SanDisk intros 2.5-inch 32GB SSD hard drive

No, SanDisk's latest offering in the ever-populating SSD realm is far from the largest, but just a tick after releasing a 1.8-inch edition, now the firm is unveiling a laptop (and external enclosure) friendly 2.5-inch flavor. The SanDisk SSD SATA 5000 2.5-inch is touted as a "drop-in replacement for the hard disk drive," and also boasts the durability that purportedly comes with being a fifth-generation product. Additionally, the NAND-based drive features a sustained read rate of 67-megabytes per second, reportedly enabling it to boot Windows Vista Enterprise on a lappie in "as little as 30 seconds." Of course, SanDisk didn't mind flaunting the low power consumption on this one either, as it boldly proclaims the 0.9-watts used during "active operation" as being nearly half as conservative as typical drives. While we're not exactly sure just how much these things will run the average consumer just yet, they are supposedly shipping to computer manufacturers now at around $350 a pop.

[Thanks, Vinit]

[wako @ Mar 13th 2007 1:36PM]

As a laptop user, I wouldnt consider these type of drives until it reaches atleast 80GB. Maybe in another year or two :(

[Kroc Camen @ Mar 13th 2007 2:01PM]

Erhm, OSX already boots in 30 seconds on a normal laptop hard disk. In fact, even my old G4 iMac boots in 35 seconds to a completely ready desktop. I'd rather buy an OS upgrade that actually speeds up the computer, than throw more (expensive) hardware at the problem of Microsoft's sloppy programming.

[Sinbios @ Mar 13th 2007 2:04PM]

Why does everything have to be part of your holy war?

[sd180 @ Mar 13th 2007 9:05PM]

i think you're missing the point... this can be put into a mac as well... think about booting your great-holy-better than sex OSX machine in... 25 seconds instead of 35... or... 15 seconds instead of 30... Imagine that Mr Camen... booting up OSX in 15 seconds on your ibook so that you can start up itunes and have it sync with your ipod which carries pics from iphoto... i-can see the benefits of that... can't you?

you can even make an i-rumor about how steve jobs invented flash-based drives... ay caramba! i-mean, i-caramba...

[Matt @ Mar 13th 2007 2:03PM]

32 GB is perfect size to keep the OS on and any other important programs.
Those bashing it's small size just keep in mind that your gigs of pr0n will run just as well if there is a secondary platter based HD that holds them.

[Jim @ Mar 13th 2007 2:03PM]

How about using the Flash-Drive as the System-Drive. The size most be enough even for Vista ;-) The most operations come from the System-Drive anyway. So you would have a faster OS. Instead of the optical Drive, you would put a "normal" hd for your data. I only use my DVD-Drive when I have to install the OS or other software.

I'm really looking forward, when the drive is going to be available for the public.

[Jim @ Mar 13th 2007 2:06PM]

same Idea at the same time ;-)

[Kevlar @ Mar 13th 2007 2:42PM]

The problem is, Mr. Matt, that most laptops don't have room for two hard disks, platter-based or otherwise.

[scott @ Mar 13th 2007 2:07PM]

Get this into the same box as the upcoming 1 TB drives and then youll have something, keep the OS on this and the 1TB for everything else would be magnificent.

[spam_from_engadget @ Mar 13th 2007 2:07PM]

It's a shame that they only have 32G versions. I only need about 4 or 8G (no bloatware here!) which should be much cheaper. Currently I'm using IDE flash modules, but they have rather lower data rates than these drives.

[Leon @ Mar 13th 2007 2:16PM]

I'd buy it. I typically only use between 5-10 GB on my laptop, mainly since I don't fill it with insane amounts of music and multimedia. 350$ is a little high, and I would want to know how long the drive would last given it's read and write lifespan. Overall not too shabby though.

@Kroc
Yay, fanboy bullshit, and only 3 posts in.

[andy @ Mar 13th 2007 2:23PM]

I'm still sporting a 20 GB drive in my Dell Inspiron 8200. This drive is positioned very nicely in my mind. That price is a little on the high side though.

[Jer @ Mar 13th 2007 2:25PM]

...but I you'd...

Don't quit your day job.

[Jacob Kennedy @ Mar 13th 2007 2:37PM]

Nice. I missed it the first time. I love nitpicking the nitpicker.

My current lappie is only a 40 and I really would like more space - so 32 is not enough but it's obviously right around the corner. Where I can see this being really useful is in a USB-powered enclosure. I can't tell but is this drive even in the neighbourhood? 0.9 watts doesn't mean anything to me but it seems high for a USB-powered enclosure.

[F1ghter @ Mar 13th 2007 2:30PM]

Wow, the price is GREAT! At $11/GB this is no more expensive than the average price/GB of a small flash drive; I'd have expected it to be twice as much. It has a ways to go before it can be really good without an HDD used in conjunction, but I'm loving the direction things are going.

[Matt @ Mar 13th 2007 3:00PM]

There are plenty of laptops out there with Dual cd drives/dual batteries/CD Drive and a floppy. I think if the OEM's put their minds to it they'll be able to find the space for a Flash + standard HD combo.

[Steve @ Mar 13th 2007 2:46PM]

@Leon,
Its not fanboy bullshit. OS X really does boot up ridiculously fast compared to Windows. I've yet to test Vista (w/ or w/o a flash drive to boost performance), but comparing my MacBook to my PC Desktop, there's no competition from my PC.

WHy is it that, as soon as someone says "Mac," "Apple," or "OSX" everyone starts booing and crying "fanboy bullshit"? Its even worse if a writer mentions Apple in any way other than negative. Fanboys are the baised kiddies slandering the other side, not the ones who come in and can attest to a quality product. OS X is quality; its streamlined, each version more hardware-efficient than the last. Windows is the opposite; it foregoes hardware optimization for eye-candy features. Yes, its harder (damn near impossible) for MS to optimize Windows for the limitless combinations of hardware out there, but they don't even try to limit the bloat in their product. Apple, on the other hand, is mindful about that, because of how many older Macs are still in common use (G3s, G4s, G5s, Intels). All of them can run the newest Mac OS at respectible speeds, thanks to Apple's dedication to their OS.

[Revrant2394 @ Mar 13th 2007 4:07PM]

Because everyone is sick of hearing it, sick to death beyond words, it's enough that Engadget had it's Apple ass-kissery for so long, but to have people flood in and join the Windows bashing OS X love orgy, it just gets on people's nerves beyond mention.

So OS X does boot up that lightning fast then, does it? Well, we'll call it the McDonalds of OSs and leave it at that.

As for this, Flash is not a viable alternative to platters, it does not have the life for it, we need to be focusing on bringing MRAM and it's alternatives to market, they have an ungodly lifespan and far better write speeds if similar read speeds, until then this isn't much of a step forward in lifespan. Now for reliability, it's sturdier and harder to break versus a platter drive, so for on and off use with a business laptop or the like, it's just fine.

[sickofit @ Mar 13th 2007 6:00PM]

You completely miss the point. Its fanboy bullsh*t because it is entirely irrelevant to the particular article. If this article were devoted to Microsoft Vista, then it would be understandable that people would make comments about the relative values of the offerings from Microsoft and Apple. But when someone comes out of the blue and makes unprovoked comments because of a vague and irrelevant reference to vista in an article, thats fanboy bullsh*t and its getting really tiresome. I used to like reading the comments on posts because, previously, engadget readers would add substance and help to further develop my, and others, understanding of the product. But recently it seems that the majority of posts devolve into Apple love/hate fests.

[Steve @ Mar 13th 2007 2:52PM]

It would be cool to see this drive in a 3.5" format (maybe more storage space can be thrown in, too) for use in desktop computers. As others have said, it would be great for a system drive with its crazy-fast read-write speeds, and applications, data, etc, could still be stored on a seperate drive.

[andy @ Mar 13th 2007 3:04PM]

@steve

At 32GB, you'd put all your apps on this drive (and games too). You'd just want a 1tb platter drive to store your: music, videos, xbox homebrew, documents, etc.

I'm with you though. I do this now with a small quick platter based drive and a 500gb platter drive in my desktop.

[CP @ Mar 13th 2007 3:09PM]

Damn, mike you beat me to the half as conservative bit... But yea i agree that these will be great once they can get double the capacity. The best part is that seek times on these drives are nonexistent. I have an 80 gig hd in my laptop that is horrendously slow. its even a 5400 rpm model, but their seek times and transfer rates are so abysmal that even OS X is slow to book and load progs and whatnot. The Instant On type of capability with SSDs it the most promising feature i feel

[Mike @ Mar 13th 2007 3:11PM]

As others mentioned I think that this is a perfect disk for a system drive.

In regards to the operating system, anyone will benefit from faster read times. Something more interesting would be using this drive to hold an Adobe scratch file, cache for video editing, or placing a portion of your swap on it. Those areas are probably where this thing would truly show its worth.

A couple of things I always wondered were if these things have a greater lifespan than your average flash drive (I could see a system drive getting way more than a million writes) and if they are lighter than a standard drive.

It would be way awesome to have a lighter tablet.

[MR @ Mar 13th 2007 3:15PM]

@Steve,

No one is going to boo you if the article is about Apple/Mac/OSX. We've had enough Mac-vs-PC crap going on that it's just sick to see fanboys hijacking every single discussion.

[Synergy6 @ Mar 13th 2007 3:21PM]

What's the MTBF?

[rihahn @ Mar 13th 2007 3:33PM]

The writeup at SanDisk claims 2 million hour MTBF.

[n3rrd @ Mar 13th 2007 3:35PM]

Am I the only one who is perfectly comfortable with the size of this drive? My laptop has a 40GB drive now, and it's more than enough. When I'm out and about, battery life is my main concern and anything that can help improve that is worth using in my eyes.

What is the deal with these SSD drives, though? Can they support more W/R cycles than, say, CompactFlash? If not, how are these anymore worth the amount of money companies are charging for them when people have been naysaying the CF to IDE adapters for a while due to the low number of W/R cycles they can handle?

[Rock Stone @ Mar 13th 2007 3:38PM]

MTBF = Mean Time Between Failure(s)

IIRC

[Chuckles McGee @ Mar 13th 2007 3:39PM]

This is a big landmark for SSDs- actually hitting the on-the-shelf, not a bajillion dollar mark. Yeah, it's only 32 gigs, but a laptop user could deal with that, 32 gigs for an OS, applications and a handful of personal documents/pictures in conjunction with an external drive for everything else is completely doable. By the end of the year we should be seeing higher capacity SSDs at this price that meet nearly every laptop user's needs capacity-wise.

[Leon @ Mar 13th 2007 3:47PM]

@Steve

Where in this article does it mention anything about Apple?
NOWHERE. If someone came into a discussion on Macs with "Windows is better because my machine boots faster" you guys would respond the same way. We get it people who have a Mac like it a lot. Now shut up about it, and quit derailing every goddamn article.

[Steve @ Mar 13th 2007 4:21PM]

"Because everyone is sick of hearing it, sick to death beyond words, it's enough that Engadget had it's Apple ass-kissery for so long, but to have people flood in and join the Windows bashing OS X love orgy, it just gets on people's nerves beyond mention."

One guy said something good about Apple, and he got two PC Fanboys after him. That isn't a flood of Apple fanboyism by any stretch. And I've always found Engadget's reporting to be pretty fair and unbiased, having experienced the best and worst that both systems have to offer now.

I'll admit that Apple has its fanboys, but their numbers are far fewer than those of PC kiddies. Thing is, most Apple users have used both Macs and PCs, so they have experience with both, whereas most PC fanboys have never used a Mac, hiding behind the "I'd never use one because they suck so much" excuse. If half the raging PC fanboys would give Macs a fair shot, they'd see that most, if not all, of their misconceptions are exactly that.

[tresmith @ Mar 13th 2007 4:20PM]

This thing is overpriced. Newegg has 8 gig dirves going for 60 bucks. if you multiple those numbers by four you get 32 gigs for $240. I think that even if it costs more to make the 32 gig drives (which I doubt) it really shouldn't cost more than $300.

[macona @ Mar 13th 2007 4:21PM]

Remember $350 is the OEM price in probably quantity 1000+. Bet consumer pricing will be $450 at least.

OSX is the McDonalds of OS's? What Does that mean?

Billions Served?
Large selection of features for a cheap price?
Fast Service?
Only occasionally burns customers?
Plays games?
An Industry Leader?
A pioneer in their field?

[Revrant2394 @ Mar 13th 2007 4:26PM]

I'm just going to blow that off after "fair and unbiased", sheesh.

I've used both quite a few times, I prefer Windows, I don't need obtuse menu systems, angering single-button mice, and the options I WANT buried under dumbed down and overly pretty interfaces, I can get that just fine from Windows ME, thank you very much.

[Steve @ Mar 13th 2007 4:41PM]

You lost me after "obtuse menu systems." And single-button mice? Are you kidding me? Who DOESN'T use their own mice? I completely ditch whatever cheap PoS mouse that comes with any computer I buy, instead reaching for my tried-and-true Logitech. Anyone so fixated on whining about Apple that they have to cry about a freaking mouse has their priorities skewed.

And I've never had problems finding options. *shrug*

But like I said before, I (as in me, my preferences) always thought that Engadget was pretty unbiased (as in not caving in to PC fanboyism) about PCs/Macs.

[PortSeven @ Mar 13th 2007 4:28PM]

So when will we be able to buy one of these. I still can't find the 32GB 1.8" flash drives that were announced a month or so ago. Don't tell me that they're just selling these to OEMs...

[JimmyB @ Mar 13th 2007 4:43PM]

The amount of time that people keep their computers these days MTBF rating are not going to make impact. If these drives could be put behind the display on a laptop and keep a conventional drive in the current slot you could have a fast drive for booting and your applications and then keep your porn on old school spinning drives.

I would reall prefer a 32 GB drive in a form factor that would nicely in a slate type table and have space for a slot loading optical drive.

[steve @ Mar 13th 2007 5:16PM]

Iirc, a lot of the UMPCs are still use platter based 2.5" drives. this should be a great boon to that form factor because it will greatly increase performance and battery life

[Doc Lucas @ Mar 13th 2007 5:34PM]

Since there are so many power users with laptops, and people who only own a laptop, a larger version will come out. This will drive down the prices of the smaller drives for the rest of us.

We've been waiting a long time for this technology. 32GB would be fine on my desktop, since all my media is on a second drive.

[Wayne Robinson @ Mar 13th 2007 7:10PM]

The thing that really gets me excited about this drive is the 7,000 input/output operations per second and the 0.11ms seek time.

Compared to say a 143GB 15k RPM SAS drive that only gets around 200IOPS and has a seek time of 3.5 + 2 second latency, this drive could be fantastic in situations that require lots of reads/writes in random locations (e.g. databases).

[Leon @ Mar 13th 2007 9:16PM]

If I had a computer (e.g. thinkpad) with an easily swappable hard-disk, I would buy this in an instant. 150 GB HDD for normal use, 32 GB SSD on the go, for me this would be the ultimate solution.

[Jim @ Mar 14th 2007 5:11AM]

I go along with you. But the price is a little bit to high for my budget ;-)

[keith waddington @ Mar 14th 2007 1:04AM]

lol

the main reason to use this kind of thing rather than a HDD is it can be made very small. That means the design of the portable can be improved.

This version is pretty pointless considering the price.

Maybe you should all think more about design implications rather than ms seek time.
doh

keep smiling
waddo

[TB @ Mar 14th 2007 11:34AM]

Bleh. Why does every forum on every topic devolve into PC/Mac, Republican/Democrat, Coke/Pepsi, You suck/Do not.

I don't think anyone is suggesting you swap this out for the HDD in your laptop today, but the trend is obvious -- SSDs are going to continue to get physically smaller, faster, have higher capacities, and cheaper. Plot the price/GB of regular HDDs or RAM. It won't be long until we see hybrid SSD/HDD combos shipping.

[PixelsGold @ Mar 14th 2007 4:23PM]

I read an article on reuters saying that apple "might" be using Flash memory on a subnotebook computer later this year, This SSD might be a good solution for external storage, but the prices really have to come down before it's a commonly used product...considering I'm shopping for a 2.5 inch drive in the same range of size for about $40 or less.

I'd like to see the OS running on a 2-4GB micro drive and then using an external drive for running any large apps I have. The OS shouldn't be so resource hungry like microsoft products have been in the past. And having a small Drive dedicated to running a "lite" version of the OS is probably a favorable solution. I'd like to see how these drives get implemented considering my next computer will probably be in the subnotebook range.

PixelsGold

http://www.pixelsgold.com/
link to Reuters article http://tinyurl.com/yuk5kc

[SjG @ Mar 14th 2007 5:52PM]

There's going to be some interesting developments in the data recovery and computer forensics world as these things get bigger (storage), faster, smaller (physical size), and more popular.

Even if there's no risk of a head crash, there could be other, similar devastating failures. You can't just pop out the platters and take 'em to a clean room if the controller chip dies.

And it will be interesting to see how law enforcement and Nonexistent Agencies develop technologies to read deleted files off of these pups...