When can we popularize the 2011 SSD market analysis?

The advantages and disadvantages of SSD HDDs relative to HDD HDDs are based on historical evolution. Each time there is a change, there will be a painful experience. As the DIY market is no exception, such as DDR2 to replace DDR memory into the mainstream took a long time. At that time, bandwidth and capacity of DDR memory could no longer meet user requirements, but the price of DDR2 was very high and there was a two-level differentiation in the dilemma. Some high-end fever players would choose the DDR2 platform, while some mainstream users would be conservative. Select DDR platform. Nowadays, SSD solid state drives and traditional mechanical hard drives are also in this period. When SSD solid state drives become popular, they become the topic of most concern to users.

SSDs have been attracting attention from many users since 2007. In addition, SSDs have been a major attraction for various large-scale exhibitions such as CES in the United States, CeBIT in Germany, and computex in Taiwan. In fact, the current computer's short board has left the hard disk, after all, after decades of development, the hard disk is still not much change, compared to the CPU and graphics card is a world of difference. The SSD hard disk as the successor of the hard disk, with high reading speed and ultra low latency can improve the overall performance of the computer, which is an important reason for the rapid development of SSD in recent years.

● What are the advantages and disadvantages of solid state drives compared to traditional mechanical hard drives?

Shock and drop resistance: As we all know, there are single or several discs inside the traditional hard disk, and the data is stored in the sector of the disk. Solid-state hard disks are made of flash particles, so there are no mechanical parts inside the SSD, which will not affect normal use even if it moves at a high speed or even with a tilted tilt, and it may accidentally fall on the laptop or Colliding with hard objects minimizes the possibility of data loss.

Data storage speed: In the same configuration of notebook computers, when the notebook computer's power switch is pressed, the laptop with the SSD solid-state drive takes only 18 seconds from boot to desktop, and the notebook with traditional hard disk takes a total of 31 second. After entering the system, whether it is running the program or opening the file can also clearly feel that the SSD has an absolute advantage. This is because of the advantages of SSDs that are highly read.

Power/noise: The same is because there are a lot less mechanical components, so the power consumption of SSDs is also better than that of traditional hard disks. And there is no mechanical motor and fan, the working noise value is 0 decibels, which makes traditional hard drives much less.

Price disadvantage: The current market price of 120GB Intel SSD is about 1,500 yuan. And this price is enough to buy four Seagate hard drives with a capacity of 1TB.

Capacity Disadvantages: The current maximum capacity of mainstream SSDs is only 512GB, but with the advent of 750GB platters, the maximum capacity of mechanical hard disks has reached 3TB. Such a large gap makes the SSDs shame, and the mechanical hard disks are under a huge impact from SSDs. Capacity growth is even faster.

After talking about the advantages and disadvantages of SSD hard disks and mechanical hard disks, the following analysis of some of the conditions of the Zhongguancun SSD solid state hard disk.

Is SSD not as good as mechanical hard disk?

Since ancient businesses are what to make money to sell, but as solid state hard drives as an emerging product line, many dealers did not make great efforts to promote, they believe that solid state hard drives are not very easy to sell things. The same hard disk, also used to store, sell a 1TB hard drive may only take 5 minutes, but if you sell an SSD hard drive will have to spend a lot of money with the user, after all, users do not understand this type of product, in the end is likely to also Can't sell it.

Therefore, some businesses put the SSD as a sideline. If someone asks and sells, no one asks and rarely recommends it. Often SSDs are sold by some businesses that do memory, with counters containing memory and SSDs. The real hard disk channels rarely sell SSDs. Although the SSD hard disk profits higher than mechanical hard drives, but small profits and more sales are their most desired.

In some installed bills, I rarely see businesses recommend solid-state drives, basically are Seagate 500GB and 1TB hard drive. If the SSD solid state drive can occupy the usual share of the DIY configuration list, then it is not far from the road to popularity.

So which businesses are selling SSDs? The realization of SSDs is favored by some users who are feverish or corporate users, while most mainstream users are only watching. For ordinary businesses, they are all selling good-looking memory and hard drives, and they rarely pay attention to SSDs. However, some of the flagship stores opened by enthusiasts are more focused on high-performance products such as high-end memory, high-end graphics cards/motherboards, and of course, SSD solid-state drives.

In addition, a lot of memory businesses also have agents for some brands of solid-state hard drives, such as OCZ, Zhiqi and so on. It can also be seen from this point that SSD solid state drives are now monopolized by some memory vendors, Kingston, Corsair, OCZ, Zhiqi, A-DATA, and so on, but the traditional hard drive manufacturers are very conservative, still focus on the mechanical hard drive above While SSDs are mainly for enterprise users. And they think it is too early to emphasize SSD.

In 2011, SSDs dominated the main battlefield in 2011. If there is any contention between SSD manufacturers, it must be focused on the main control chip. At this year's CES show in the United States, we discovered that new SSD controllers have emerged one after another. Although many samples have not yet been introduced, they will be launched into the market in 2011.

The following figure shows the Vertex 3 Pro solid state drive developed by OCZ for SandForce's second generation master chip SF-2000. This solid state drive can achieve 540MB/s transfer speed and can also achieve a random write speed of up to 70000 IOPS. Moreover, Vertex 3 Pro is not OCZ's flagship product, Vertex 3 EX will be able to reach 80,000 IOPS, which is almost twice the top product on the market today.

Although the SandForce master chip was in full swing in 2010, the launch date of the new SF-2000 master has not yet been confirmed, and the new Marvell master plan is planned to be put into production in March. Its speed will reach around 470MB/s. Compared with the SandForce solution, there are not many backward products, which will surely make Marvell master plan the best. Among them, Micron has announced that the RealSSD C400 solid-state drive will use the new Marvell master control, which will also cover the Corsair, A-DATA, and so on.

As another major Intel SSD is even more to be overlooked, its X25-M G3 SSD will also be available this year, and the particles will use Intel and Micron jointly developed 25nm flash memory, capacity 80GB, 160GB, 300GB, 600GB select. This product is based on Intel's ten-channel read/write technology and believes that it will not lag behind SandForce and Marvell in the actual experience.

In addition to the main competition, the flash process in 2011 will also play an important role. On the one hand, the new process can increase the capacity of SSDs and reduce the cost of SSDs. There is no doubt that the current 25nm flash memory is the mainstream, and Corsair and OCZ have announced the introduction of SSDs with 25nm MLC NAND flash memory chips.

Who is the best-selling SSD drive in the market?

According to the introduction of the business, the best solid-state hard drive in the market must belong to the CMG C300. The 64GB capacity is basically sold, which is quite easy to sell. Magellan C300 solid-state hard drive is the biggest feature is the use of SATA 6Gbps interface, its 64GB capacity price in the thousand or so, also presented 2.5 to 3.5 hard drive bay, easy to desktop users.

In terms of performance, Micron's Crucial RealSSD C300 uses a standard 34nm process NAND flash memory, Marvell's SATA 6Gbps controller chip, and Micron's own firmware. The solid-state drive uses a 2.5-inch standard, continuous read speeds of up to 355MB/s, and write speeds of 215MB/s.

Another is Intel's latest 120GB X25-M SSD, which is currently priced at around 1400 yuan. Compared to the 80GB and 160GB X25-M, it has a lot of value, and the capacity is not small. , so it is very popular with users.

Intel 120GB X25-M SSD is based on ten parallel channel architectures and 34nm MLC ONFI 1.0 NAND flash chips, SATA 3Gbps interface, continuous read and write speeds up to 250MB/s, 100MB/s, read/write latency 65ns, 85ns, random I/O Performance up to 8600 IOPS, mean time between failures of 1.2 million hours, idle power consumption of 75mW, load power consumption of 150mW, and the 160GB model is almost the same overall, and write performance and I/O performance higher than the 80GB model.