News Verbatim Launches Write-Once External SSD With 10-Year Warranty

[Admin]

Storage device is designed to solve data retention issues of accidental file deletion or overwriting, and SSD wear. Special Windows software needs to be installed to write data but not for reading.

Verbatim Launches Write-Once External SSD With 10-Year Warranty : Read more

 

[jonbuder]

Interesting for sure.
I wonder if this type of drive will ever be used for video games. Buying a game and waiting hours or days to be able to play it is frustrating - it's faster to run to the store and buy a 128GB game cartridge containing the game than it would be for a lot of people to download the game.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Seems like a Blu-Ray M Disk would be a better option.

 

[SirStephenH]

Interesting for sure.
I wonder if this type of drive will ever be used for video games. Buying a game and waiting hours or days to be able to play it is frustrating - it's faster to run to the store and buy a 128GB game cartridge containing the game than it would be for a lot of people to download the game.

We already have discs for that, which are a far cheaper and less wasteful solution. Physical media for games is dead. Many games, especially AAA titles, require a day-one patch that's up to the full size of the game and the further from launch date you are the bigger it gets, meaning you're not actually getting much from the disc/physical media itself, you're downloading it. You could always take advantage of pre-installs for new releases whenever possible.

 

[hotaru.hino]

We already have discs for that, which are a far cheaper and less wasteful solution. Physical media for games is dead. Many games, especially AAA titles, require a day-one patch that's up to the full size of the game and the further from launch date you are the bigger it gets, meaning you're not actually getting much from the disc/physical media itself, you're downloading it. You could always take advantage of pre-installs for new releases whenever possible.

You can play physical media games for consoles without patching them unless the game requires online access. Also the cartridge need not necessarily be read only. A system can be in place to apply patches to the game media itself so the physical copy is up to date (though I don't know of any system that actually does this).

 

[Co BIY]

Seems like a Blu-Ray M Disk would be a better option.

But do the kids know about disks ?

I can see this as a bookkeepers archive device. Each year you pull out the Company Archive and deposit the annual official "books". Put it back into the safe with the ceremonial "Chop" or "Hanko".

Archiving is something that is so simple except ... that it happens over time.

 

[mavroxur]

How is this news-worthy? I remember a flash drive I had back in 2006-ish that had a write protect switch on it. No funny software needed, just functioned like a normal USB mass storage device with a switch on the side to disable writes.

 

[russell_john]

I question the necessity of this for the average user. I have an Intel 520 120 GB SSD, the first one that I ever bought way back in 2012 and it's still got 70% of it's life left on it> Plus for the last 3 years due to it's small size (I can only put 1 or 2 modern games on it) making it almost worthless now it's been used for nothing other than a Windows Page File mainly as an experiment on how long it would last in that extreme usage scenario ..... It went from 80% life to 70% life in 3 years or 10% of it's lifespan in 3 years when used as a Page File. Even by the most conservative estimates it's going to last longer than any HDD I have ever owned and will be 10 years old in just a few months

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Interesting but this is opening the flood gates to something potentially dangerous for the industry. I can already see laptops and desktops coming with these as the default storage mediums as they get cheaper forcing consumers to shell out more money.

 

[Yveske]

I would rather have something with a physical read/write switch (like on a SD card, but more durable long time storage).

 

[Chung Leong]

Seems like a Blu-Ray M Disk would be a better option.

Doesn't solve the problem. Files on multi-session discs can be deleted and modified.

 

[rluker5]

Doesn't solve the problem. Files on multi-session discs can be deleted and modified.

You are thinking of a regular disk. Easier to rewrite or modify your audio CD than an Mdisk.

 

[USAFRet]

I question the necessity of this for the average user.

Not everything that is produced and sold is aimed at the average user.
This is one of those things.

 

[mo_osk]

What's the point of selecting the best "high-quality industrial Flash NAND " in order to avoid bit rot when any mechanical hard drive will do much better? A ten year warranty isn't even impressive or practical for that kind of use. Is it even more than what can be expected from a normal, cheap, flash that would only be written to once?

 

[holmes4]

So happy to see that the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory has finally found a commercial use.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Interesting but this is opening the flood gates to something potentially dangerous for the industry. I can already see laptops and desktops coming with these as the default storage mediums as they get cheaper forcing consumers to shell out more money.

And any consumer computer that comes out with "write only memory" will instantly be given the ire of every single tech review site, assuming the system builder didn't pay them a king's ransom to say nice things about it.

I mean, if they really wanted to shaft the consumer on space, just include the bare minimum, thumb drive grade storage. Which is already a thing with Chromebooks, "Stream" PCs, and the like, expecting you to house your data on the cloud and run browser based applications.

 

[cryoburner]

At the time of writing, we don't have pricing and availability for the Verbatim SWOVA128G or information about if/when it will be sold in the west.

An SSD with only 128GB of storage and HDD-like write speeds, that can only be written to once? I'll give them two dollars for it.

Flash storage with very limited drive writes could potentially make sense, but it would need to be ultra-inexpensive for something like that to be mass-marketable, more comparable to the cost-per-GB of disk-based storage. But I doubt this is going to cost much less to make than other flash devices, hence why they are marketing it for niche archival purposes. Though they can't guarantee that the data can't be modified, so even for that, it's usefulness seems a bit questionable.

Interesting for sure.
I wonder if this type of drive will ever be used for video games. Buying a game and waiting hours or days to be able to play it is frustrating - it's faster to run to the store and buy a 128GB game cartridge containing the game than it would be for a lot of people to download the game.

This drive is probably not going to be priced well enough for that, and it wouldn't really make sense to put a game on an external drive in this form factor. Some current gaming devices do use read-only flash cartridges though, namely the Nintendo Switch. Its cartridges apparently use read-only "XtraROM", which its manufacturer suggests should retain data for at least 20 years at room temperature. Though much like other forms of flash storage, it's relatively pricey, so publishers would much rather distribute games on inexpensive optical discs when the form factor isn't a concern, or through digital distribution. Unless you are willing to pay an extra $10+ on top of the price of a game distributed via other means, that is, which doesn't really make much sense when consoles with optical drives are still a thing.

Interesting but this is opening the flood gates to something potentially dangerous for the industry. I can already see laptops and desktops coming with these as the default storage mediums as they get cheaper forcing consumers to shell out more money.

They would need some other means of storage as well, since the OS and applications are constantly writing data to a drive, making something like this completely impractical for anything but permanent data storage. It wouldn't make sense as primary storage in a consumer device, and again, I doubt the price is going to be good enough anytime soon to where it would fill a logical role as a cost-cutting measure.

 

[Chung Leong]

You are thinking of a regular disk. Easier to rewrite or modify your audio CD than an Mdisk.

Multiple-session discs, as the name implies, allows you to write to a disc over multiple sessions. A new file table is burnt to the disc at each session. If the entry for a file written in the previous session is omitted, then that file is effectively deleted, as the OS won't find it anymore even though the data is still physically present on the disc. Why am I even explaining this? Has it really been that long?

 

[USAFRet]

Again, this device has nothing to do with regular consumer use.

"From the product page discussing example usage scenarios, it might have particular appeal in Japan, as it is said to be "compliant with the revised Electronic Bookkeeping Law" in that country. Japanese law requires electronic transactions that can "ensure truth," "ensure visibility" and be retained for at least seven years. A file system tool provided by Verbatim can verify the data on the drive with a recording log that maintains the file name, date and time, hash value (SHA-256). "

10 drive CD/DVD duplicators
Tape backup drives
20 monitor replicator docks

All viable devices in the computer world, that have nothing to do with consumer use.

 

[escksu]

Interesting for sure.
I wonder if this type of drive will ever be used for video games. Buying a game and waiting hours or days to be able to play it is frustrating - it's faster to run to the store and buy a 128GB game cartridge containing the game than it would be for a lot of people to download the game.

Not quite. The problem with vast majority of the games are that after installation, you will still need to download a massive patch from the internet before its playable....

 

[rluker5]

Multiple-session discs, as the name implies, allows you to write to a disc over multiple sessions. A new file table is burnt to the disc at each session. If the entry for a file written in the previous session is omitted, then that file is effectively deleted, as the OS won't find it anymore even though the data is still physically present on the disc. Why am I even explaining this? Has it really been that long?

The M in M-disc doesn't stand for "multiple sessions", it stands for Millennial Disc. They are anti multi session. You don't get second chances writing them and have to have everything lined up first. You don't have the same freedoms as with normal DVDs and a lot of people "lose" a couple before they figure out how to record on them. Afterwards they read like normal though. And you can scratch them. And I personally would have to dig out my writer from my garage , pull the side panel off my pc and sata it in there to use it since I don't write too many dvds anymore.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

They would need some other means of storage as well, since the OS and applications are constantly writing data to a drive, making something like this completely impractical for anything but permanent data storage. It wouldn't make sense as primary storage in a consumer device, and again, I doubt the price is going to be good enough anytime soon to where it would fill a logical role as a cost-cutting measure.

I'm talking way down the line. I can see them making the primary/OS drive as prices come down. Years ago it was unthinkable to have Micro-SD cards with the capacities for the price today. Technology advances quick. Feels like yesterday we were making sure our mechanical drives were as fast as possible and today we are basically using glorified, albeit more complex, giant USB drives as our main drives.

And any consumer computer that comes out with "write only memory" will instantly be given the ire of every single tech review site, assuming the system builder didn't pay them a king's ransom to say nice things about it.



I mean, if they really wanted to shaft the consumer on space, just include the bare minimum, thumb drive grade storage. Which is already a thing with Chromebooks, "Stream" PCs, and the like, expecting you to house your data on the cloud and run browser based applications.

Are you forgetting the state of computing? Take laptops for example, more and more are coming with only one NVME slot with no other interface and/or 1 user swappable RAM slot. We are getting shafted every year, just for the most part going unnoticed. Oh and I/O, look how many laptops (yes again laptops) are dropping more and more ports and not due to size restrictions.

 

[gggplaya]

Multiple-session discs, as the name implies, allows you to write to a disc over multiple sessions. A new file table is burnt to the disc at each session. If the entry for a file written in the previous session is omitted, then that file is effectively deleted, as the OS won't find it anymore even though the data is still physically present on the disc. Why am I even explaining this? Has it really been that long?

You're very uninformed. M-Discs are made for archival purposes, I store all my family photos and videos on them. They're write once, but they're designed to last 1000+ years in storage. Normal burnable blu-rays use a dye which will start to degrade in 20-30 years.

M Disc

www.mdisc.com

M-discs are very expensive coasters when you screw them up, especially the 100GB versions.

 

[cryoburner]

I'm talking way down the line. I can see them making the primary/OS drive as prices come down.

The problem with these particular drives is that they don't just have low write-endurance, but rather their capacity can only be written to once, so it would be hard to see them making any sense whatsoever as an OS drive. Unless the entire operating system and all software on it were specially configured to not write any temporary files to the drive, a typical user browsing the web might burn through a 1TB drive within a few months, even if they weren't explicitly saving files to it. And even if temporary files were completely avoided, software updates alone could easily burn through the available space. If your web browser were to update every week, you would effectively have over 50 copies of it installed after a year with no way to reclaim the space from the old versions. An OS update might chew through tens of gigabytes of space, again with no way to reclaim it. And that's not even including space used for file storage, which would be the only semi-reasonable use for a drive like this.

And while the price of write-once drives will come down, the same can be said for standard SSDs that can have the entirety of their space written over numerous times. And I don't see the price of the two becoming massively different, short of some completely different technology being discovered for write-once media. Now, I could certainly see drives with significantly lower available drive writes making more sense as capacities continue to increase. Even if each flash memory cell could only be written to 20 times, for example, that could still be reasonable for most users if the drive had a 10TB capacity to perform wear-leveling with, without the user having to be concerned about each write reducing the drive's total capacity.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Are you forgetting the state of computing? Take laptops for example, more and more are coming with only one NVME slot with no other interface and/or 1 user swappable RAM slot. We are getting shafted every year, just for the most part going unnoticed. Oh and I/O, look how many laptops (yes again laptops) are dropping more and more ports and not due to size restrictions.

So you think that system builders are going to shove in write once memory because it's somehow cheaper than commodity flash memory that would've been destined for gas station thumb drive or they just want to shaft the consumer even more?

Next thing you know you'll tell me they'll make laptops that only last for 30 days so we have to buy new ones.