Storage - Page 128

Intel has just announced their release of a 34nm NAND flash cell in an SSD. But while this is pretty cool news all on its own; the real news is that this will reduce the price of the existing 50nm versions.

According to Intel the move will help reduce the prices of the 50nm MLC SSDs by up to 60%... but that is 60% off of the original prices not current market prices.

The new pricing for the X-25-M 80GB will be $225; this is indeed 60% of the original $595. The problem is that you can get the X25-M 80GB for $324 from NewEgg this makes the new reduced price about 30% off the current market. The 160GB flavor of the X25-M will be $440, you can get the X25-M 160GB for $629 right now.

Don't get me wrong that is still a good bit off the price but not a 60% reduction to be sure.

Recently Kingston made news by being the first to have a 128GB Flash drive out and on the market. Kingston was not satisfied with this capacity and so decided to do a one up and release a 256GB version.

The new drive will sell under the label of DataTraveler 300. The new drive will run under the USB 2.0 standard. It will feature the same Password Traveler software as the DT200 that allows you to create a hidden, password protected area for your private documents.

Pricing is a little high at $935 (more than some 256GB SSDs. This price will make the DT 300 a toy for only a very small number of people.

Although not really computer related news I thought this was interesting. The new LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) has sent back some of its first images.

The images were shot right on the edge of the terminator (the line between the dark and light sides of the moon) they were intended to map out suitable areas for future manned landing sites.

Now the interesting part is that although none of these images are near any of the landing sites, many "no-moon-landing" skeptics are already using this to "prove" that man never went to the moon.

Adding to the craziness (and fun for me) some people are already saying they are doctored images...

Intel seems to be on a roll bumping up product releases, first with the announcement that Clarkdale would be coming this year instead of next and now with reports that their new SSDs are just weeks away instead of the Q4 release that was expected.

Based on the success of Corsair's P256 solid state drive, Corsair has decided to launch the new P128 and P64 drive which offers the same performance essentially at a lower cost to consumers.

I am always on the lookout for unusual news and this one fits right in there.

A Forbes' reporter took a Panasonic Toughbook CF-30 and decided he was going to find a way to destroy it. Not all at once as there are many things that will kill off even the hardiest of machines but to see exactly how much it could take before dying.

After exhausting the official Panasonic claims they fed it to a Tiger, allowed an Elephant to step on it and finally shot it with a .22.

The .22 did the most damage and actually put a hole through the screen but did not stop the book from working.

There is a great video showing the torture at the link

Read more here

Buffalo has announced that they are refreshing their RUF2-PS line of tiny flash drives, bringing a 16GB model into the mix.

Yesterday we commented on OCZ extending their warranties on their Vertex and Summit solid state drives and provided some speculation towards their reasoning behind the extra year of warranty.

AMD may be getting its Mojo back and gearing up to give Intel a bit of a bloody nose, with industry sources telling us the firm is planning to include SATA3 in their SB800 South Bridge series due out in the first quarter of next year.

If this is indeed the case, it would mean littler chipper (AMD) could even leapfrog Intel in Southbridge technology, something which we are currently taking with a pile of believe-it-when-we-see-it salt, as AMD have something of a track record of being a generation behind Chipzilla on SB tech.

Another industry source told us AMD would definitely have SATA 3 native on SB800 but that USB3 would likely not be and would require a third party chip.

Word from motherboard makers is that those who want to add SATA3 to their Intel mainboards will have to use a third party chip like the Marvell offering GIGABYTE was showing off at Computex a couple of weeks ago on its P55 products. But the native on-chip solutions versus third-party on-mobo solutions are not really a convincing argument in our humble opinion. Typically, the customer doesn't care and in many cases using a third-party solution from Broadcom, Marvell or Atheros gives you a cost or time to market advantage.

Western Digital is doing a 180 today as they have just announced their new line of SSDs. The funny thing is that six months ago they were saying there was no market for SSDs.

Boy I guess all of those reviews spec sheets, price lists and everything else were all just a Funonion induced dream.

If I am reading this right; it looks like WD made the comment, realized that it missed the boat, bought a company that actually makes SSDs and now is quietly releasing them and hoping no one remembers they said there was no market.

Read more here.