And now we have this:
We are very close to having a blazingly fast 16 TB SSD for relatively cheap.Intel’s Optane SSD is 7x faster than today’s solid state drives
Today’s solid states drives are already quite fast, but tomorrow’s will be even faster. More than seven times faster in the case of Intel’s new Optane SSDs.
Intel gave the public its first look at Optane yesterday at IDF 2015. Like Samsung’s mammoth 16TB SSD, Optane drives owe part of their performance boost by going three-dimensional. Intel refers to their take as 3D XPoint (cross-point) technology, and it was developed in conjunction with the memory experts at Micron.
Their goal was to develop something that was inexpensive and non-volatile like NAND that also boasted performance that was more on par with DRAM. 3D XPoint comes impressively close: it’s capable of speeds about 1,000 times faster than today’s NAND.
They also reduced latency. In fact, they nearly eliminated it. Intel says the latency of 3D XPoint drives can be measured in nanoseconds — as opposed to milliseconds like today’s SSDs. So not only can Intel’s new SSDs transfer information at a blistering pace, they can locate it in a flash, too.
3D XPoint doesn’t just boost speed: it increases storage density, too. Its stacked design keeps things compact, and the memory doesn’t need to make room for transistors — which DRAM uses to perform reads and writes. Instead, 3D XPoint can read from or write to individual memory cells by simply altering voltages.
How much more storage does that let Intel and Micron cram into the same area? About ten times as much. Theoretically, then, Intel should be able to turn out a drive very soon that packs even more storage than Samsung’s new 16TB behemoth.
And just for good measure, Intel and Micron made 3D XPoint more durable. They say a drive’s lifespan “is not significantly impacted” by the number of writes it performs. That should mean these drives will last like a hard drive while outperforming SSDs and selling for a better price.
Sounds great, right? Now we just have to wait for them to show up on store shelves.
I've been hanging on to my current 9-10 TBs, squeezing everything I can onto them, trying to hold off on buying another round of HDs. My next purchase will be monster huge/fast SSD drives usuable for both boot and storage.
Not just larger capacity:
-seek time measured in nanoseconds instead of milliseconds (will locate as well as transfer data super fast)
-lifespan not impacted by number of writes
-1000x's faster than NAND (closer to the speed of DRAM in your graphics cards but non-volatile so you don't lose it on power outtage)
It will be like having 16TB of ram in your PC.
My data is ready for this! I'd go $2K first adopter on this but would like it to hit the $1K range fast so I can mirror 2x16TB for $2K. It would blow ass to lose 16TB of data. That should last me until they drop even more. I detest spinning drives.
here's the scoop: (explains the tech clearly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=48&v=Wgk4U4qVpNY
3D Xpoint FTW