Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iDisk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 2, 2010
825
0
Menlo Park, CA
In my yesterday post "Realistic Next MacBook Air", I explained briefly about a new 1.8" drive that will come available Q1 of this year. The company Micron Technologies announced on December 2009 the following.

Our RealSSD™ C300 drives are designed to bring performance and portability to laptops and other computing applications. Because they take advantage of the SATA 6 Gb/s interface—with backward compatibility to SATA 3 Gb/s—they deliver blistering read and write speeds, helping improve boot and application load times. But even on SATA 3 Gb/s systems, the C300 drives still outperform other SSDs on the market and leave traditional hard drives in the dust. In fact, based on PCMark® Vantage scores, our C300 drives are nearly 14 times faster than standard hard drives, and they weigh less, consume less power, and are more durable.

And as a leader in NAND design and development, we’re the best-equipped to optimize NAND components for SSDs. Using leading 34nm NAND technology and a high-speed ONFI 2.1 interface, we provide the foundation for high performance and help you get the most out of your machine.


The following Link below shows that these new drives DWARF anything in use today.

http://www.micron.com/products/real_ssd/ssd/client/index.aspx

Enjoy the video. Also this makes runcore drives look like 4,200 rpm. I also recommend NOT buying Runcore anymore with this information at hand. (Not trying to make waves either)

iDisk


:apple:
 

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
So in the end they are just SSDs… which are fast.

Also since Intel is the joint partner with Micron when it comes the NAND flash I'm guessing this is what we should expect from Intel next? And from my late communication to Intel they expressed no interest in making a 1.8" SSD with a LIF or ZIF connector.
 

iDisk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 2, 2010
825
0
Menlo Park, CA
So in the end they are just SSDs… which are fast.

If you viewed the link & watched their video "fast" is an understatement.

Also since Intel is the joint partner with Micron when it comes the NAND flash I'm guessing this is what we should expect from Intel next?

I'm not sure if Micron and Intel are actually partners. (Never heard of such)

Micron has subsidiary companies:

  • Crucial
  • Lexar
  • Spec Tek
  • Aptina Imaging

And from my late communication to Intel they expressed no interest in making a 1.8" SSD with a LIF or ZIF connector.

Again I'm not sure about the connection between Intel & Micron and unless you have facts, I doubt their is a connection. I would check your source cause 1.8" is here.
 

jimboutilier

macrumors 6502a
Nov 10, 2008
647
42
Denver
Again I'm not sure about the connection between Intel & Micron. I would check your source cause 1.8" is here.

Its not usually the 1.8 form factor thats the issue. Its the 5mm height restriction and the PATA or SATA LIF interface of a particular type that precludes the use of the vast majority of 1.8" drives of any type in the MBA.

And while this may happen, I've seen "announcements" before that have taken many months to years if they ever come to fruition so I would not exactly preclude RUNCORE drives yet.
 

iDisk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 2, 2010
825
0
Menlo Park, CA
Its not usually the 1.8 form factor thats the issue. Its the 5mm height restriction and the PATA or SATA LIF interface of a particular type that precludes the use of the vast majority of 1.8" drives of any type in the MBA.

And while this may happen, I've seen "announcements" before that have taken many months to years if they ever come to fruition so I would not exactly preclude RUNCORE drives yet.

Sampling productions of the drives are currently out. Full production will begin and they'll be available Q1 of 2010.

The video and website clearly explains this.

I currently cannot comment on the 5mm & SATA LIF just yet.
 

jimboutilier

macrumors 6502a
Nov 10, 2008
647
42
Denver
Sampling productions of the drives are currently out. Full production will begin and they'll be available Q1 of 2010.

The video and website clearly explains this.

I currently cannot comment on the 5mm & SATA LIF just yet.

Yeah, good post and cool drive. Just saying that because of the MBA's peculiarities of height restriction and interface choice, we've seen a lot of promising announcements that did not turn into products we could use in the MBA.

When you tell us the drive is 5mm thin and has the correct number of pins on a SATA LIF or PATA ZIF interface, we'll get excited ;-)
 

LinMac

macrumors 65816
Oct 28, 2007
1,270
43
Just a few things.

Never believe any benchmarks provided by the OEM. They're always the best case possible and the real world numbers will almost always be lower.

Never compare released products with unreleased products. They can't be compared because there are so many unknowns about the unreleased product.

Does it work with the Macbook Air? What are the real performance numbers? How much does it cost per GB? Is it worth that price?

Finally, only believe every third word in a press release.
 

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
the 6Gbps is still limited with our 3Gbps port. So regardless of how fast the new SSD is, it's limited to ~300MB/s maximum. Last I heard, the runcore run in the upwards of 200MB/s(?), so it's not going to make the RunCore drives look like 4200RPM, it'll make them look like 5400RPM with the new drives being 7200RPM, which honestly is not bad at all.
 

kalex

macrumors 65816
Oct 1, 2007
1,336
56
I also recommend NOT buying Runcore anymore with this information at hand.


I currently cannot comment on the 5mm & SATA LIF just yet.

iDisk - First of you make a bold statement advising people NOT to buy Runcore anymore and then you come out and say that you can't comment on 5mm LIF.
The whole point for Macbook Air owners is that Runcore makes compatible SSDs that you can use. You on the other hand can't even comment on it. Also Q1 of 2010 is a very long time in technology. a lot of things can change. I have seen quite few products make bold splashes and then not even make it to the market.
 

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
If you viewed the link & watched their video "fast" is an understatement.

All I did was read the product brief; I have dial-up and YouTube is also blocked here.

I'm not sure if Micron and Intel are actually partners. (Never heard of such)

If in doubt, Google is your friend; yes they are joint-partners in manufacturing NAND chips.

Again I'm not sure about the connection between Intel & Micron and unless you have facts, I doubt their is a connection. I would check your source cause 1.8" is here.

I'm not sure what you're saying here? If I don't pull stuff out of my ass if that's what you meant. I talked to an Intel engineer and was told they don't plan to make a 1.8" drive with a LIF or ZIF connector; I didn't see the need to further inquire about this. Yes they do have the 1.8" X18-M, but that drive uses the standard SATA connector.
 

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
393
Canada
the X-18M is not standard sata , it uses a micro sata connector and they are not interchangeable,

regardless, ZIF and LIF will not be made by Intel, this is too small of a market for intel to get involved in.
 

Scottsdale

Suspended
Sep 19, 2008
4,473
283
U.S.A.
Few questions... I didn't watch the video.

Will they work in an existing MBA? Meaning, do they fit the 5 mm height clearance AND DO THEY USE LIF CONNECTION?

Do you believe Apple would use these in the next MBA? Apple has a history of using Samsung in the MBA. Does Samsung have a 256 GB SSD in the works?

Finally, is this thread meant for more of a "hope" for the next MBA to achieve a 256 GB storage in an SSD or are you trying to state that these will somehow work in our current MBAs? So, is this a "hurray" someone has finally achieved a 256 GB SSD in a 1.8" form factor meeting the height requirements of the MBA so other companies will follow suit? Or is this a "hurray" here is our solution?

Thanks for your time.
 

LinMac

macrumors 65816
Oct 28, 2007
1,270
43
what does that have to do with 256gb lif ?

nothing.

The drive in the link has about as much to do with 256gb zif/lif as iDisk's original post in the thread.

The reason I posted it here was a bit of sarcasm, but RunCore might be building Pro V drives for the Macbook Air. They already build Pro IV drives for the Macbook Air so it does seem reasonable to speculate based on the linked drive.
 

dyn

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2009
2,708
388
.nl
the 6Gbps is still limited with our 3Gbps port. So regardless of how fast the new SSD is, it's limited to ~300MB/s maximum. Last I heard, the runcore run in the upwards of 200MB/s(?), so it's not going to make the RunCore drives look like 4200RPM, it'll make them look like 5400RPM with the new drives being 7200RPM, which honestly is not bad at all.
Those are all sequential speeds which about 99.9% of the people who have an ssd won't use. Those are marketing speeds, not real life speeds which makes it useless anyway. The biggest difference in performance users can actually notice comes from the random speeds. Intel is a good example. They have lousy sequential speeds compared to competitors yet they are the best you can get. Intel is the only one that actually aims at those random speeds and does it exceptionally good. Intel ssd's also have the least performance degradation. However, there are new controllers that will be released soon. One notorious company to look out for is Sandforce since their controllers can create extremely fast ssd's. There are some downsides to these Sandforce controllers because they depend heavily on file compression. Anandtech has a great article about the OCZ Vertex 2 that uses one of the two Sandforce controllers.

In other words: the key elements to ssd's are random speeds and performance degradation. Those sequential speeds are the least interesting bit unless you're going to use them in a database/file/etc. server (which also means you're looking at the wrong ssd's). In case of Micron all of those things are completely unknown which makes their entire test useless. Apart from the fact that they don't tell what the other ssd is.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.