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Micron enters a growing field of SSD providers

The last time DailyTech visited the realm of solid-state disks (SSDs), Samsung introduced a new lineup of SATA II drives in 1.8" and 2.5" form-factors. Samsung's new drives promise sequential write speeds of 100MB/sec and sequential reads of 120MB/sec.

Today, it's Micron's turn to shine with its RealSSD solid-state drives. Micron says that its new drives will be available in both 1.8" and 2.5" form-factors and will have a native-SATA II interface -- no SATA bridge chip will be needed for the drives.

Unfortunately, Micron made no mention of the performance figures for its RealSSDs. Most manufacturers like to throw out read/write speeds for their SSDs – often times, before mass production even begins -- but Micron's hesitance to release performance figures could indicate that they aren't quite up to par with solutions from Samsung, SanDisk, Adtron and Mtron.

"SSDs are becoming the new storage medium, fundamentally altering the way data is stored," said Micron VP Dean Klein. "The storage market is ripe for innovation, and it’s an opportunity Micron is embracing given our expertise in NAND. We know how to manage NAND flash to work best with controllers, allowing us to develop an optimized SSD solution for every application."

Micron's RealSSD lineup will be available in both 32GB and 64GB varieties. The drives are currently sampling and production-spec hardware should be available during the first quarter of 2008.

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Price?
By englisboa on 11/29/2007 9:03:55 AM , Rating: 2
Well but if prices don't come down in the near future it will be rather difficult for SSD's to get momentum. Fom 100€ I can get 500GB hard drive and for 32GB on a SSD is...well to much for most users.
When will those prices come down...?




RE: Price?
By Gul Westfale on 11/29/2007 9:07:21 AM , Rating: 3
probably in the next two years or so. this tech will be used first in ultraportables (which are usually expensive anyway), and over time production numbers will increase, thus lowering costs for the rest of us. then there are the inevitable improvements to manufacturing techniques... i'll say two years.


RE: Price?
By TomZ on 11/29/2007 9:15:20 AM , Rating: 2
The problem is that the cost of the flash itself is not falling that quickly to deliver a "cheap" drive in that timeframe. Increased volumes do correlate with decreased cost only up until a point. For example, cars don't cost $1000 even though they're produced in the millions.


RE: Price?
By psychobriggsy on 11/29/2007 9:46:18 AM , Rating: 2
The price of flash has been dropping fairly quickly and consistently over the past 5 years, whilst quality has been improving. Another process shrink and by early 2009 64GB SSDs could cost what 16GB of Flash costs today, and hopefully they'd be even faster. Not bad for a 1.8" drive or even a 2.5" drive even though you can get 160GB 1.8" drives today.


RE: Price?
By Acid Rain on 11/29/2007 9:39:27 AM , Rating: 3
As noted. the problem is the price of flash. flash parts are produced by the billions... so it's beyond the point of volume driving the costs down.

Price structure of flash is determined by optical shrinks and perhaps new multi-bit flash technology.

I think t's not likely that these factors will bring down flash price more then 3-5 fold during the next 2 years.


RE: Price?
By Olaf van der Spek on 11/29/2007 9:55:45 AM , Rating: 2
<q>Fom 100€ I can get 500GB hard drive and for 32GB on a SSD is...</q>
SSDs will eat into HDD space from the bottom (capacity wise), not from the top.


RE: Price?
By Calin on 11/29/2007 11:12:33 AM , Rating: 2
If SSDs will ever start to replace magnetic hard drives, it will start from the smallest physical sizes (1.8").


RE: Price?
By DallasTexas on 11/29/2007 10:28:50 AM , Rating: 1
SSD's will NEVER compete with HDD on a cost per bit basis.
You need to get that foolishness out of your head.

SSD's provide a differentiated value proposition that should be obvious and it's not to compete at a cost per bit level with rotating media.


RE: Price?
By therealnickdanger on 11/29/2007 10:35:02 AM , Rating: 2
Right. It should be expected that flash-based SSDs as we know them today will likely always cost more than conventional HDDs. The premium will be worth it, however, for the reduced power consumption, faster performance, and ruggedness. How much of a premium will be up to the market, but it will always be more.

Any new news on Intel's phase-change SSD tech?


RE: Price?
By kmmatney on 11/29/2007 1:31:50 PM , Rating: 2
Never say Never! SSD's will eventually compete with HDD on a cost per bit basis. As soon as SSDs start to replace HDDs, the price of SSDs will drop, and the price of HDD's will go up. As this trend continues, SSDs will eventually replace hard drives - my guess is about 5 years from now that will happen. Same as LCDs did for CRTs.


RE: Price?
By TomZ on 11/29/2007 3:24:55 PM , Rating: 1
That would only happen if R&D funding for HDD technology were to stop, or if there were some huge breakthrough in flash, neither of which are very likely.

So we can't say "never," just "unlikely," especially following the current growth curves in the respective technologies.


RE: Price?
By Clauzii on 11/29/2007 3:37:59 PM , Rating: 2
When SSD's manufactoring get's more streamlined, the raw material cost involved in HD's are a lot higher than flash.

Ok, the chips themselves are on the expensive side still, but with more streamlined production, and smaller die size, that will change.


RE: Price?
By TomZ on 12/1/2007 4:04:28 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
When SSD's manufactoring get's more streamlined, the raw material cost involved in HD's are a lot higher than flash.

Huh? Flash cost per bit is much higher than HDD per bit, and there's no study showing that changing at least in the next 5-10 years. And flash is already in very high volume manufacturing.


RE: Price?
By Clauzii on 11/29/2007 3:33:04 PM , Rating: 2
Oh yes they will. Only a matter of time.


RE: Price?
By glitchc on 11/29/2007 4:36:11 PM , Rating: 2
That's bull. If you study the trend over the past ten years or so, you will see that SSD capacity curve has a far sharper slope over HDDs. Flash memory has gone from kilobits in GB in less than half the time it took magnetic medium to make that transition.

SSD is definitely the future, not just in terms of speed, but also reliability, miniaturization, and power efficiency.


RE: Price?
By Calin on 11/29/2007 11:09:53 AM , Rating: 2
You didn't mention that you pay 100 euro for 500GB conventional hard drive in 3.5" format. You can't find hard drives in the 500GB range in mobile (2.5") format, not to mention the smaller 1.8" format.
The best you could do right now seems to be 250GB at 100 euro. Still much cheaper than SSD, but twice as expensive as the 3.5" format. The 1.8" are $200 per 60GB, with $350 for max 80GB.
Capacity wise, the 1.8" are "almost there" in regard to magnetic drives. Price wise, it's still a long way to go


RE: Price?
By Gul Westfale on 11/29/2007 11:14:06 PM , Rating: 2
hard drives have many moving parts... flash drives do not. eventually they will be able to compete on price, even if that is only in 20+ years.


Lot a bit expensive - but good performance...
By AlterBridge86 on 11/29/2007 10:10:00 AM , Rating: 2
According to Tom's tests they seem to perform quite well...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/mtron_ssd_3...

too bad they're well out of the average users price range... (32gb is ~$1200!)




By mizkitty on 11/29/2007 11:29:39 AM , Rating: 2
Well...we're starting to get SSD notebooks at a decent price...
The new Dell 1530 comes with a 64GB SSD for an extra $740 CDN to $960 CDN depending on what size SATA HDD you're replacing...
Not unreasonable if the battery life is extended noticeably.
I can remember spending $750 on my first DVD burner...


By quickk on 11/29/2007 11:34:32 AM , Rating: 2
Tom's article is about the MTRON drive, not the MICRON.


RE: Lot a bit expensive - but good performance...
By Clauzii on 11/29/2007 3:23:17 PM , Rating: 2
More like $900 if You buy it from EU :)


By Clauzii on 11/29/2007 3:28:27 PM , Rating: 2
Oh, and if You can live with a slower type, Transcend makes a 32GB for $500. With a readspeed of 20MB/s and 11MB write it's not so fast though. But for silent it's still pretty cool.

I really like the 1/10 powerusage compared to normal drives too. That´s pretty sweet.