Micron Intros the World's Smallest 128Gb NAND Flash Device

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A Bad Day

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I wonder how many write cycles can the 20nm Flash take? Every Flash shrinkage usually results in reduction of max write cycles it can tolerate, requiring more wear-reduction measures.

Though on the plus side, there's nothing wrong with SSDs being cheaper. :D
 
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[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]I wonder how many write cycles can the 20nm Flash take? Every Flash shrinkage usually results in reduction of max write cycles it can tolerate, requiring more wear-reduction measures.Though on the plus side, there's nothing wrong with SSDs being cheaper.[/citation]

Weren't there some engineers in Taiwan who were working on some solution for slowing down wear on SSD's. I think it had something to do with heating the memory after writing.
 

merikafyeah

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I would be EXTREMELY surprised if a consumer can wear out an SSD from purely maxing out the write count. 120 GB SSDs should last more than 5 years even if you were to write 10GBs to it every day non-stop for the whole 5 years.

But 5 years from now would you still be using the same 120 GB drive? ALL things wear out in time, especially storage mediums, and they're replaced by newer, better technology. The only things that can be expected to reliably store data for decades are M-Discs, but those only store as much as a DVD (for now).
 

game junky

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I am interested to see the performance specs and longevity figures for these - smaller fabrication means they can pack more storage into smaller devices. I am imagining smart phones and digital cameras with massive internal storage - add in new wireless standards for synchronizing to a computer and cloud storage platforms and things just keep looking easier and faster.

Keep it coming, guys
 

freggo

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[citation][nom]didyoucheckyourtcpip[/nom]That's only 16GB (Gb=Gigabit, GB=Gigabyte, 1 byte=8 bits). That's somewhat misleading advertising for storage technology.[/citation]


"Only 16GB" ... oh, how times have changed :)
 

chewy1963

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[citation][nom]didyoucheckyourtcpip[/nom]That's only 16GB (Gb=Gigabit, GB=Gigabyte, 1 byte=8 bits). That's somewhat misleading advertising for storage technology.[/citation]

They are talking about a new chip, not a new complete storage device. It is common on the chip level to specify memory in bits instead of bytes. I'm sure when the chip is used in say an SD card, it will give the capacity in bytes.
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]I wonder how many write cycles can the 20nm Flash take? Every Flash shrinkage usually results in reduction of max write cycles it can tolerate, requiring more wear-reduction measures.Though on the plus side, there's nothing wrong with SSDs being cheaper.[/citation]

well. if you use these as just a storage drive, where you install apps on and have the scratch disc elsewhere, the write tolerance isnt a problem at all. [citation][nom]merikafyeah[/nom]I would be EXTREMELY surprised if a consumer can wear out an SSD from purely maxing out the write count. 120 GB SSDs should last more than 5 years even if you were to write 10GBs to it every day non-stop for the whole 5 years.But 5 years from now would you still be using the same 120 GB drive? ALL things wear out in time, especially storage mediums, and they're replaced by newer, better technology. The only things that can be expected to reliably store data for decades are M-Discs, but those only store as much as a DVD (for now).[/citation]

old intel 60gb drive were tested at 100gb of data a day, and went on for what, 10 years...
granted old tech lasted longer, but point being, most home users out side of a scratch disc will never kill these drives on write alone unless they are being retarded on how they use them.
now as to in 5 years will we still use a 120gb drive...
yea... probably...
i have a 250gb drive from 9 years ago still going... its not a common day use drive anymore, but i could see using my current 2 year old intel ssd for another 3 to 6 years, i may replace it as a boot drive, but it would still be a drive that stays in common use.

[citation][nom]freggo[/nom]"Only 16GB" ... oh, how times have changed :)[/citation]

correct me if my math is wrong, but wouldn't that come out to 2gb a chip than...
i always just translate the number to be gigabyte and make assumptions that way instead of gigabit
it would be really nice if toms stopped using abbreviations when the abbreviation isn't obvious, and did a conversion for us into something more commonly used.

like how internet is rated at 75mbit but really comes to about 5-7 megabyte down

[citation][nom]adgjlsfhk[/nom]yes, but that means that 128 GB is only about 3.4x3.4 cm. Not that big[/citation]
quick math here
3.14x150^2
50000/70685 (waffer base price estimate)
.70 cents per square mm

3.4x3.4 = 1156
1156x.70
809$
and its at this point i realized that something is wrong in my math... or in current prices on wafferes, one of the two...
 

chewy1963

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correct me if my math is wrong, but wouldn't that come out to 2gb a chip than...
i always just translate the number to be gigabyte and make assumptions that way instead of gigabit
it would be really nice if toms stopped using abbreviations when the abbreviation isn't obvious, and did a conversion for us into something more commonly used.

like how internet is rated at 75mbit but really comes to about 5-7 megabyte down

Your math is correct, but we're talking about a 128 gigabit chip, so the chip's capacity is 16 gigabytes (if it were configured that way).

One could consider that intel's and AMD's current processors use 64 bit 'words' I suppose. Then you could call it 2 gigawords...
 

chewy1963

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quick math here
3.14x150^2
50000/70685 (waffer base price estimate)
.70 cents per square mm

3.4x3.4 = 1156
1156x.70
809$
and its at this point i realized that something is wrong in my math... or in current prices on wafferes, one of the two...

Well, this time you have a decimal place error....

3.4x3.4=11.56 (not 1156)

thereby making the chip cost as follows:

11.56x0.70=8.092 ($8.09 rounded)
 

chewy1963

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Wow, the article says it's a 146 square mm chip... which means bad day not only got the size wrong (should be 12.09x12.09 (mm) but it takes a whole step out of the cost calculation

146 x 0.70 = $102.20 (if the cost per square mm is correct)
 
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Guest

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"Well, this time you have a decimal place error....

3.4x3.4=11.56 (not 1156)"

3.4 cm x 3.4 cm = 11.56 cm² = 1156 mm²


"Wow, the article says it's a 146 square mm chip... which means bad day not only got the size wrong (should be 12.09x12.09 (mm) but it takes a whole step out of the cost calculation"

1. It wasn't bad day
2. That math was in reply to a quote, not the article
 

ojas

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I've had an Intel 320 series 128GB SSD in my desktop as the primary drive since about July, i think, and total host writes till now is 1.56TB with 3.35TB reads.

I think that equates to about 7GB of writes per day.
 

carbon12

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[citation][nom]didyoucheckyourtcpip[/nom]That's only 16GB (Gb=Gigabit, GB=Gigabyte, 1 byte=8 bits). That's somewhat misleading advertising for storage technology.[/citation]
No it's not... Standard memory ICs are specified in bits, kbits, Mbits and Gbits. That is the unit of measurement in the chip from the foundry, the number of bits.

It's not really that hard to divide by 8 and 1024 a couple of times.
 
[citation][nom]didyoucheckyourtcpip[/nom]That's only 16GB (Gb=Gigabit, GB=Gigabyte, 1 byte=8 bits). That's somewhat misleading advertising for storage technology.[/citation]

Bytes can have different value depending on the context. For example, a byte transfer on many interfaces (such as USB, all versions of PCIe prior to PCIe 3.0, and many more) consists of ten bits instead of eight. Measuring in bits is done because bits does not have multiple values depending on the context. One bit is always one bit and measuring storage in bits gives an exact number for storage rather than a number that can have varying accuracy. That makes bits (with appropriate prefixes for large numbers) the more accurate way of measuring storage capacity.
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]If this means one day I can get a Pico Drive, USB3.0, with a 1Tb capacity then this is a great idea and let's keep going in that direction[/citation]

We already have 1Tb USB flash drives.
 
[citation][nom]youssef 2010[/nom]I look forward to the day when they'll be able to fit an entire computer in the same space[/citation]

They already can. Whether or not it's a computer that has attractive performance is a whole other matter ;)
 
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