when is the next GEN of SSDs?

silk186

silk186

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 26, 2008
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I will soon be in a position where I'm able to afford to buy an SSD but I feel that the m4 is getting a little long in the tooth. I'm wondering when is the next generation due. I also remember reading the Intels next line would be able to withstand power outages. My power is a bit unreliable but I move around a lot and don't want to travel with a heavy UPS.
 
Crucial M4 was released around april 2011, and Samsung 830 was around Oct 2011, Intel released their 320s and 510s around March 2011, the only other ssd schedule to be released soon is Intel 520, the rest dont have anything short term. That said OCZ seems to be releasing ssd constantly, recently they just released their indilix based ssd and other versions of their vertex/agility/etc. Now something like Gen4 of ssd.... no one knows, we might see refreshes next year with better tweaked controllers... but the current seem to be doing fine. That said Intel n Crucial are starting to produce 20nm nand flash, so i expect to see sometime next year new ssd with it, but who knows.... if you are planning on buying this year, just get Crucial M4 or Samsung 830, or want to wait for jan/feb 2012 wait for intel 520.

Now if you move around a lot, i would suggest to drop the desktop for a laptop, this will also help since you dont want an UPS and you power isnt as stable as it has its own battery. I never really found destkops to be mobile solutions either way. Something like Sager NP8130 would be a good option, just upgrade the cpu to quad and your set.
 
I will look into the Samsung 830, I don't have much faith in OCZ
 
I don't think we'll see drives with 20nm until late next year at best, 2013 at worst. Controllers have to be re-validated and firmware rewritten and 20nm is only now entering production...

I bought an 830 recently mostly because it came with a better bundle than the M4 (Batman AC + a Ghost license + USB/SATA adapter) and they were the same price at the time, they're really close performance wise. The M4 was kind of one of the earliest drives out for this generation but that doesn't make it any less relevant.

Prices seems relatively stable lately, I'm kinda doubting they'll drop further until the HDD shortage is sorted. You see lots of deals on older and lower end drives, and pretty much none on the high end (M4/830/510) except for some deals on SF drives (in part to fight the bad PR I imagine, tho SF drive manufacturers have always been fairly aggressive on pricing).
 
The newer the flash, the worse it performs. The C300 is better than the M4. So, you might not want a new SSD.
 
That's not true at all... The M4 is slightly better in some cases, slightly worse in others, and it could largely be the newer firmware that's responsible for most of it. Smaller flash is not inherently slower though... That'd make it pointless.
 
Flash does indeed have some nasty traits that worsen as cell size decreases. The most important of these is write endurance. If I remember correctly, cell leakage also increases, meaning that un-touched data on flash will "go bad" sooner and sooner. I've heard that data on MLC flash usually lasts less than 10 years without being refreshed. Fortunately, as flash controllers continue to improve these problems are mostly mitigated.

I do not recall ever hearing that smaller geometries causes slower performance, though.

If the faults of flash are particularly concerning to you, there is always the option to wait for a next-generation non-volatile memory technology to debut on SSDs, which could be as soon as 2013.
 
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