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‘How Flash Will Change PCs’ and e-bookdom
June 9, 2007 | 8:58 am
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By David Rothman
E-books should benefit as flash memory prices continue to drop over the long run. That will reduce the prices of econo-machines, too.
Solid state drives using flash now can cost $450 for 32G worth (Dell’s price—others may be much lower). But prices should decline to a fraction of that as production ramps up. So, without the hassles of hard drives, including security-related ones, you’ll be able to store thousands of e-books.
The forthcoming $200 Asus laptop will use solid-state memory rather than the usual mechanical disk even though its capacity is a far cry from 32G. Booting up with a hard drive computer generally isn’t as fast as with a machine that uses solid state memory. And we e-bookers like “Instant on,” one appeal of PDAs.
Rewrite limits raised
In the current BusinessWeek, moreover, tech columnist Stephen Wildstrom tells how new technology allows a much greater number of rewrites than before—which was an earlier limitation of solid-state drives.
What’s more, it appears that most new PCs will soon be able to use free space on a USB memory key as a temporary storage area to boost performance.
Drop-resistant hardware
Of greater interest to laptop and tablet users, solid state memory will bring us closer to the nirvana of allowing e-book-friendly hardware to be drop-resistant, especially in the era of e-paper. Rubberize a tablet case, and you’re already there or close to it. Wait. Actually the latest version of the $175 OLPC laptop already can survive drops—no small benefit for K-12 e-book reading or reading in remote locations. Oh, to think of all the potential e-book readers in developing countries, especially as prices go down, so that eventually the equivalent of $175 laptop will cost $49.95 or less!
Solid-state drives in action
From Wildstrom: “I tried two SSD-equipped laptops. One was a Dell Latitude D420 notebook with a 32 GB SanDisk SSD as a $450 option. The other was a prototype subcompact notebook Samsung provided me, rigged with one of its own 32 gb SSDs. These two notebooks, both running Windows XP, showed a big performance gain, mostly in the form of faster boot times and, especially, faster wake-up from hibernation. They also gained a bit of battery life, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes on a charge. I’m not sure that’s worth the extra cost, though there’s a clear benefit in eliminating the mechanically fragile hard drive in a PC like the Dell ATG for rugged use, which also has an optional SanDisk SSD drive.”
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Comments:
“As for the limits on rewrites, manufacturers have greatly improved the situation by spiffing up the semiconductors and adding software that makes sure the data in any one chip location aren’t changed too often”
I’m still wondering how it will do in data-intensive situations. For example, I have a 40gb hd in my ultraportable about 15gb of that is used for apps. The other 25gb I tend to fill up with new data every 2 days and have to offload onto another computer, rinse wash repeat. I’d like to see some specs on how these SSDs are going to deal with these sorts of issues (same thing with the rumored SSD-based iPod — I tend to change the data on my iPod daily since I use it largely for video).
“They also gained a bit of battery life, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes on a charge. I’m not sure that’s worth the extra cost, though there’s a clear benefit in eliminating the mechanically fragile hard drive in a PC like the Dell ATG for rugged use, which also has an optional SanDisk SSD drive.”
Ugh..15 to 20 minutes just not worth it unless the ruggedized issue is important.
Brian, you’re raising legit points about read/write, and it’s great for you to make sure people are aware of the negatives in certain situations, but not everyone will have your set of needs. Just avoid an SSD model. As for battery life, that’s acknowledged in the BW article itself. For people like me, who’d cherish instant on and who don’t have your requirements, an SSD tablet would be terrific. Meanwhile let’s home the tech improves to the point where it’ll be of more interest to you. Thanks. David