# Solid state HDs for Apple?



## aved (May 18, 2006)

Just wondering if anyone has heard of Apple developing SSDs for laptops? I have heard rumors that Sony is going to release a SSD laptop soon...Hope Apple does the same.


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## MisterMe (May 18, 2006)

People have been talking about solid state disks for the better part of the last 30 years, if not longer. Within the past year, there was a boomlet about flash drives replacing rotating platter drives. The fact remains that rotating platters continue to dramatically increase capacity while dramatically lowering prices. Solid state technologies have obvious advantages, but they still have a significant economic disadvantage. I will not hold my breath until this situation changes.


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## Veljo (May 18, 2006)

I agree, I think it'll be a long time before we see any kind of large capacity flash drives in computers that consumers will be able to afford.


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## Lt Major Burns (May 19, 2006)

although in the last 5 years, flash drives have gone from 32mb @ £100 to 2/4GB @ £100, tha's a pretty steep curve.  the original iBook shipped about 6 years ago _with a 3gb hard drive_.  which probably cost apple around £80-100 back then.  flash drives are coming.


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## Mikuro (May 19, 2006)

Is the demand for capacity increasing at the same rate as flash technology? I don't think so. The demand for capacity increases relatively slowly, and even then, it's mostly driven by luxuries &#8212; like movies, music, and games &#8212; that a very large market would just as soon do without.

However, I think Apple will wait longer than other companies, because that market doesn't overlap with their current target. How would they sell Macs without lots of space to use iTunes, iMovie, GarageBand, etc.? Apple only targets a fraction of the market that's out there, and it doesn't look like that will change. But flash is bound to catch up even to Apple's market sooner or later.

I wonder how much disk space my brother or my sister use. If you stripped out all the preinstalled crap they don't need or want, it would surely fit in 8-16GB.


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## MisterMe (May 19, 2006)

Mikuro said:
			
		

> Is the demand for capacity increasing at the same rate as flash technology? I don't think so. The demand for capacity increases relatively slowly, and even then, it's mostly driven by luxuries  like movies, music, and games  that a very large market would just as soon do without.


We live and work in very different worlds then. The computer I am using now is the first in which I have not had to add hard drive capacity. I don't see the how the user who buys software or creates files can avoid bumping into the capacity limits of his/her as purchased computer. In fact, I see a lot of users on this and other forums who are experiencing performance problems because they have exceeded 90% of the capacity of their hard drives.


			
				Mikuro said:
			
		

> However, I think Apple will wait longer than other companies, because that market doesn't overlap with their current target. How would they sell Macs without lots of space to use iTunes, iMovie, GarageBand, etc.? Apple only targets a fraction of the market that's out there, and it doesn't look like that will change. But flash is bound to catch up even to Apple's market sooner or later.


As implied above, not all of us limit ourselves to the files that shipped with our computers. Many of us actually buy third-party software for work and play. Many of us also create files as part of our work and play. Our created files can be quite large.


			
				Mikuro said:
			
		

> I wonder how much disk space my brother or my sister use. If you stripped out all the preinstalled crap they don't need or want, it would surely fit in 8-16GB.


It is always a bad idea to extrapolate your family into the general case. There is simply no reason to believe that it is representative of the user base.


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## RGrphc2 (May 19, 2006)

I've heard of Hybrid HDDs ones that use Solid State and RPM Drives.

Links to the article here
http://www.engadget.com/2005/04/25/samsung-and-microsoft-introduce-hybrid-hard-drive-hhd/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/19/hybrid-hard-drives-hhds-shipping-january-faster-boots/

i would like to see it in the MB/P


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## fryke (May 19, 2006)

Don't believe it'll happen so soon, but I'd really _love_ to see a MacBook nano with 32 GB of NAND flash memory instead of a harddrive. Or... If someone would just _make_ a notebook compatible 2.5" drive with 32 (or more) GB of NAND, we could replace a MacBook's drive. Simple as that. Sure: It seems like 32 GB would never be enough - but then again, it would really help battery life.


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## Mikuro (May 20, 2006)

MisterMe said:
			
		

> It is always a bad idea to extrapolate your family into the general case. There is simply no reason to believe that it is representative of the user base.



I don't. And I didn't.  I said there was a market, and that market DOESN'T overlap much with Apple's user base. I think some PC makers will target this market soon (in the next year or two), and Apple won't. Do you disagree? If so, it seems like you're extrapolating your own experience to the entire market yourself.



> We live and work in very different worlds then. The computer I am using now is the first in which I have not had to add hard drive capacity.



Actually, the two of us are in the same boat here. I'm constantly dumping data from my internal drive to DVDs and external HDs. It will take years longer for flash to catch up to _our_ needs, which is why I think we _won't_ see Apple using flash drives for a few years after other companies. Again, they just don't target the market that could settle for low capacity.

But I DO think Apple will use it eventually, because as I said, flash technology is increasing faster than our needs. (Of course, whether flash capacity keeps increasing at such an impressive rate is anybody's guess.) How much more storage space do you need today than you did, say, 4 years ago? And what about the lower end of the market? I'll bet flash memory has increased by a higher percentage in that time.

Bottom line: it's just a matter if time until flash drives are big enough for a large enough market for PC makers to use it. But flash won't replace HDs all across the board for a looooong time, if ever.


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## Lt Major Burns (May 20, 2006)

hence why it shouldn't be in the pro ranges.

this would debut in the low-end macbooks.  these things currently ship with 60gb hdds, i squirm at the the thought of that (i currently use about 400gb, with a total of 660gb), but many don't.  as fryke said, a 32gb nand disk would suit a lot of people fine.  people who just need a laptop for college, for internet and office, and a couple of thousand songs....

the speed of writing directly to, basically, the ram (would we even need ram, with 32gb of nand memory, what's the difference between nand and ram?), the efficiency of that, without having to spin up a physical 'disk' or have it break because it's scratched... wow.  i'd want that.

roll on the 500gb nand drive


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## mindbend (May 20, 2006)

Don't forget that flash technology is being used more and more in the video acquisition world (specifically in Panasonics HVX200). This will help bring economies of scale that will bleed over into the computer world. It's not going to be overnight, but it will happen. I predict there will be a hybrid approach to begin with. Solid state for the OS and main apps, but still with a traditional HD for core content for a while.


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## sheepguy42 (Jun 29, 2006)

Lt Major Burns said:
			
		

> the speed of writing directly to, basically, the ram (would we even need ram, with 32gb of nand memory, what's the difference between nand and ram?), the efficiency of that, without having to spin up a physical 'disk' or have it break because it's scratched... wow.  i'd want that.


Now there's an interesting point: if you could fit 32GB of NAND into the space of a standard laptop drive, how much more could fit into the space taken up by RAM? Would the NAND drive be cooler? If so, how much NAND would fit into the space formerly occupied by that extra fan? Less battery drain? then choke back on battery size, provide similar battery life, with even more NAND in the space formerly occupied by extra battery. Suddenly viable solid-state MacBooks don't look that far off to me.


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## fryke (Jun 29, 2006)

Well, they aren't that far off. Sony _has_ released an UMPC with 16 GB of NAND as an option to a 30 GB harddrive model. -> http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/06/27/sony_umpc_goes_flash/ ... The question is: Does Apple feel the world's ready for it. And what would it cost... I guess if Samsung would simply start to _sell_ 2.5" S-ATA "drives" with NAND memory, we'd see people buy that (depending on price, again)!


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## sheepguy42 (Jun 29, 2006)

fryke said:
			
		

> The question is: Does Apple feel the world's ready for it. And what would it cost... I guess if Samsung would simply start to _sell_ 2.5" S-ATA "drives" with NAND memory, we'd see people buy that (depending on price, again)!


I think that the answer is kind of my point: the Sony model still has RAM. Apple is an innovator, and a little box that looks like a laptop HD, is the same size and shape, but has NAND innards, isn't Apple's kind of outside-the-box thinking, IMHO. I could see this as the answer to everyone who begs for a Newton replacement: and always-on/instant-on UMPC with no optical drive, but running full-on MacOS X. All the features of the OS, but with the portability of an iPod. Sony's machine is just miniaturized laptop components; Apple's would cross the MacBook with an iPod Nano. They could even call it MacBook Nano.

I would imagine this coming out say next summer or the following, in plenty of time for the holidays. Announcing it at WWDC would be perfect, since it would be a serious hardware adjustment, and with little or no RAM they'd have to modify the OS a bit (think 10.5.5 being more significant than expected) to allow for direct manipulation of data in storage. WWDC announcement would give developers time to come up with awesome tools that only make sense on such a machine. The key is to get their marketing to a point where everyone wants a Mac laptop the way everyone wants iPods.

Now think about this in relation to speculation of 10.5: this would be a good reason to do an awesome implementation of virtualization, so the "MacBook Nano" (when it comes out) can run Windows software without needing to be able to boot Windows by itself. You now would have a (hopefully) more affordable Mac laptop that the masses can gobble up, and while they will be able to run Win software through the MacOS virtualization implementation they won't have the option of only using MacOS X long enough to load Windows. This could lead to rapid spread (think iPod sales over the years) of the Mac, but truly as a Mac without risking being just a pretty PC.

Then again maybe I'm just goofy cause I just woke up.


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## fryke (Jun 29, 2006)

But what is it you really want? RAM and NAND are not interchangeable, really. NAND is nowhere as fast as your machine's RAM. And if you only mean that a MacBook nano would not need something like a "drive" with NAND, but rather simply have the NAND on board, then you have something very un-upgradable. Might still be interesting, but I would hardly call this innovative and "outside the box"-thinking.


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## sheepguy42 (Jun 29, 2006)

fryke said:
			
		

> But what is it you really want? RAM and NAND are not interchangeable, really. NAND is nowhere as fast as your machine's RAM. And if you only mean that a MacBook nano would not need something like a "drive" with NAND, but rather simply have the NAND on board, then you have something very un-upgradable. Might still be interesting, but I would hardly call this innovative and "outside the box"-thinking.


You have a good point about the speed, and that is another aspect that needs improvement before this can be a viable option for Apple. So maybe RAM would have to stay; my suggestion of a complete redesign rather than merely swapping one little box for another would still make sense, to me at least 

As for upgradability, we're talking about something I would percieve as slightly lower end than a Mac Mini (only portable, with a small screen). therefore upgradability is not a focus, much like with the iPods. Then again, maybe it could be upgradeable, but more like RAM is where you add incrementally rather than outright replace. I like that for its reduced resource consumption, and I'm sure my fellow environmentalists would as well.

Also, having gotten breakfast and having a refreshing shower, I may be thinking more clearly now. As such, I think I see this as a machine for schools to hand to students, especially if it has no built-in optical drive.

You know, succeeding where the eMate miserably failed.

As far as straight-up consumer market retail, it may serve more to sell more MacBooks like the Mac Mini was supposed to help sell more iMacs.


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## fryke (Jun 29, 2006)

Hey! I'm a fan of the eMate! Don't call it a failure. Steve simply didn't like Newtons...


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## sheepguy42 (Jun 30, 2006)

I meant failure sales-wise. I was a huge fan of the eMate, just not it's price, and therefore its low sales figures. Something about a very low-end Newton spec-wise, being priced like a high-end. I was in High School at the time, so maybe I'm a bit fuzzy on it now.


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## tagliatelle (Jul 14, 2006)

A year ago I made me a flashbased linuxpc without fan and as you can see I can post on the forum with it. It is completely silent.


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## sheepguy42 (Jul 17, 2006)

I have to wonder if a combination of a small flash-based computer would be useful as a wearable computer. It would be light, run cool, and with some companies offering LCD screens in the "sunglasses" form factor (I am merely assuming that these are still on the market) it could prove to have usability somewhere between an iPod and a MacBook.


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## Qion (Jul 17, 2006)

Ok, but then software would have to be rewritten. I haven't looked that far into wearable computers, but AFAIK they're not that functional and/or they serve one purpose. Flash has been around a long while now, and I just don't see Apple intregrating part of their OS into a pair of sunglasses, persay. 

I would enjoy surfing the web from my sunglasses, but it would be unlikely of Apple to do so. Plus, I bet a lot of us would have to take a nap after seeing the price tag on a pair of ***Apple*** iGlasses.


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## sheepguy42 (Jul 19, 2006)

They wouldn't be _Apple_ sunglasses. They would be one of the existing products, plugged into a flash-based Mac worn perhaps around your waist or some such. Granted, the best I've found only supports a 640x480 display, but that will improve in time. Heck, if I had a flash-based MacBook, I'd want them so I could drop it in my backpack and walk around using the MacBook all the time. I'd never have to open it. The only thing holding me back right now&#8212;aside from money &#8212;is the potential damage to the spinning disk as I walk or run around.


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## Qion (Jul 19, 2006)

Hey that product you mentioned actually looks very interesting! My only drawback is the question of how to provide input data when you're running with the laptop in a sealed environment...?


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## sheepguy42 (Jul 20, 2006)

Qion said:


> Hey that product you mentioned actually looks very interesting! My only drawback is the question of how to provide input data when you're running with the laptop in a sealed environment...?



With this:


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## Qion (Jul 20, 2006)

...and then you could use an unscreen keyboard or the like. Neat. That sounds like an uber-techy idea that would please me greatly... haha.


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## Rogue_Tr00per (Jul 24, 2006)

Guys, I worked for DIGITAL before they where taked over by Compaq. Digital R&D where reseaching SSD (other breaking ideas to long to list). I have seen and worked on the Prototypes. They worked very well, fast, the issue  at the time  was that the chip impurities , and that due to that the heat affected the chips performance, memory leaks was also an issue.

But they found that if the (ram)chip was cooled via liquid nitrogen and using the RISC chip processor they had speeds of the PC  well over 3GHZ, this was way back when the fastest chips where 150Mgz. A lot of logic boards burnt out as a result....But they got a working model going and stable for well over a year...Happy Days


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