Tim Ferro » hardware

The new “solid” State of the Union.

Matt — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:26:04 +0000

If I had a lot of money I would invest it right here and now. The new solid state drives are killer. They actually look semi-affordable too. Too bad the largest capacity you can get is 120GB. Looking beyond their capacity, they scream like a newborn with an ear infection. With read speeds of 120MB/s and write speeds equally mind blowing at 40-100MB/s. The speeds vary whether the SSD is based on SLC (single level cell) or MLC (multi-level cell) technology.

With drives this fast and affordable we are looking at the equivalent of the industrial revolution for storage devices. This breakthrough is as major as when the video processor broke free from the processor and became its own uber-powerful add-in card. To put it in short easy terms it’s as big as Voodoo was in the 90’s.

There are two major players in this SSD market; Super Talent, a major memory maker, and OCZ, also a major memory maker that has recently reached into new markets with cooling units and power supplies. If I were you I would invest in both. How much for god-like speed you ask? It’s only $449 for a 60GB, don’t whine about it, just do it. Buy one.

Here is another beautiful X-bit link if you would like to know more.

It’s all about the Pentiums, baby.

Matt — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:55:41 +0000

Being a long time fan boy of AMD, it hurts me to see Intel slashing its prices. Although un-like other fan boys I know when it’s time to jump ship (only for a little while). For only 25 bucks more than AMD’s cheapest quad core, you’ll get Intel’s quad core which spanks AMD’s best quad core in almost every benchmark, ouch. By the way, I do mean on DDR2 mobo’s, I’m not counting Intel’s advantage with DDR3, because that would be even more painful.

For me it’s not about brand loyalty, if you are a sheep then maybe it is for you. If you are a true geek or nerd or whatever you call yourself it’s about speed, pure and unadulterated speed, (and cost). That magical price/performance ratio. So all hail to the new price/performance king, Intel.

Here’s the link to another beautiful xbitlabs article, it includes the new pricing.

MetaRAM Quadruples DDR2 DIMM Capacities, Launches 8GB DIMMs

Tim — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:50:12 +0000

“Since its launch in January 2006, the only thing that has been publicly known about former AMD CTO Fred Weber’s new venture is its name: MetaRAM. Clearly, the stealth-mode company was working on something to do with RAM, but what? As of today, MetaRAM is finally ready to talk about its technology, and it appears to be a pretty solid evolutionary step for the tried-and-true SDRAM DIMM module. In short, MetaRAM’s technology enables DIMM capacity increases of two or four times, so that a single DDR2 MetaSDRAM DIMM can hold 4GB or 8GB of memory while still being a drop-in replacement for a normal DIMM.” – Source

Intel To Pay Transmeta $250 Million For Patent Infringement

Matt — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:35:18 +0000

“Intel Corp. and Transmeta Corp. on Wednesday said that the two companies had agreed to settle the patent infringement lawsuit. Under the terms of the agreement Transmeta will receive a one-time payment that equals its revenue for the recent three years and consequently will obtain the amount of cash that equals its revenue throughout the whole history of the company. Intel will receive rights to use technologies by Transmeta.

The agreement will grant Intel a perpetual non-exclusive license to all Transmeta patents and patent applications, including any patent rights later acquired by Transmeta, now existing or as may be filed during the next ten years. Transmeta will also transfer technology and grant to Intel a non-exclusive license to Transmeta’s LongRun and LongRun2 technologies and future improvements. Under the agreement, Intel will covenant not to sue Transmeta for the development and licensing to third parties of Transmeta’s LongRun and LongRun2 technologies.” – Source

Hitachi’s New Technological “Breakthrough” to Enable 4TB Hard Drives

Matt — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:55:08 +0000

“Hitachi and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced today they have developed the world’s smallest read-head technology for hard disk drives, which is expected to quadruple current storage capacity limits to four terabytes on a desktop hard drive and one TB on a notebook hard drive.” – Source

All we need now is for Hitachi to somehow make photonic storage devices viable, marketable, and cost efficient, that will be the day.(If you don’t know what I’m talking about; a “photonic” storage device uses packets of light to store data instead of magnetic fields.)