* it produces virtually no heat
* you can run a CF card over with a car and put it right back in the card reader. it’ll still be just fine.
and last but not least:
* it operates at very low temperatures as opposed to HDD
The only drawback of flash based storage is that the number of writes to it is limited to roughly 100,000/sector. With NAND technology in reality it will be more since the data will be moved around to ensure the same “wear” on the sectors. But think about this: what if you take a bunch of SD cards and RAID 0 them so that you multiplied your space by N, where N is the number of your cards. You would also multiply the average life of a sector by N. If you take current technology you’d have 20 cards for a 20 GB drive, with 2,000,000 writes per sector. Now couple that with a smart design of your operating system (think Linux’s laptop mode) OR a couple of 1 GB sticks of DDR RAM and you’ve got yourself a pretty snazzy albeit expensive drive that will power your laptop for much longer than any HDD you buy today. I personally can’t wait to see things like these on sale.
I was talking of DRAM, which we commonly refer as RAM. Given the parent refered the FLASH technology as simply Flash, I suppose he meant RAM as DRAM. Believe it or not, but there are drives based on DRAM.
As for FLASH, you are speaking to person cursed by the gods of hard drives. I got 7 HD failures in the span of 4 years with four brands from three different manufacturers. Trust me, I won’t cry when the technology will disappear. That said, combining 20 Flash cards would be cool, but you would still be stuck with 20GB… It’s not that much once you have games or media content.
I know of the RAM (DRAM) based drives and thoroughly dislike the idea of them being so unreliable (because of RAM being volatile). I think a design that I proposed a in my previous post would be a perfect medium. It’d boast extremely high speeds: I think about 400 Mbps would be easily possible with RAID 0 setup of 20 SD cards. With a huge cache of say 2 GB (this would be RAM based) we’d bring down the reliability factor, but only slightly. In the worst case scenario all 2 gigs would be filled. 400 Mbps is 50 MBps. At this rate it would take roughly 40 seconds to dump the whole cache onto the non-volatile flash storage. A tiny Lithium Ion battery could be implemented within the drive to ensure that this happens. This drive with the current prices could cost around $600-$800 but with the outlined advantages it would have a pretty good value/cost ratio. Most of all you’d need nothing more than SATA/PATA 133. No Vista on top of this, no extra drivers, since the drive itself could do the whole RAID 0/RAM cache thing. Oh and it could throw a S.M.A.R.T. warning if one of the SD cards is dying. Then you just backup the data off of it and replace JUST THAT CARD for a fraction of the cost of the whole drive. Make the damn thing upgradable (no upper limit on the size of the SD cards or the amount of RAM) and you’ve got yourself a wonder.
Of course it’s very much a niche market, but these would be brilliant for silent computing enthusiasts.
With fanless water cooling, or a system with well designed air flow and low speed fans, a 3.5″ HDD will almost certainly be the noisiest component. It can be very difficult to silence them completely while maintaining acceptable HDD temperatures. A lot of people (myself included) use 5400RPM 2.5″ drives for their lower noise and temperature, but they’re also slower.
Switching to a solid state option is very attractive, but products such as the Gigabyte iRam have very limited capacity and are expensive. NAND storage looks like it has a lot of potential, both in portable computers and in low noise media centres. It will be interesting to see if Samsung feel there’s a potential market and sell these flash drives separately.
you purposefully use a 5400rpm 2.5 drive for the few extra db it gives? dude, hdds are *not* that loud. Unless you have a crappy old one.
wow….
>> you purposefully use a 5400rpm 2.5 drive for the few extra db it gives? dude, hdds are *not* that loud. Unless you have a crappy old one.
One of my pet peeves – people bitching about these modern devices being too loud. These metro-wussies need to spend some time next to a pair of 40 meg bernouili boxes and a daisy wheel printer.
LOL!
I used to use those (well just once)
One of my pet peeves – people bitching about these modern devices being too loud.
One of my pet peeves is people who say that everyone should just put up with problems and annoyances, rather than doing the smart thing and finding a solution to them.
I’ve used plenty of noisy computers in the past, that doesn’t mean I’m going to put up with that discomfort today when I don’t have to.
A lot of older monitors had a terrible refresh rate, I remember using an old system with a CRT that flickered so badly that it gave you a headache and eye-strain in minutes. Are people today “wussies” for using high refresh rate monitors or LCD screens?
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I find continuous noises like the buzz of a typical hard drive very annoying. I often work late at night when there’s little ambient noise, even the quietest modern 3.5″ drives are still clearly audible. There’s also the issue of heat, it’s very difficult to keep the temperature of a 3.5″ drive below 50C in a low airflow system. In my experience the life span of a HDD is significantly reduced when it’s running at 55-65C for long periods of time.
2.5″ drives can be made completely inaudible if you pick a particularly quiet model and put it in an enclosure. Even with no airflow and acoustic foam packed around the drive, the temperature of a 2.5″ 5400RPM HDD generally doesn’t go much over 40C. At the moment I’m using two 80Gb 2.5″ drives in a RAID 0, the speed isn’t much worse than a typical 160Gb 3.5″ drive. To me going from annoyingly audible to completely inaudible is well worth the extra cost.
It’s not that unusual for people to reduce noise in their desktop PCs by using 2.5″ drives. Of course anyone with a case full of noisy fans will find that their 3.5″ HDDs are drowned out by other noises, but with a very quiet system switching to a 2.5″ drive makes a huge difference. If you have a look at just about any low noise computing web site (silentpcreview.com for example), you’ll find plenty of people who can’t stand 3.5″ drives.
am I the only one here that thinks that 32GB is too little?
Unless there are 80GB of storage – no thanks (preferably 120! or more)
32gb is plenty for most people. I’d use a 32gb silent flash drive that uses less power than a HDD and doesnt get as hot.
100 GB is about as big as you get in the 2.5″ form factor. There are larger but you are paying a hefty premium for anything over 100GB.
What you are paying for here is speed, not storage. For non media work 32 GB is fine. This is a laptop, not a gaming machine. Besides USB HDs are an easy way to add storage and a 2.5″ one is pretty compact.
My laptop is my only machine, I have no desktop 😉
So 100GB internal is something that is needed. Of course there are external options, but those are clunky 🙂
32GB would be great if you’re running linux!
But if you’re running bloatware such as Windows or the hacked-to-work-on-other-x86-machines OS10, then you’re going to be sweating for extra room.
Just get your hands on an external HDD for “standard storage”.(pics, movies, documents, music, etc)
Finally, something from the future visits earth!
Now, that HDD heat is solved our next target is Screen; probably OLED screens will get gealous.
Now I can set in the room without being annoyed with the humming sound of the HDD.
Even though it’s “only” 32GB and may have reliability/speed concerns Samsung has put their foot in the door. Doing so will make the technology afforable, thereby allowing inventive folks/companies to further flash technology.
In as little as two or three years we could see HDDs becoming second fiddle to flash.