SanDisk's 32Gb 2.5-inch hard drive a sign of the times

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:49

Your IT - Entertainment

In the ever growing battle between flash and traditional hard drive technology, flash is still way behind hard drives on value and storage capacity, but offer some important benefits that will become ever more important as capacities increase.

Want to have a computer that boots up faster, runs cooler and gives you longer battery life? Well, if you’re willing to put up with only 32Gb of storage, and are willing to pay US $350, flash ‘hard drives’, or solid state drives, known as SSD’s are the answer.

Of course, they are much more expensive that real ‘hard drives’ in terms of the amount of storage you get for the money. US $150 will buy you a 2.5-inch 160Gb hard drive, while US $250 will get your 200Gb of storage.

But compared to the cost of USB 2.0 memory sticks with a storage capacity of around 4Gb for approximately US $80, which would see 8 x 4Gb (giving 32Gb) sticks costing US $640, the 32Gb 2.5-inch drive with a standard connector letting it be used exactly as a traditional hard drive would be used, and you can see that the price is a bargain.

Indeed, prices have dropped by around half since the same time last year, with prices set to fall faster and further in the future. 64Gb, 128Gb, 256Gb and larger SSD’s will come too – and probably sooner rather than later as companies achieve breakthroughs in creating flash memory that allows them to pack ever more into the same space.

Of course this isn’t SanDisk’s first flash hard drive – they recently produced a 1.8-inch version, perfect for use in devices like the current 5th generation Video iPods.

It’s also not a market that SanDisk will have to itself by any means, with Seagate and Samsung also due to release comparable drives by the end of the first half of this year.

SanDisk are claiming that their new 32Gb flash drive boasts faster speeds, longer lifespans, lower heat generation and lower power usage than regular hard drives, delivering significant benefits despite the smaller size capacities. So, what are they actually claiming, and is it as good as they say? Please read onto page 2 for the conclusion…