Dell spins into solid state drives

If there's one buzz topic that has laptop fans excited right now, it's the transition from traditional platter-based hard drives to solid state drives (like the one in your iPod Nano). These drives, like that flash memory stick hanging off your keychain, have no moving parts, give off less heat, and require less power to run--all good things if you're packing a few thousand dollars worth of battery-powered technology into your carry on bag.

The ultramobile Latitude D420 and semi-rugged D620 ATG laptops are the first systems in the Dell line to get these 32GB 1.8-inch drives from SanDisk. Swapping one in will cost an extra $549, which isn't that bad a markup, considering you can buy these 32GB drives off the shelf for around $350 (and certain other vendors want $700 for the same thing).

[thedreaming]

only 30G?

It would have been more impressive if they started with an 80G or even a 160g, but you have to start somewhere.

[jimigsu]

30 is enough

The only point of having more than 30 gigs right now is for music and videos. You don't need 30 gigs of stuff wasting your hard drive space anyway. I wonder what the transfer rate for files and its operating frequency will be. Also wondering what the write time will be.

[fhharris]

30 is enough

How is 30 enough when VisUlt takes 15g? Heck my portable podcast collection is 20 gigs.

[kobehuang]

Vista does not take up 15gb

Vista needs 15gb during installation and most of the temp files are removed once the installation is done. Vista only takes up couple gigs.

[kobehuang]

Vista does not take up 15gb

Vista needs 15gb during installation and most of the temp files are removed once the installation is done. Vista only takes up couple gigs.

[reodaniel]

Performance Boost?

I wonder what kind of perfomance boost this will provide - I mean, surely these solid state drives are considerably faster than a traditional "moving parts" hard drive.

[txtiger73]

RE: Performance Boost

Here is what SanDisk says about the performance of their SATA solution (http://sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1520):

With no moving parts, SanDisk SSD SATA 5000 2.5" does not need to spin up into action or to seek files in the way that conventional hard disk drives do, while also eliminating the limitations of random seek performance. These characteristics, combined with SanDisk advanced flash management technology, enable SanDisk SSD to achieve performance that is approximately twice as fast as the hard disk drive2. SanDisk SSD SATA 5000 2.5" achieves a sustained read rate of 67-megabyte (MB)*/sec and a random read rate of 7000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer3.

These performance figures boost system performance and enhance the user experience. For instance, SanDisk SSD SATA 5000 2.5" can boot Microsoft Windows® Vista? Enterprise on a laptop in as little as 30 seconds4. SanDisk SSD achieves an average file access rate of 0.11 milliseconds.2 On Windows Experience Index for Microsoft® Vista?, SanDisk SSD scores 5.6 out of a total 5.9.5

[3506101]

I am shopping for a laptop to use with microsoft streets and trips basicically.I am just a lamen.I use a Dell XPS dual raid pc with 500GB.Any Advice is welcome.