Report: SSDs Can't Replace HDDs
Friday TDK announced that it launched a new line of serial ATA II compatible hard drives, however storage integration specialist Origin Storage says that they're doomed to failure.
On Friday, TDK Corp reported that its new line of serial ATA II compatible solid state drives (SSD), dubbed the SDGA2 series, would launch by the end of May, offering a maximum memory capacity up to 64 GB, depending on the model. TDK bragged that the SSDs are capable of 95 MB/sec. read speeds and 55 MB/sec write speeds, and provide 128-bit AES encryption that has been officially registered with the US government (FIPS PUB 197). The smaller versions--ranging from 1 GB to 32 GB--use single-layer cell Flash technology, potentially making them faster than the larger drives using the multi-layer cell approach; there are MLC versions of the 16 GB and 32 GB drives in addition to the 64 GB drive.
But what made TDK's revelation stand out Friday was its claim that the new SSDs are ideal as magnetic hard drive replacements, and, according to the EETimes, the company began to shop the new SDGA2 around to laptop manufacturers last week. "TDK’s SDG2A series of industrial SSDs are SATA discs suitable as replacements for hard disc drives(HDDs) and provide high-speed performance, data reliability, storage life span, and data security at the highest levels in the industry," TDK said Friday in a press release.
However, storage system integration specialist Origin Storage quickly fired back at the company's claim, saying that any plan to replace magnetic hard drives--especially in laptops--is doomed to failure. Why? Andy Cordial, Origin Storage's managing director, said that SSDs definitely have their place, but cannot replace the "flexibility" and "longevity" that magnetic drives offer most laptop users in rugged environments and other "specialist" situations. Laptop manufacturers chimed in with Cordial as well, stating that the SSD's limited capacity range--from 1 GB to 64 GB--puts them behind the current capacity of 2.5-inch notebook-oriented hard drives.
In addition, Cordial also pointed out a major difference between the encryption technology used with the SDGA2 series, and the encryption used with magnetic hard drives. "Much is being made of TDK's SSD range supporting on-the-fly encryption, but this technology only supports 128-bit AES, whereas 256-bit AES magnetic drives offer far better encryption protection," Cordial told the EETimes. Needless to say, the SSDs are not quite as secure as their magnetic counterparts.
Cordial also goes on to give examples of SSD setbacks when compared to HDDs: unlike solid state drives, many external 2.5-inch form factor drives offer rugged housing to protect the delicate innards. Also, netbooks normally have a limited memory capacity, thus they read and write to the pre-installed SSDs at a constant rate, especially with a Windows OS installed. Currently there are questions about SSD lifetimes, in particular those with the MLC technology; currently these drives have a lifetime of between 50,000 and 100,000 write operations before they begin to fail.
Ultimately, Cordial says that SSDs have no real advantage over standard HDDs where secure storage applications are concerned. The only real advantages SSDs hold over their magnetic counterparts are read and write speeds and durability. The question boils down to whether the consumer wants to shell out big bucks for smaller drives with faster read and write speeds, or spend less money on magnetic hard drives--internal or external via a USB connection--with slower read and write speeds, and (substantially) larger capacities.
The abacus will never be replaced by calculators.
/joke
I love it when people try to completely discredit something while it's still in its infancy. SSDs have made great improvements in a very short period of time, and there is much more to come. No sense putting your foot in your mouth this early.
Capacity of SSDs have been increasing pretty quickly, so I don't see how that will be a concern for long. Not sure about limited writes, but I'm sure that's being worked on.
I love it when people try to completely discredit something while it's still in its infancy. SSDs have made great improvements in a very short period of time, and there is much more to come. No sense putting your foot in your mouth this early.
Anyway, for pretty much any security scenario, 128 bit aes will not be your weakest link.
The abacus will never be replaced by calculators.
/joke
Maybe even 2 SSDs, can they go in Raid or something?
Is the revelation here supposed to be that TDK is supporting extended SATA features such as hot-swap, etc... that other SDDs don't yet support? I'm sort of confused, because there is no such thing as SATA II.
It must be my ignorance, but other than the hardware security these sound like pretty mediocre drives (down right pathetic when capacity is taken into account).
Incryption can be increased it doesn't have to be 128bit.
Capacities will increase.
Prices will decrease.
The housing can be made more durable.
All of thier arguements are shortsighted and seemingly against SSD like they have a bias opinion.
OOOH the security isn't good enough.. well I don't keep top secret information on my PC and the average joe can hack 128bit. Sure if you work for the secret service or FBI perhaps higher incryption will be important but NOT FOR MOST USERS!!
BOTTOM LINE:
All of these things are just the way they are because solid state is still new to the PC markets and still hasn't hit the big time with lower prices and higher capacities but that is only a matter of time. Cordial... what the h3ll were you thinking say some BS like that? NEWS FLASH: YOU'RE WRONG! SSD will become the primary drive in the majority of computers in the future.
I'm not concerned about capacity, that's rising quickly and the prices will eventually drop, making SSDs ideal for backup purposes with their fast reads and limited writes. The problem that would prevent them from mainstream use would be a permanent solution to lousy/limited writes. It seems like most of the solutions are just temporary fixes, and solutions that cripple performance in other areas, such as killing buffers and caches.
P.S. And in the future after we get 512 GB SSD's for $100 with 1 million writes, and 5 year warranties this same guy will say that crystal matrix storage will fail at replacing SSD.
Years back HDD's started, inreasing a couple of MB, then GB, now TB but with performance verry slowly increasing - the only way up soon is with a technology change - SSD.
Limited writes? New tech = more storage, less space - it can be traded to be less storage, more writes (replacement sectors) - and its not as if HDD's dont get bad sectors and/or fail (they also have "spares" - write reallocate), how many decent Intel SSD's do you hear about having issues? dont count the other little "amateur" companies.
Over 33% of HDD's within 1 year develop bad sectors - mostly becuase of too much crap running on the system "thrashing" the HDD, or because its poorly cooled causing more friction on the heads/platters (above 50ºc its whole life).
Predicting the future is difficult. Especially when it comes to technology.
I remember in the 70's that scientists were suggesting that we cover the polar ice caps with ash or soot to prevent global cooling. This would absorb the sun's energy instead of reflect it. ( No joke here )
Anybody commenting with absolutes is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
It would bother me to buy a device with limited write capacity, but I don't know how that works out in reality. Sure there are lots of files that don't get rewritten frequently, but the FAT is written to constantly. I don't know how that is managed with an SSD. Surely this aspect of the drives will be improved with time.
Lots of people don't need huge hard drives. My 5.5 year old Dell laptop came with a 30GB drive and it took me 5 years to fill it up.