Intel demos world's smallest solid-state drive
updated 11:45 pm EST, Fri December 14, 2007
Intel Z-P140 SSD
Intel late Friday revealed what it touts as the most miniscule solid-state drive ever released. The Z-P140 is tailored for portable media players, handhelds, and other devices where even the already small 1.8-inch flash drives common to ultraportable notebooks would be too large. The entire drive is no larger than a penny and weighs just 0.02 ounces --as much as a paper clip, the chipmaker says. Regardless of its size, the SSD is still faster than most any flash-based memory card and reads as quickly as 40MB per second while writing at 30MB per second.
The drive is currently ready with 2GB of storage but will be available in a 4GB version by the middle of 2008 and a 16GB version in the future. Combined with a standard Parallel ATA connection, the Z-P140 is capable of serving as an extremely small hard drive for virtually any operating system without needing special controllers, Intel says. The semiconductor firm intends to pair the new solid-state disk with its future Menlow ultra-mobile processor line when it arrives in 2008 but will offer the storage for other processors and platforms.
Apple really partnered...
12/15, 12:16am reply
With the right chipmaker... Ah... those ultra-portable MacBooks in 2009 or 2010 will be sweet!
lancelott
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2007
reliability
12/15, 12:26am reply
I just hope it's more reliable than the Toshiba 1.8" drives in demanding applications. At work, we use 1.8" drives in some applications and they have a tendency to die in a couple of weeks under continuous use.
TheBum
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2001
solid state
12/15, 08:40am reply
this is a completely different solution from traditional hard drives. This pretty much what's in your data stick or iPod shuffle nano, just smaller. They're solid state, no moving parts, so (theoretically anyway) they're far less likely to break.
Kees
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2001
Small capacity
12/15, 11:40am reply
With ZFS (when available) simply adding several of these shows up as one larger drive. So the cost is the key not the capacity.
drush
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2005
Yawn
12/15, 03:20pm reply
Wake me up once storage capacity gets up to 100 Gb and higher.
rtamesis
Junior Member
Joined: Jan 2000
What it could be used for
12/15, 04:13pm reply
With the 4 GB version (or 2 of them if needed) of the chip stuck in an ultra portable computer that has another small SATA hard drive you could have the OS files sitting on the new solid state drive, in a raid configuration with the SATA drive to make booting the computer obscenely fast...
beez1717
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2007
edit
12/15, 04:19pm reply
With the 4 GB version (or 2 of them if needed) of the chip stuck in an ultra portable computer that has another small SATA hard drive you could have the OS files sitting on the new solid state drive, in a raid configuration with the SATA drive to make booting the computer obscenely fast, AND without taking up an obscene amount of space...
beez1717
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2007
re: yawn
12/16, 01:54pm reply
"Wake me up once storage capacity gets up to 100 Gb and higher."
take a 1.8" hard drive; I think you'll find you could make 25 pennies fit in the same volume...
Kees
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2001
What's the difference...
12/16, 03:58pm reply
between this and my 2gb micro SD? My micro SD is the size of a penny and is here now!!! By the time Intel release it's 2gb, micro SD will be at 4 or 6... so the point is?
stainless
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2005
um...
12/17, 03:30am reply
what if you used ZFS to link these chips together for the OS to reside? it could make a subcompact notebook boot really fast...
beez1717
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2007