32GB Solid state hard drive build up for ~ $135

So check it out... I found about about this company ( http://www.addonics.com/) while reading an article about a RAID hard drive box on engadget... they have A TON OF COOL THINGS!!!! check it out so you simply buy this 2.5" SATA - CF adapter from this company here: http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adsahdcf.asp then get a 32GB CF card from newegg here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211244...

Now I understand that this IS NOT the same (and probably not as fast) as a true SSD drive, but wouldn't this run faster than a normal 7200 RPM drive that we all have in our CF-30's? I was thinking about building one and putting it into my CF-30, but I want all of your opinions before doing it. What do you all think?

 

Hell, you can go hog wild here: and use two 32GB CF cards: http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad2sahdcf.asp and put raid into your toughbook!!!!

 

Solid state memory read speeds can be quite good (and may exceed 7200rpm HDD), but write speeds tend to be much slower.

You might have noticed that copying files from a USB flash drive is usually much faster than writing the files to the drive.

John

 

That would be like setting up two floppy disks in RAID. Not to mention that the performance wouldn't be very good.

 

Even if you RAID 1'ed it though?

 

Well, yeah, if you have a CF-30... this card doesn't support PATA, only SATA & USB. You'll find that your machine becomes uber-slow at times with a rig like this since any pagefile activity requires lots of disk writes, and the sequential nature of file access on a CF (or any of the popular flash media) card can make that take a LOT of time.

Most of the cost of a SSD drive comes from specialized construction; they break up the Flash RAM into smaller chunks (Like this 2 slot card when you set it to the FAST or RAID 0 configuration, only lots more of them so the sequential access time on any single chunk is less) so they can get to a specific location quicker. This requires a much more sophisticated addressing scheme and therefore a more complex controller than the single chip device found in your everyday CF or SD card.

What I would like to see is a similar device with slots for 4-8 SD cards; 4 & 8GB SDHC cards are getting pretty cheap, and if you break the storage up into smaller chunks like that you can actually get passable speed on both read & write. Of course, you could ALSO fill that hypothetical device with 32GB SDHC for massive solid-state storage, although I suspect you'd be looking at similar cost to an actual SSHD.

NOTE: I know some of you know a little about Flash RAM and will argue that they are in fact RANDOM ACCESS; but this is not really true. The reason you cannot run a program in Flash RAM is that it is not BYTE-LEVEL RANDOM ACCESS but rather BLOCK-LEVEL RANDOM ACCESS, and each block must be read sequentially. When you write to a block, that is done sequentially as well but there are 3 or 4 steps to that process - UNLOCK, ERASE, WRITE, and depending on the device, there may also be a VALIDATE cycle as well. This, combined with the sequential nature of the block addressing scheme, is why writes are so slow.

mnem
Food for thought; thought from food.

 

Wonder if this guy was reading my mind: http://translate.google.com/transla....impress.co.jp/docs/2008/0811/hirasawa002.htm which i found on engadget!

 

Mmmmhmmmm...

Well, it's SATA only as well... and while it DOES look like an interesting first attempt at such product, those write speeds are just... ewwwww.

mnem
Six times suck = suck(six), not success...

 

Just found one of these CR-9000 units actually for sale;

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PHOTOFAST-C...d-Adapter_W0QQitemZ120292605585QQcmdZViewItem

The $140.00 pricetag makes this definitely NOT a cost effective alternative to SSHD...

mnem
Welcome to the suck!

 

Would be nice to have this adapter for the Cf-29. But then again, would be difficult as to the outcome for thickness of the whole adapter. Dual CF card adapter.
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp

Also the price for 32gb CF's are still way up.
http://www.flash-memory-store.com/32gb-qmemory-compact-flash-cf-card.html.

32gb SSd
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208445

Slaps himself silly and goes to the corner of room.

 

I thought I'd share this as well: http://www.formation.com/ ... I stumbled into it while looking at ruggedpcreview.com ... and this as well: http://www.formation.com/products/SATA.html wonder what the price is

 

Yeah, we've been discussing the Addonics unit; it's what started off the thread. I've seen 32GB CF cards going around 80 bux on some of my sale flyers; they're really too slow for anything except backing up stuff.

The same is true of the SSD you link to, it is the M-series drive; it's intended for use as mass storage, NOT for your OS - the MFR website says so (That whole sequential access thing). As you can see by the displeased reviews, many people can't be bothered to read the product details at the MFR website.

Newegg has the S-series drive here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208443&Tpk=TS32GSSD25-s

This one IS recommended by the manufacturer for OS install; it is ALSO priced accordingly.

mnem
The devil is in the details...