News - OCZ launches Core Series V2 SSDs, raises capacity to 250GB

[miniyazz]

I have some pricings for the OCZ series SSDs from w ww.overclockers.co.uk (it won't let me post a link sorry, I'm too new) (all inc. VAT):

OCZ Core 32GB: £117.49
OCZ Core 64GB: £187.99
OCZ Core 128GB: £303.14
All of which have read vs write speeds of 120-143MB/s vs 80-93MB/s.

OCZ Core V2 30GB: £152.74
OCZ Core V2 60GB: £206.79
OCZ Core V2 120GB: £365.41
OCZ Core V2 250GB: £730.84
All of which have read vs write speeds of up to 170MB/s vs 98MB/s.

Other than the speeds (and capacities) there are no obvious specification differences. The capacity difference implies that the original OCZ Core series is measured in gigabytes while the OCZ Core V2 series is measured in gibibytes, but I may be wrong.

An SSD is starting to look more and more tempting for my desktop..

[miniyazz]

The question is: Does flash actually need to be as cheap as magnetic drives?

It can certainally be a lot faster, and that is where the real market is going to be in my opinion. Once well performing 64GB drives are affordable, then you will have a lot more people sticking one of them along with a nice big 500GB+ magnetic drive in their PC.

I don't really expect flash drives to be as economical as regular drives for a long long time, but i do expect them to become mainstream in the next year to two years.

IMO, at this point the benefits of SSD are most pronounced for the OS and programs, due to shortened seek times. For storage, which tends to be larger files (either music tracks or films, for example) short seek times are far less important, and the onus is on maximum storage for minimum cost. So in the medium-term, SSDs will probably overtake HDDs as the primary hard drive for a system but HDDs will remain the medium of choice for storage until SSDs either become cheaper per gigabyte, or practically as cheap but far faster.

[shaithis]

IMO, at this point the benefits of SSD are most pronounced for the OS and programs, due to shortened seek times. For storage, which tends to be larger files (either music tracks or films, for example) short seek times are far less important, and the onus is on maximum storage for minimum cost. So in the medium-term, SSDs will probably overtake HDDs as the primary hard drive for a system but HDDs will remain the medium of choice for storage until SSDs either become cheaper per gigabyte, or practically as cheap but far faster.

Personally I cannot see that happening, the vast majority of users are not going to pay for an SSD as well as a HDD.

SSDs will get used primarily in portable solutions, therefore will be for storing music/film. No moving parts, smaller, more energy efficient.

HDDs will continue being the "PC device", regardless of use.

The vast majority of PCs that are sold are based around keeping cost as low as possible, of course enthusiasts will adopt SSD early but I can't see many others doing it for quite some time.

Once the prices and capacities come close to evening out, then they will be adopted "en mass" by the PC industry.

[Biscuit]

The thing is that WITH SSDs a lot more things become portable, smaller, lighter and more energy efficient which means they will be used in more and more devices so its not just one market where the enthusiasts will pick up on it will be many which will bring a pull in the market for this kind of technology.

[eskimoblue]

What about the possibility that motherboard manufacturers will licence/adopt the ssd technology and produce motherboards with an SSD onboard?

[Funkstar]

Possible (anything is possible) but would you really want to have this onboard? I wouldn't.

Motherboards with integrated memory or processors have never been popular, I can't imagine ones with integrated SSDs would be either, except in very limited situations.

the think that might catch on is adding the small socket connector they are using in Netbooks (like the Eee) for their SSDs to small form factor motherboards so you don't have to have a 1.8" or 2.5" drive attached by power and cable.

[b0redom]

Personally I cannot see that happening, the vast majority of users are not going to pay for an SSD as well as a HDD.

That's exactly what I'm doing. The OCZ v1 SSD is very fast. Typically loads a WIC level with all the settings maxxed out in ~1 sec.

For most data, I'd be happy to stick with a magnetic drive.

One thing everyone else has neglected to mention so far is that most of the SSDs currently in production are 2.5" form factor - presumably this is because they're being aimed at the portable market in the main due to lower power consumption.

I see no reason at all why it would not be possible to stick 2 (or more once you factor in the casing) together to make a larger 3.5" 'consumer' SSD.

[Funkstar]

You could probably squeeze up to 10x the number of chips in a 2.5" SSD into a 3.5" for factor.

The cost would be astronomical though

[chrestomanci]

What about the possibility that motherboard manufacturers will licence/adopt the ssd technology and produce motherboards with an SSD onboard?

In a way, that has already happened with low cost laptops like the ASUS EE PC. The 8Gb or whatever storage that they come with is in the form of flash memory chips directly soldered to the motherboard rather than attached to it over a SATA cable or the like. The flash chips don't incorporate wear leveling or block device emulation, instead that is managed by the host OS (linux). In that form there is nothing to licence from OCZ or anyone else. flash memory chips are commodity items.

I doubt onboard flash will ever be popular on desktop motherboards because of the space it occupies and the lack of upgradablity, though it may appear on low end boards aimed at system builders, or special market segments. MiniITX boards usually come with the CPU soldered on. Perhaps in future there will be versions with 32GB of flash as well, allowing a very compact low end PC to be built. At one time you could get boards with cheap AMD Duron CPUs soldered on, for price about £20 below that of an equivalent mobo and cpu separately.