Essay @ Kustom
05-09-2007, 10:46
Time to ditch your Raptors, there's a new speedy HDD on it's way.
Using a gig stick of DDR2 RAM, DTS' Mcell hard drives are cheaper than full on solid state drives, but offer improved speed over normal 7200rpm drives.
The crazy part is that they are running a 2.5" 5400rpm HDD, which thanks to the RAM included ( and some special technical voodoo that "contains a real-time OS and CPU" ) can, in theory, pop out a sustained transfer of around 110MBps ( compared to the meagre 60MBps of standard 7200rpm drives ).
As with any new toy, it'll come in limited flavours to begin with, with only an 80GB, 120GB and 160GB capacity announced. The 80GB looks set to cost around £70 ( though, this may, of course change ). We just have to wait for someone to supply outside of Japan, and we'll be all set.
They are already available in Japan, and the product page is here (http://www.estoragenetworks.co.jp/cgi-bin/user_product_detail.cgi?cat=DTS&pro=0), if you can speak foreign, which I don't, but I do appreciate a good graph when I see one. Ars Technica did the hard work of putting it into English (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070903-coming-soon-hard-drives-with-1gb-ddr-ram-cache.html) for us xenophobes.
Using a gig stick of DDR2 RAM, DTS' Mcell hard drives are cheaper than full on solid state drives, but offer improved speed over normal 7200rpm drives.
The crazy part is that they are running a 2.5" 5400rpm HDD, which thanks to the RAM included ( and some special technical voodoo that "contains a real-time OS and CPU" ) can, in theory, pop out a sustained transfer of around 110MBps ( compared to the meagre 60MBps of standard 7200rpm drives ).
As with any new toy, it'll come in limited flavours to begin with, with only an 80GB, 120GB and 160GB capacity announced. The 80GB looks set to cost around £70 ( though, this may, of course change ). We just have to wait for someone to supply outside of Japan, and we'll be all set.
They are already available in Japan, and the product page is here (http://www.estoragenetworks.co.jp/cgi-bin/user_product_detail.cgi?cat=DTS&pro=0), if you can speak foreign, which I don't, but I do appreciate a good graph when I see one. Ars Technica did the hard work of putting it into English (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070903-coming-soon-hard-drives-with-1gb-ddr-ram-cache.html) for us xenophobes.