OWC Debuts First SandForce-Based IDE/ATA SSD

[exfileme]

OWC said its new SandForce-based line of SSDs is the first and fastest to utilize an IDE/ATA connection.

OWC Debuts First SandForce-Based IDE/ATA SSD : Read more

 

[jprahman]

Sounds like a great way to breath new life into an old P4/Athlon 64 machine. However, at those prices it may not be worth it.

 

[bv90andy]

first and fastest

if it's the first, of course it's the fastest.

 

[ProDigit10]

though they forgot to mention that some IDE cables allow only upto 150, 133, 100 and 66MB/s.
Your 280MB/s burst rate won't benefit much from it, but perhaps random reads and writes will!

 

[ProDigit10]

[citation][nom]jprahman[/nom]Sounds like a great way to breath new life into an old P4/Athlon 64 machine. However, at those prices it may not be worth it.[/citation]
40 and 60GB seem like a good investment for an old pc.
Remember back in those days (the days of the IDE where the days of Windows 95, NT, 98, 98e, milennium, and 2000) a harddrive of 40GB would cost as much as this ssd. Later in the windows XP era, drives had larger capacities, but you will want compatibility with FAT32 formatting table without partitioning the drive.

 

[techcurious]

Any PC that is so old that it does not have SATA is not worth upgrading with an SSD at these prices. A PC without SATA is what, about 5 years old at least?
And what's the point of spending so much money on one of the best SSD's you can buy now, only to get a 3rd of it's performance now and then eventually upgrade your PC and get the full performance of the SSD later, in a year or so.. ? By then, this SSD will be so much slower than a current SSD by the time you get a new PC with SATA. Not to mention that the newer SSD's would be cheaper too!

480GB for $1599... HAHAHAHAAA!! Instead of that upgrade, you could build a whole new pc with that money, that would outperform your No-SATA-Having-POS (even after an SSD upgrade) by about 10 Fold!

 

[jprahman]

[citation][nom]ProDigit10[/nom]40 and 60GB seem like a good investment for an old pc.Remember back in those days (the days of the IDE where the days of Windows 95, NT, 98, 98e, milennium, and 2000) a harddrive of 40GB would cost as much as this ssd. Later in the windows XP era, drives had larger capacities, but you will want compatibility with FAT32 formatting table without partitioning the drive.[/citation]

True. It just depends how much you want to spend on a new drive vs. building a new system.

 

[elkein]

Nah, not for me but maybe IDE are drives are still used in some legacy businesses, why upgrade now?

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

These drives will have a niche market for sure - for example an old database server that's still using 4 IDE drives in a raid setup (yes they do still exist - e.g. G4 Xserves). Some database servers really have no need for more CPU performance but would benefit from faster random access times. Getting a boss to sign off on four 60gb ATA SSD drives for $720 is far easier than getting them to sign off on a brand new server + four SSD drives.

Of course, any home user stuck with an ATA PC and desperate for an SSD drive but not willing to buy a new computer will be better off buying a standard SATA SSD and a cheap SATA controller card.

 

[zodiacfml]

they may not even need 4 SSDs, but, this indeed is a small market since scsi is used primarily by servers.

[citation][nom]Spanky Deluxe[/nom]These drives will have a niche market for sure - for example an old database server that's still using 4 IDE drives in a raid setup (yes they do still exist - e.g. G4 Xserves). Some database servers really have no need for more CPU performance but would benefit from faster random access times. Getting a boss to sign off on four 60gb ATA SSD drives for $720 is far easier than getting them to sign off on a brand new server + four SSD drives.Of course, any home user stuck with an ATA PC and desperate for an SSD drive but not willing to buy a new computer will be better off buying a standard SATA SSD and a cheap SATA controller card.[/citation]

 

[nebun]

thanks bu no thanks

 

[pakardbell486dx2]

Just wait 4-5 years and those prices will drop like Justin Bieber's balls

 

[mavroxur]

If I wanted to breathe life into an older system, i'd just get a normal SATA SSD, and either a cheapo PCI SATA controller, or an IDE to SATA adapter for like 9 bucks on eBay, that way i'm not stuck with an old school IDE SSD.

 

[mavroxur]

[citation][nom]Soldier37[/nom]really? This is like putting a 2011 model V8 engine in a 1995 Geo Metro. LOL. Who one Earth still uses IDE/ATA wow.[/citation]

A HUGE portion of the industrial / embedded sector, where equipment is built around specialized boards, devices, etc, that make it cost prohibitive to just "replace the computer". Where my dad works, they have several hundred thousand dollar CNC's and mills that are driven by custom-built motherboards that use IDE and serial/parallel interfaces. Most of them are based on socket 7 / 370 processors too.

 

[mjw]

I notice that they only mention that these can be used in desktops, but what about in an IDE laptop that uses a 2.5" disk?
I've had great success breathing performance into a Dell D610 using a 32GB runcore iv SSD, and since these OWC drives are cheaper and faster than runcore I'd buy one for another older laptop if it's suitable...

 

[iam2thecrowe]

they will sell a bare minimum of these. It would probably be wiser to make some sort of adaptor for IDE interfaces.

 

[eklipz330]

speaking of breathing life into old pc's, do they still make agp video cards?

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

[citation][nom]iam2thecrowe[/nom]they will sell a bare minimum of these. It would probably be wiser to make some sort of adaptor for IDE interfaces.[/citation]

I'd put money on these drives being virtually identical to OWC's Pro SSD line but with a SATA to ATA bridge inside - flash doesn't take up much space so there's definitely room in one of these for a chip like that. Just look at the internals of their Pro SSD line: http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_extreme_pro_ssd_review_120gb

Manufacturing the boards and the hard drives isn't that expensive (as in designing a board and putting the chips on), it's the chips that cost the money. It will cost them about $2 more to remove the SATA connectors and solder in a SATA->ATA bridge chip and ATA connectors in the factory. A tiny investment for a potential lucrative (admittedly small) market comprising largely of integrated and legacy server situations.

 

[elkein]

@ mavroxur
I think you may have it, the copier for example in my office uses an ide drive. Though again I'm not hurting for performance on my copiers hard drive. A cnc, etc on the other hand the noise-vibration-harshness of the environment may indeed favor a SSD's capabilities.