Toshiba's tiny "SSD" from macbook air soon avail for purchase

Tiny MacBook Air SSDs from Toshiba now available to everyone

Pretty awesome. Interesting that Apple has now been the catalyst for small form factor c2d chips ( Intel shares MacBook Air love with new small-footprint CPUs) and small form factor SSDs. Who is to say the industry would have latched onto either of these (at this speed?) without Apple starting the trend?

 

Yeah, thank god for Apple using 2008 tech in 2010/2011.

 

I don't get it. Nobody at all had an SSD that small. Not a single OEM, not a single user, until now. How is that 2008 technology?

Same thing with the small form factor c2d, which then went on to be used in other ultraportables.

 

From your 'Intel shares macbook air love' link above:

Nothing 'innovative' about the size of SSD's - just that most were currently packaged into 2.5" form factors for notebook ease of installation - until now.

Drop the cover/case and of course the bare nand/pcb will be 'smaller'.

What will apple discover next?

 

okay that ULV C2D processor was used in all the ASUS ULXX series which was then replaced by the U series with an ULV iCore, and is found in hundreds of small laptops, netbooks and tablets and even one industrial phone.

the older CULV and ULV chips that the older generation MBA used was found in Toughbooks prior to 2006. ( CF-29 Mark 1-5 )

that SSD form factor has been around since the Dell mini 9 , ASUS EEE-PC netbooks and many more. It is a mini pcie card, nothing new here at all. here is an end of life OCZ unit announced early 2008 and was up to 64GB back then. and guess what.. it works in the new MBA.
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_minipci_express_ssd-sata_

here is a bunch more

http://www.nextag.com/ssd-mini-pcie/compare-html

what they DID do was just add a newer controller to it and slimmer memory chips and lengthened it to use cheaper RAM, absolutly nothing too exciting at all

VM7118 is right its all late 2007-2009 tech but in a shiny new package.

 

Apple's marketing is the greatest force in the technological world.

 

Hm. Lots of Apple haters (solely for the sake of hating) here tonight.

1) the CPU in the original MBA was not any standard LV or ULV CPU: The MacBook Air CPU Mystery: More Details Revealed - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

The fastest CPU in the toughbooks you mentioned (CF-29 Mk5) is a Pentium Mobile LV778. Meaning the toughbooks of the same exact era had lower clock speeds, half the cache, and half the FSB speed at the MBA CPU that was released. And they were 32 bit. And they had 1 core/thread, vs 2 cores (with 2 threads) for the MBA CPU. And the toughbook CPUs had a HIGHER power draw.

Yes, other manufacturers used similar CPUs eventually, but the 1st gen MBA had it all to itself. I find it hard that people are denying intel accelerated development of their mobile small form factor mobile CPU for apple.

2) As for the SSD, you say that form factor existed in 2008, but that would be wrong. Connection type does not equal form factor. You link to various dozens of PCI-e cards, but which one of them caught on? You say the OCZ product "works" in the MBA, but does it *fit* in the MBA? Here's what you wrote:

"what they DID do was just add a newer controller to it and slimmer memory chips and lengthened it to use cheaper RAM, absolutly nothing too exciting at all"

So, it's faster and smaller and cheaper. And as evidenced by Toshiba, they created a market for OEM sale. And dollars to donuts other netbook/ultraportable manufacturers will start using the same form factor within a few months... quite unlike the OCZ unit that died in 2008 (at 1/4 the capacity, 1/4 the speed, and a larger physical size). Absolutely nothing too exciting, at all, right? Obviously Apple didn't create it themselves, but like the Intel CPU, they certainly had a hand in its development.

If you guys are saying Apple didn't kick-start the small form factor CPU trend, and is now NOT kick-starting the PCI-e "SSD" card future trend, then you're disagreeing with ars technica, not with me. From the article I linked:

"That the Toshiba models appeared on the MacBook Air first continues a pattern set by Apple when the MacBook Air first debuted in 2008 with special small-outline processors from Intel. Those same processors were later made available to other notebook vendors after a short period of Apple exclusivity."

 

I prefer not to get into circle-jerk apple-hate topics but I hardly thing it's unwarranted.

 

That's about the BGA processors though. The article about the SSD's is from today.

And it isn't about Apply "discovering" anything. It is about Apple driving development of a new, much more compact SSD standard. The older article was about how they pushed Intel to develop their laptop processors into the smaller, thinner, and lighter BGA form factor, which went on to be used in lots of small laptops from lots of other companies.

 

Somehow I doubt that Apple had anything to do with 'pushing' Intel to do anything. Intel was already moving in that direction - Apple was simply the first RC user.

Basically Apple saw an opportunity and took it.

And, leaving the cover off an SSD is not a new standard.

No, it's not.

 

what CPU is in the new MBA? 2008 tec.

so but it's true apple is not up with the times except with some of the desktops and higher end notebooks.

 

If you look at the picture of it, the SSD is clearly a different form factor, ie new standard.

 

Different form factor ≠ new standard. More like proprietary. I just wish more netbooks and laptops would accept mini pci-e ssd's though, most don't.

 

Won't accept or not compatible? I believe the original EEEpc used PCI-E SSDs as they are relatively cheap.

 

The BIOS isn't geared to accept storage devices, usually just WAN or WiFi.

 

So it won't even recognize it? Or will it not boot from it?

 

Neither. 10chars

 

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if Toshiba rolls out with any of these drives in their own upcoming laptops, or if it was a one-off thing they made for Apple. I hope it's the former.

 

There's already 50mm Sandforce SF-1200 128GB mPCIe SSD on the market. Just need notebook manufacturers to put sata I/O pins on their mPCIe slots.

 

Ah, so that's it, lack of the proper pins. I thought it was just lack of BIOS support for storage devices.

 

Dell M6400/M6500 has a sata mPCIe SSD. Maybe Lenovo Y460/Y560 does as well, given they are advertising a 32GB SSD + HDD hybrid setup.

 

It's lack of pins/SATA controller. There was a Samsung mPCIe SSD that came out with it's own integrated controller, and I remember there was speculation when the M6500 came out that that was the one being used, but I don't remember if anyone ever confirmed exactly which one was being used (I don't think it was ever even mentioned in the M6500 Owner's Thread, although it's so big and it's been a while so I might have forgotten).