Samsung has been pioneering efforts to improve performance of SSDs in operating systems, working with Apple to integrate ZFS reading and writing to the next version of OSX Server. This means a 128-bit file system with faster data throughput and lots of other fun things that make servers run better. This also means Apple is taking SSD technology seriously, as it has already dropped the price of the SSD upgrade for the MacBook Air—the only current MacBook to ship with an SSD option—to US$599 from US$999. We likely won’t see SSDs across the MacBook lines yet, but this means it could be in the cards. [MacRumors]
Asus’s EeePC 901 has already proved itself very hackable but Buffalo’s newest product won’t require much modding: 32GB or 64GB replacement SSD’s. Not much more to say, apart from the obvious: more storage, more impact resilient, longer battery life. The best bit? The 32GB SHD-EP9M32G is a mere US$156, and the 64GB SHD-EP9M64G an equally neat US$316. Available in Japan at first, mid-September.
Tom’s Hardware tested battery life in laptops with SSDs yet again and found that they aren’t such a power suck, correcting a previous study. SSDs didn’t outperform their HDD counterparts in all tests, but combined with Laptop Mag’s study I think we can safely put the issue to rest for now. [Tom's Hardware]
We mentioned it back in February, and Samsung has now come good with its promise, announcing today that it’s started mass-production of 128GB SSDs. They’re of the slightly slower but cheaper multi-level cell technology, with a read speed of 90MBps and write speed of 70MBps. And Samsung claims they’ll have a life span around “20 times longer than the generally accepted 4-5 year life span of a notebook PC hard drive.” It’ll be interesting to see what this move does to the price of SSDs, particularly now that we like them again. Press release below.
I hope this SSD good/bad theme doesn’t turn into one of those long-running “good for you/bad for you” food fiascoes (is coffee on the good list again, by the way? Blogging is thirsty work.) A new bit of investigation by Laptopmag seems to challenge the Tom’s Hardware study that put SSD’s battery performance in the shade. Citing flaws in the original method, the new study tried the drives under a more “real world use” test regime: cycling through webpages over and over.
Solid state drives (SSDs) are the inevitable future of mobile computing, but a new experiment by Tom’s Hardware is extremely disappointing. It ends up that the touted power savings of SSDs over their moving-parts-laden cousins are nonexistent. In fact, SSDs are sucking more power than conventional hard drives. How is this possible? Tom’s Hardware thinks they know.
OCZ’s new Core Series SSD’s are designed to be large and affordable. So the new 2.5-inch SATA II flash drives are coming in 128GB, 64GB and 32GB sizes at US$479, US$259 and US$169 respectively. They don’t match up to the 200Mbps read speeds Samsung has promised–managing 135Mbs– but that price point is pretty low. And while they’re too big to drop into the smallest laptops (MacBook Air owners will weep), they might be just the ticket for people looking to cheaply upgrade to SSD–OCZ claim ten times faster than their HDDs and half the power. Available “soon.” Press release below.
NAB in Las Vegas saw the unveiling of Panasonic’s HPX-170 P2 solid-state camera. The 1080p camcorder has the widest zoom lens in its class, a 13x Leica Dicomar with 28mm wide-angle setting, and an SDI interface, all in a 1.2kg body. Full press release of the HPX-170 P2 after the jump.
They’re not the first—Falcon NW had the blazing fast MTron SSD in their Mach V a month ago, says buddy Gordon from Max PC—but Alienware has just started offering 64GB of SSD in their Aurora ALX and Area-51 ALX desktops. [Alienware]
AU: Of course, Alienware is still MIA here in Australia – we’ve made repeated attempts to contact, and even local reps for Dell have indicated things are very thin here for that brand (it is still very much a separate entity). Considering the site still says ‘coming soon’ for P2 chassis desktops (as it has for many, many months) and it also ‘recommends Vista Home Premium’… lets just look on at the US and look forward to Dell whipping things into shape in future. -SB
Review by Gizmodo contributor Curtis Walker SDHC, or Secure Digital High Capacity, finally lets SD break the 2GB barrier and compete with Compact Flash for capacity. Only a handful of new devices are compatible with SDHC, and there’s really no support for legacy gear. This means you can’t even put them into your computer’s SD card slot. You need a special reader which, most cards come with. As grim as that sounds, SDHC is a welcome step-up for people who have newer DSLR’s like Nikon’s D80 or video recorders like Canon’s high-def TX1. I entered nine of them into my own personal laptop-and-camera Battlemodo arena to determine compatibility and raw blistering speed. More »
