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ioDrive solid-state hard drive is world's fastest, but not cheap
Before you think you're looking at some obscure and geeky computer part, realize this: You're looking into the future. This Fusion-io ioDrive prototype is a solid-state hard drive that plugs into the PCI bus, that place inside your computer where video cards go, and that means a lot of your computing will go a whole lot faster.
How fast? It reads data at 473 megabytes per second (MB/sec), nearly twice as fast as that Micron solid-state drive we were raving about last month, and blowing away any spinning hard drive with ease. So far, this test unit only works on 64-bit systems, and you can't use it as a boot drive. But when you can, expect startup times to be a lot quicker. Also you'll see applications launch a lot faster, and anything you do that accesses a hard drive to be noticeably accelerated.
However, in comes that fundamental truth: "Good, fast, cheap — pick two." These drives will be really good and enormously fast, but not cheap, starting out at $3,000 for a smallish 80GB unit, up to a jaw-dropping $14,400 for a proper 320GB drive. Those prices will drop a lot, and quickily, because someday soon all hard drives will be made this way.
Tweaktown, via BB Gadgets
By budgethero at 12:58 PM ON 12/11/08
(pardon me, not a computer expert. may sound like a dufus)
so, is this essentially a big thing of RAM or a completely new type of hard drive?
By Boxerfanatic at 1:16 PM ON 12/11/08
Not exactly RAM, but somewhat similar, by being similarly solid state transistors, not moving magnetic discs.
More like NAND memory in flash drives, media players like iPod, and camera cards.
With a full size PCI card, I wonder how much of flash memory can fit on a circuit board that big...
I think I know what I want for my future Home Theater PC 'hackintosh.'
DVR and media library functions from a drive that fast with less heat and vibration than a platter-based drive... YES Please, once the prices come down...
I can't imagine that they won't fall like a stone... You can get flash drives in 16GB capacities without much fuss, size and price are coming down.
By Bert Backrack at 4:18 PM ON 12/11/08
That's awesome but.... I'm trying to think of something I need THAT much speed for. I am failing.
By Kubiak at 4:38 PM ON 12/11/08
Are you kidding? The speed at which this would operate, and only get faster in the near future is incredible. The lowly little magnetic hard drive is one of the largest bottlenecks we have in pc speed today. This is definitely a great thing to see coming to market. Being solid state makes it more reliable and possibly less power hungry than a standard hard drive in addition to the speed benefits.
By foxelein at 11:19 PM ON 12/21/08
do you guys imagine playing game's with this drive..plus some physx driver..wow,.. really i can't imagine it until use it..arrgghhh... :)
By Paul at 3:02 PM ON 01/02/09
This would be a massive boon for many applications. For the "average" user I don't see a lot of application though. With the read/write speeds they are obtaining on these things I wonder how long it will be before we are just using plug in modules as both hard drives and RAM type memory. Combine these with some FPGA's and you almost have a scalable computer.
Large databases, Video editing/rendering, file serving, point cloud processing, attack vehicles (manned and unmanned), automated transport (mag lev, trains, subs). Those are just the uses I can think of off the top of my head.
By LOKI2030 at 7:29 PM ON 02/04/09
exactly paul, thank you. the civilian/science/military applications could be endless. when the prices for the drive go down the speed at which people communicate or share info would be unheard of from todays standards and our ability to more and more complex systems in everything we do will undoubtably become things of the past. just by making a faster computer with little resources and cheaper gets human kind that much closer to being able to create our very own sentient being; if you really want to take it that far that is. theres no doubt that since this driver is just being made, in the near future the size of it will shrink. its like what researchers at intel say "the technology that is in stores now are years behind what is already available to them."
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LOKI2030:
exactly paul, thank you. the civilian/science/military applications could be endless. when the prices for the drive...More »