Here's an extremely cool development: a solid state 32GB laptop hard drive

[KenR]

Just imagine what this will do for drive speed!

Samsung's been hogging the Solid State Disk limelight for months with their 32GB SSD first peeped at CeBIT. So it does our invisible hand some good to hear TDK launch their version of the 32GB SSD, albeit in sample quantities only for the time being. TDK's unit connects to a standard IDE connector yet measures in at 80 percent the size of standard 2.5-inch laptop drive. And like the Sammy SSD, we expect to see some blazin' reads and writes with better protection against shock, faster OS boots and sleep recovery times, longer battery life and reduced weight when TDK gets around to mass production. So for now, all we really want to say is welcome to the party TDK. Now how 'bout driving down that premium pricing, mkay?

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from www.engadget.com

[f0dder]

I'd *love* to use something like that as my primary drive in my workstation... should give very high sustained read/write speeds, and *fantastic* seek time. Raptor? Go home 

[housetier]

I don't understand enough of this hightech hardware stuff. This doesn't have anything to do with perpendicular recording(sp?). does it?
 
Have I just outed myself as the anti-nerd when it comes to hardware? What is "solid state"?

[Carol Haynes]

Data is basically stored on memory chips instead of a disc - the chips don't lose their data when power is removed. Consequently you get much faster access (being chips) and there are no moving parts to wear out or damage when you drop it on the floor (the LCD display may not like it though )

[housetier]

I see I see... I remember this from science-fiction novels and movies.

But being chips, where do these "storage modules" get their drive from? 

[f0dder]

By the way it looks like the drive has four lithium batteries? That would imply that it can lose data, after umphteen years or so... I thought normally solid-state disks didn't require battery backup? On the other hand, perhaps this means that the drive has faster memory (non-volatile flash ram tends to be slow), and that it can be cheaper to manufacture.

Or perhaps those four round things aren't lithium batteries at all

[mukestar]

Thats an intresting point, there deffinitly lithium batteries, but the impression i got from the volitile memory SSD is that battery was there to keep it powered up long enough to shift the date to backupdisk, then shift it back to the SDRAM when power resumes (either flash or traditional disc). Oh apparently flash is at current yield, good for at least 250,000 hours and maximum 1,400,000 hours, bit of a gap there.


This reminds me of a conversation i was having last week about data storage, we get new, faster and bigger, but nothing has really been invented that  could store data for more than....lets say 40 years. So basically where in a state of perpetually backing up backups (im mostly referring to the digitisation of historical records , libraries , basically huge undertakings of digitisation that ironicaly are being stored on medium that doesnt last as long as the original).