solid-state

Time for an SSD? Intel drops 120GB to $249

On Friday, Intel introduced its most competitively priced solid-state drive yet and will be selling the drive to consumers through major retail outlets. Are SSDs finally becoming a worthy upgrade?

The Intel X25-M 120GB Solid-State Drive is set to be offered at Best Buy and Fry's Electronics for a suggested retail price of $249. Newegg is already selling the drive. Competitive SSDs would include a 128GB drive for $269 from Crucial.

Though still pricey by traditional spinning hard disk drive standards (1 terabyte desktop HDDs can be had for less than $100), it's a dramatic change from two … Read more

Hybrid hard-disk market set to take off

The hybrid hard-disk drive market is expected to reach 600 million units in 2016, according to market researcher Objective Analysis. This would mean an explosion of mainstream drives that integrate the performance-boosting benefits of flash memory.

The first generation of hybrid drive technology was "well conceived but poorly implemented," according to a report released on Monday by Objective Analysis. "Now that working versions have been implemented the hybrid drive promises to sweep the PC hard drive market."

"We expect the hybrid drive market to nearly double every year for the five years following its initial adoption, reaching 600 million units by 2016," said analyst Jim Handy, who authored the report, in a statement. "This blazing growth will result from hybrid drives replacing standard HDDs in mainstream PCs."

Hybrid drives, in their current form, add a small amount of flash memory to a traditional spinning HDD. But this pinch of flash can deliver a big boost to performance on certain tasks at relatively little extra cost, as CNET Reviews demonstrated with the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT and as other reviews of the Seagate drive have shown.

"The NAND [flash memory] in these hybrid drives will be pretty small. Seagate's Momentus XT does a really good job with only 4GB of flash, and Nvelo's Dataplex software accelerates HDDs very well with only 16GB of NAND," said Handy, responding to an e-mail query. … Read more

GM Ventures invests in battery start-up Sakti3

General Motor's venture-capital arm has invested in battery company Sakti3, taking a stake for a second time in an electric vehicle oriented start-up.

GM Ventures and the venture arm of Japanese conglomerate Itochu have invested $4.2 million in the company, Sakti3 said Friday. GM Ventures invested $3.2 million, according to reports.

Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Sakti3 is developing next-generation lithium-ion batteries that are designed to be cheaper and extend electric vehicle driving range. Rather than using a liquid electrolyte like most rechargeable batteries today, Sakti3's batteries are solid-state devices, which would allow car batteries to hold … Read more

Transcend SSDs get radical speed and capacity boosts

Transcend's solid-state drives got a radical upgrade Tuesday, as the company announced a new breed of SSDs that offer speeds of up to 260MBps and come in capacities of up to 512GB, which the company claims is the highest in the industry.

According to Transcend, to boost overall performance, the 2.5-inch SATA SSDs feature an upgraded controller chip that supports a maximum sequential transfer speed of 260MBps read and 200 MBps write. The company claims that this will significantly improve the system bootup and application launch speed and at the same time will offer lag-free responsiveness. The new … Read more

Raytheon's killer laser takes aim

PORTSMOUTH, R.I.--Defense contractor Raytheon and the U.S. Navy said Tuesday that they had successfully conducted a test in which they used a high-power, solid-state laser, in conjunction with a Phalanx Close-in Weapon System, to kill four unmanned aerial vehicles out of the sky off the coast of California.

The system was electrically powered, and Raytheon said it offers the military a very cost-efficient and nearly unlimited "magazine" for shooting down things like threatening UAVs, or perhaps, airplanes. "Once development is completed," Raytheon said in a release, "the Laser Area Weapon System will … Read more

OCZ intros 'affordable' Onyx solid-state drive

More storage vendors are introducing solid-state hard drives these days; however, SSD prices have yet to go down to anywhere near the price of traditional hard drives. Sadly, the new SSD from OCZ hasn't changed that.

The company, known mostly as a maker of system memory, introduced its OCZ Onyx drive on Wednesday. According to OCZ, the drive offers "reliable performance without the high price normally associated with SSD drives." Yet the drive costs about $100 for the 32GB version. In comparison, you can get a 500GB high-speed SATA2 hard drive for about the same price.

Nonetheless, … Read more

Western Digital intros its first consumer SSD

Better late than never. Western Digital on Wednesday finally introduced its first solid-state drive for consumers, the WD SiliconEdge Blue. Many other storage vendors, such as Seagate, Samsung, and Intel, have been offering SSDs for a long time.

WD claims that its new SSD offers fast read/write speeds and high capacities. The WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD will be available in capacities up to 256GB and features the SATA 2 (3Gbps) interface with read speeds up to 250MBps and write speeds up to 170MBps.

According to WD, the new SiliconEdge Blue SSD will be rugged and deliver maximum tolerance for … Read more

CNET TV Apple Byte: Mailbag

CNET TV's Brian Tong answers pressing questions from users about buying advice on MacBook Pros, Blu-ray on your Mac, and the benefits of solid state hard drives versus regular hard drives.

Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums. Do you have questions, issues, or stories you would like to see on MacFixIt? Email Us.

Seagate enters solid-state drive market

Seagate is making a belated but potentially market-changing entry into the solid-state drive market.

Solid-state drives are generally faster than hard-disk drives, particularly at retrieving data, and have won limited acceptance in the laptop market. Seagate, however, is targeting the more lucrative and potentially larger server market and will compete with likes of Intel, Micron Technology, Samsung, and STEC.

Seagate's first salvo in the market is the new Pulsar drive, which is designed for blade computers and general server applications and offers up to 200 gigabytes of capacity based on the industry-standard Serial ATA interface.

Though pricier than hard-disk … Read more