PC hard disks have gotten more and more capacity over the years, but they still involve storing and accessing data on rapidly spinning disks, so there's a limit to how fast they can actually work. Flash memory has no moving parts, so it's inherently faster, but the capacity is much lower than hard disks. That is, until now. Fusion-io's ioDrive drive stores a whopping 640GB of data on a PC Card, all of it flash.
The really amazing spec is the speed of this thing, though. It's capable of reading those bits at 800MB per second and writing at 600MB per second — or about 1,000 times faster than the hard disk in your average Dell, according to the company. But just like skipping long airport check-in lines, that kind of speed is only available to those who can pay, since the drive costs a seizure-inducing $19,000. When it debuts early next year, Fusion-io will offer the drive in smaller capacities as well, though you'll still be paying $30 per gig, Mr. Trump.
Fusion-io, via GizmoWatch
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By joey13fsu at 2:44 PM ON 10/09/07
Not to pick on your math too much, but that's about $300 a gig, not $30. But to put it in perspective, the first hard drive I ever bought was a 30 mb back in 1988 and that was about $210 or $7 a meg, which would have been $7,000 per gig. Isn't progress great?
By joey13fsu at 2:51 PM ON 10/09/07
That's a lot, but to put it in perspective, the first hard drive I ever bought was a 30 mb back in 1988 and that was about $210 or $7 a meg, which would have been $7,000 per gig. Isn't progress great?
By JamieAnderson at 9:31 AM ON 10/10/07
Awsome, but wait, if they are so fast will we need RAM anymore? And also I'm guessing they are more reliable than hard drives too aye?