SuperTalent releasing a SSD with an IDE connector.

[spectre]

The going rate for a 128GB MLC based SSD these days is between $250 and $350 according to newegg.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15254

Super Talent Shows PCIe RAIDDrive SSD Workstations, IDE SSDs

Super Talent Technology previously shipped the first 512GB SSD for consumers, and introduced its RAIDDrive SSD using a PCI-Express interface for faster throughput.

The company is now introducing its PCIe RAIDDrive Workstation, which will use Intel’s Core i7 processors with Super Talent’s own 1333MHz DDR3 DIMMs. These RAIDDrive Workstations will also use up to three 2TB RAIDDrive SSDs, giving a maximum capacity of 6TB. The firm will work with its customers to custom design these systems, which come in a Workstation Tower form factor.

Super Talent used Crystal Disk Mark v2.2 for benchmarking, which showed sustained sequential read speed of over 1.5 GB/sec, sequential write speed of nearly 1.35 GB/sec.  Their benchmarking data taken with HDBench showed random read speed of 725 MB/sec and random write speed of 515 MB/sec.

Interestingly, the company is also introducing some SSDs with an IDE connector instead of the newer SATA connectors that are now the standard.

“Many embedded and ruggedized portable PC customers still need IDE drives, and the MasterDrive EX2 and IX2 series give them the performance they deserve in a rugged and reliable device.” said Jeremy Werner, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Super Talent.

The MasterDrive EX2 is available in capacities ranging from 16GB to 128GB. It features sequential read speeds of up to 80 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 40MB/s. It uses MLC flash, and comes with a 2 year factory warranty.

The MasterDrive IX2 is available in capacities ranging from 16GB to 64GB, It has maximum sequential read speeds of 80 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 60MB/s. It uses SLC flash and comes with a 3 year factory warranty, 50% more than most SSD warranties.

Super Talent will showcase these products at the 2009 Computex Taipei show from June 2-6, 2009. They have booked Booth J610 on the first floor of the Nangang Exhibition Hall.

[markbowen]

Unfortunately, this is probably not much use for Phatbox/Keg owners.  A few forum members have experimented with smaller IDE SSDs but none have reported success in getting them to work with the PBs.

Anyway, the advantages of an SSD over a regular drive are not necessarily relevant for most PB users.  SSDs are faster, but PBs won't benefit from the speed.  SSDs are more shock-resistant, but this also should not be an issue for PB users under normal driving situations. 

SSDs claim a longer lifespan and may be less prone to failure, but if we're talking about $339 for a 128GB IDE SSD with a two-year warranty vs. $90 for a 320GB IDE HDD with a three-year warranty, the HDD remains the most reliable and cost-effective option.

[sbingner]

They say the follow IDE specs, but they don't initialize properly with the code the pahtbox uses.  I almost got a new bootloader written that would work, but then got busy with other things and couldn't finish it.

Replacing the bootloader would NOT be a simple process, unless I can solve the freezing-when-flashing problem