CDFreaks yesterday posted the first article of our two-part interview with flash memory maker SanDisk, which is preparing for the solid-state drive (SSD) era.
Durability of SSDs when compared to HDDs is a huge selling point for enterprise and consumers, with storage backup hopefully becoming less of a hassle.
"SSD are essentially impervious to being dropped, and in addition reduce failure rates by 80 percent vs. HDDs," Don Barnetson, SanDisk's Senior Director of Marketing for SSDs told CDFreaks.
The lack of moving parts in SSDs make it ideal for harsher environments, or good for home users who simply want technology that is less likely to fail on them.
Moving forward, SanDisk has several different obstacles it must deal with while promoting SSDs. Along with the high price -- which has been dropping -- it must also worry about write performance, which analysts say cannot match current 15,000 RPM HDDs.
Since the read speed of SSDs is superior to HDDs, manufacturers hope home users give them a chance to boost SSD write speeds.
To help home users understand the superiority of SSDs over HDDs, SanDisk unveiled a new tool, virtualRPM, which helps show the difference.
"In 2008, typical notebook computers ship with 5,400 rpm HDDs, some ship with 7,200 rpm HDDs - a typical SSD is equivalent to a 10,000 rpm HDD across Windows usage. In 2009, we expect typical notebook SSDs to be equivalent to 40,000 rpm HDDs."
Analysts also expect the adoption rate of SSDs to increase in 2009 and the future, with increased storage capacities, better durability, and lower price points three important factors.
To help close out our chat, Barnetson has two things he wants us to think about.
As we sit and wait for our computer to do something, what are we waiting on?
"Almost inevitably it is I/O related - as processors are all quite fast these days. There is nothing else you can do to your computer that has the immediate impact of replacing an HDD with an SSD - it is quite dramatic and noticeable."
The second question SanDisk wants to leave is with is how much storage capacity do we really need right now?
"In 2009, 128GB SSDs will be offered at competitive prices - for most users, 128GB is more than enough storage for all their OS, programs, files and even their media libraries. For other users, considering how often you really watch Season 3 of "24" and whether you would considering leaving (it) on an external HDD."
CDFreaks would like to thank SanDisk and Mr. Barnetson for taking the time to help expand our knowledge of SSD technology.
