I am afraid Mark Smith that you mixed the two up

SLC = Single Level Cell and is MORE expensive because you only store 1 bit of data per cell and need more cells for the same storage size. The pro is that it has a much BETTER cell life since the cell can degrade more and you can still read the single bit from the cell (wear life is approx 1,000,000 cycles)

MLC = Multi Level Cell. Its LESS expensive because you can store 2 bits per cell so you need less cells for the same storage area. However since you have to be able to read to bits from each cell the cell can degrade less before its unusable so you get LESS cell life (approx 10,000 cycles per cell). With well designed wear leveling this can still last for a very long time of use (just not as long as SLC)

See some excellent Anandtech article for more info.
Such as:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=2

$120 for 40GB? Sounds right about in line with what prices would be expected right about now. Get it under $80, and we'll talk "cheap".

Why would you buy a single-cell drive anyway? The more expensive multi-cell drives are the ones that actually last.

the title of this article should read:

Intel will release a cheap"ER" SSD

SSDs are not cheap at the moment, they are still priced like a novelty item in a tourist town - overpriced and not really needed

a gimmick

A-Data also do an express card SSD - blurb as follows. The very latest in SSD (Solid State Drive) high capacity, plug-in storage for laptops. Fits directly into the 'Express Card' slot to deliver extra memory and back up data without cables. There's no need for other bulky storage devices!

cheap in NZ - on special for $98

Asus gave Up On Marvel Entirely & added NEW Controller to Ring. New Mains Are already TESTie EXPECTED to Reach 600 Mb/s with 500 Mb/s AVERAGE thruput. So Far Exists as Diagramatic, yet Hitting surface cann't Be that FAR away. So Stateth: Submarine Capt'n. Especially With Most stats: going ?Down. Capt'n Toilet IS Escape Hatch....

drashek

I have Indexing and restore turned off too, on a 1.5gb ram XP netbook

There are various after market apps ( based on MS steadystate ?) for xp

But SSDs are fine on Home machines now - caching of minor files is a 2007 kinda issue

get withe times daddy-o
#

Here's a brilliant idea! Turn off your page file, hibernation and turn down your temp internet files settings to a reasonable size.
If you can afford an SSD you can afford that extra 4GB of DDR2 or 3, and you're probably using some sort of broadband internet.

Win7 boots up just fine on a 5 year old 74GB raptor, which you can also afford.

SSDs should not be used for temp files (which will be deleted in short time). SSDs also should not be used for page files if applications are constantly going in and coming out of memory. basically SSDs should not be used with Windows, without taking prior precaution for these issues.

As a read only web-server platform SSD makes perfect sense.

If we are using this for Windows based Consumer PC, then
1) secure partition the ssd into two (75:25 or 60:40) and use only the nig partition
2) make the ssd as the default for program files folder and the drivers folder. for the page file, temp folder and other dynamic/temporary files use a fast IDE/Sata hard disk

SSDs are improving ( ignore anyone who generalises like anton )

See this link

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/27/kingston-ssd-now-v-series-40gb-intel-x25-x/1

It is a valid upgrade for a high traffic server and in a world were people pay £300+ for a GPU then this seems *as* justifiable a purchase for performance desktops.

Yes you can

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/32GB-Verbatim-47451-True-PCI-SSD-ExpressCard-34-54-Read-120MB-s-Write-30MB-s-Retail

Read: 120 MB/s
Edition: True-PCI Write: 30 MB/s

£96

You obviously never tried a SSD in your system. My Windows 7 machine went from booting in just over 2min down to 17sec. It makes perfectly sense to invest $150 for a 60GB SSD to run all programs and your OS on. Just make sure to buy one that supports Win7 trim command like the OCZ Vertex or Agility series. No other component upgrade had such a dramatic effect in performance gain.

theres no such thing as a cheap SSD and there may never be.

big companies are ploughing loadsa dough into the concept but these things only succeed when they are good value for money and the masses accept the new standard. the industry is banking on people being hungry for higher speeds of data management but normal thinking people dismiss it as "too much money for not enough capacity"

so what if its a bit quicker? people cannot justify spending excessive bread when they can spend much less on something much bigger that isnt exactly slow anyway.

maybe it is a loss-leader that will save them from paying taxes on profits. if so, we are all scammed (again)

Quote:

"Last I heard, don't SSD's suffer huge performance decreases in the long term after a lot of usage and fragmentation?"

The simple answer is yes, but thats still not a fair statement. After a year of use, installing/uninstalling apps on an SSD it will still kick the crap out of a rotating disk drive. Also its only the writes that deteriorate, not the reads, and as we all know there are many more reads than writes.

There is also some new technology built into W7, and supported by many of the better SSD's that erases this problem, its called TRIM.

Andy

It's most likely the same drive as the already in stores Kingston V 40GB.

Last I heard, don't SSD's suffer huge performance decreases in the long term after a lot of usage and fragmentation?

So, wouldn't using them as boot drives be not such a good idea?

Also, haven't the vendors been less than up front about this and in fact only admitted to problems when shown the evidence?

This includes Intel ...

I wonder if SSD's are really ready for this yet?

I want to use the SSD as a boot drive for my notebook and keep my regular harddisk for data.

I do not want to swap my existing harddisk for an SSD, I want SSD as an additional boot drive only.