Intel's SSD range to benefit from greater capacity and speed

[HEXUS]

As Micron has started volume shipments of its 3D NAND chips.

Read more.

[azrael-]

The era of flash-only storage draws ever closer.

Personally, I'm looking forward to buying an SSD of at least 1 TB capacity this year.

[DanceswithUnix]

So they can do 32 stack compared to Samsung already doing 48 stack: http://hexus.net/tech/news/storage/8...-v-nand-flash/

Still, more competition for Samsung should be good for the consumer.

[shaithis]

The era of flash-only storage draws ever closer.

If we believe the hype over X-Point, the era of flash storage is actually almost over!

[sykobee]

Wait, does that chart say only 1500 P/E cycles for the new Intel TLC 3D flash? That's really low compared to the Charge-Trap that Samsung, etc, employ.

[azrael-]

The era of flash-only storage draws ever closer.

If we believe the hype over X-Point, the era of flash storage is actually almost over!

Maybe "solid state-only storage" would have been a more apt description, but otherwise I'm sticking with my story.

[TRUTHnTRINITY]

Is it 32 stack for 256 or 384?

[pastymuncher]

The era of flash-only storage draws ever closer.

Personally, I'm looking forward to buying an SSD of at least 1 TB capacity this year.

I am just about to do it. I got a 960Gb Sandisk Ultra II from Ebuyer for £159 on Friday which arrived today and I ordered a 250GB SK hynix Canvas SL301 for £41.89 from Scan also on Friday which will be here tomorrow. The 250Gb will be my C drive and will replace my dying Sandisk Extreme 240Gb, and the 960Gb will be my Steam and everything else drive replacing my Hitachi 1tb hdd (which is going in a external usb 3.0 enclosure) and my current steam drive which is a Crucial M500 240Gb which is going in my lappy.

[tomasz]

If we believe the hype over X-Point, the era of flash storage is actually almost over!

Intel and Micron did suggest they would release some 3D XPoint memory based devices in 2016.
If they do and it delivers on promises, this would be the end of NAND flash.

[DanceswithUnix]

Intel and Micron did suggest they would release some 3D XPoint memory based devices in 2016.
If they do and it delivers on promises, this would be the end of NAND flash.

Not at the expected sky high pricing it won't.

If you can choose a 128GB XPoint drive that can saturate your PCIe bus, or a 1TB flash SSD that can also saturate the PCIe bus by using lots of channels, what do you care how the magic works you buy the bigger drive with the same overall performance for the lower money.

What gets interesting is using XPoint as a RAM replacement. That won't happen in PCs any time soon, but makes for some new use cases where flash doesn't work.

[Ironbuket]

I am just about to do it. I got a 960Gb Sandisk Ultra II from Ebuyer for £159 on Friday which arrived today and I ordered a 250GB SK hynix Canvas SL301 for £41.89 from Scan also on Friday which will be here tomorrow. The 250Gb will be my C drive and will replace my dying Sandisk Extreme 240Gb, and the 960Gb will be my Steam and everything else drive replacing my Hitachi 1tb hdd (which is going in a external usb 3.0 enclosure) and my current steam drive which is a Crucial M500 240Gb which is going in my lappy.

I think it is down to the way you interpret the word 'storage'. If you are thinking about storage drives, then mechanical still makes more sense because it is still vastly cheaper. I have multiple backups of my data on mechanical drives. To do that with solid state drives would cost far too much and yield few benefits. I think we are a few years away from solid state becoming cheaper than mechanical. Only then will the era of mechanical storage be over.

The era of mechanical system drives is more or less over already.

[Kumagoro]

SSDs for storage to me are good for laptops but for desktops I would rather have an Optane OS drive and HDD.

Having an Optane drive would be like running the OS in a RAM drive. SSDs may saturate the sequential reads and writes but for 4k speed improvements have been minimal. I believe Optane should be an order of magnitude quicker in that respect.

Hopefully a 128GB Optane drive is no more than a £100.


I wonder what it will take in hardware and software terms for Optane to work as the OS drive as RAM.

[DanceswithUnix]

SSDs may saturate the sequential reads and writes but for 4k speed improvements have been minimal.

I thought that until recently, but looking at the Samsung 950 Pro benchmarks, that sucker just doesn't seem to slow down.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD15/1185

Indications so far have been that XPoint storage will be priced closer to DDR3 than Flash, around £300 for your 128GB drive. That would have to come a long way down for me to more than point and laugh.

[ed^chigliak]

I'm all for driving my innovation forwards and reaping unprecedented benefits with Micron by my side spewing marketing drivel if the prices are less than Samsung drives.

How this new 3D NAND is proven for more than 3 decades is a mystery. Marketing is just so much meaningless BS.

This was paper launched 12 months ago and now it has finally arrived I consider it:-

A) Late to market

B) UNPROVEN

[Ironbuket]

Having an Optane drive would be like running the OS in a RAM drive.

You do realise that RAM drives are very close in performance to a good SSD anyway?

[kalniel]

You do realise that RAM drives are very close in performance to a good SSD anyway?

Not close a 'normal' SATA connected SSD. PCI-E/NVMe are closer, if you can find one that sustains it without throttling.