apoorv.sharma
Lean mean A@# kickin M/C
It's nice to know that 2007 will finally bring one of the most coveted advances in computing -- the solid-state hard drive. The appeal of solid-state drives (SSD) is plain: They're lighter, faster, quieter and less power-hungry than conventional notebook hard disk drives (HDD), and they won't break if you drop them. NAND is the storage technology that will drive SSDs, making it one of the key technologies to watch in 2007.
NAND (which stands for "Not and") is a type of flash memory technology that excels at reading, writing and erasing data from flash memory. NOR (short for "Not or") is the other type of flash-based storage and is better suited for retrieving data from smaller devices like cell phones. NAND's strengths make it ideally suited for larger-storage drives.
Recognizing the appeal of solid-state mass-storage drives, a number of memory manufacturers have begun to develop flash memory drives for inclusion in laptops and other portable devices. In early 2006, Samsung Corp. announced the development of a 32GB NAND drive that it touted as a "hard-drive" killer, and both Samsung and Sony Corp. have released notebooks with flash-based drives in Asia. A number of other notebook manufacturers, including Toshiba Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd., have expressed a desire to integrate memory drives into notebook computers.
Recent reports have indicated that solid-state hard drives are being built with data throughput capacity of up to 62MB/sec.This is close to 100 times faster than conventional hard drives.
The kicker? The 32GB drive that SanDisk Corp. claims is capable of these speeds has a 1.8-in. design. Finally, because of their small size and lack of moving parts, NAND drives consume a fraction of the energy and generate a small percentage of the heat of standard disk-based drives.
The downside of NAND drives is that these tiny drives cost upwards of $500 or $600. That's a lot of budget room to spend on a 32GB drive, which explains why technology hasn't been implemented in more laptop configurations.
NAND (which stands for "Not and") is a type of flash memory technology that excels at reading, writing and erasing data from flash memory. NOR (short for "Not or") is the other type of flash-based storage and is better suited for retrieving data from smaller devices like cell phones. NAND's strengths make it ideally suited for larger-storage drives.
Recognizing the appeal of solid-state mass-storage drives, a number of memory manufacturers have begun to develop flash memory drives for inclusion in laptops and other portable devices. In early 2006, Samsung Corp. announced the development of a 32GB NAND drive that it touted as a "hard-drive" killer, and both Samsung and Sony Corp. have released notebooks with flash-based drives in Asia. A number of other notebook manufacturers, including Toshiba Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd., have expressed a desire to integrate memory drives into notebook computers.
Recent reports have indicated that solid-state hard drives are being built with data throughput capacity of up to 62MB/sec.This is close to 100 times faster than conventional hard drives.
The kicker? The 32GB drive that SanDisk Corp. claims is capable of these speeds has a 1.8-in. design. Finally, because of their small size and lack of moving parts, NAND drives consume a fraction of the energy and generate a small percentage of the heat of standard disk-based drives.
The downside of NAND drives is that these tiny drives cost upwards of $500 or $600. That's a lot of budget room to spend on a 32GB drive, which explains why technology hasn't been implemented in more laptop configurations.
