Solid State Drives Are the Future of Storage

Micron will produce two new series of 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch solid-state drives for notebooks and desktops joined under the new RealSSD brand. Solid Storage Drives use solid-state memory to permanently store data and can replace conventional hard-disk drives in any application. These disks lack mobile part and thus, they are more power-aware and run noiselessly.

As customers' necessities in the storage area are rapidly evolving, Micron has started sampling SSDs that offer 32 and 64 GB of storage. The server sector has not been forgotten, and Micron has announced the availability of SSDs for embedding in blade server systems and other industrial PC environments.

The SSD drives connect to the computer via a SATA II interface, just like common HDDs. However, Micron's disks are natively supported, thus eliminating the need for SATA bridge chips. The sole limitation of solid state disks is represented by their small storage capacity as compared to classical, magnetic HDD storage. On the other side, SSDs make an excellent pick for notebooks and mobile devices, as they use less than 2 watts when in active state.

Additionally to Micron's solid state drives, the company is working on an innovative concept for data storage, comprised in a SSD module that acts and looks just like a RAM card. This would sound a little odd, since the SSD drives can be installed using SATA connectors, without any modifications or additions, but usage of RAM-like SSDs can dramatically increase their efficiency in both transfer speed and physical space optimization.

Micron praise the 4 mm thick storage modules and claim that users can align more SSD cards for increased storage space. Moreover, the improved design renders screws and wired connectors obsolete and reduces the risk of the device getting disconnected at runtime.

The classic SSDs will be ready to the retailer in the first half of 2008, while the RAM-like SATA storage is still a bold initiative that will materialize soon, hopefully.

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