World’s thinnest titles aren’t just for cellphones and DAPs, don’t you know, Solid State Drives need to shave those millimeters just as much as the next guy, and SimpleTech seems up to the task with its new 64 gigger. The 2.5-inch drive, a member of SimpleTech’s Zeus SSD lineup, measures a mere 9.5mm thick (0.37-inches), compared to some competing solutions more than twice as thick, making it a solid option for squeezing into those ever-slimmer laptops. SimpleTech is currently targeting the device at high performance applications such as military, intelligence and aviation, and has apparently buffeted the drive against shock, humidity, vibration and altitude — most of the stability naturally thanks to the flash technology, of course. No word price, but with those kind of customers, we’re guessing this one won’t be cheap.

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from engadget

Take that Samsung! Toshiba and their partners in NAND, SanDisk, just announced what they are calling the highest available density of single-chip MLC NAND flash memory. The new 8Gb (1GB) NAND will be available in commercial shipments starting later in Q1 with 16Gb (2GB) NAND on the way in Q2. Presumably, this is the technology at the guts of SanDisk’s new 32GB+ SSDs hitting OEMs this spring. Great, but Sammy maintains bragging rights to the fact that they were smart enough to bring 50-nanometer technology to market whereas Tosh tried and failed with a relatively less complex 52-nanometer technology — Tosh’s new single-chip NAND relies on 56-nanometer technology instead. Now, we’re not going to pretend to be experts in NAND fabrication, but we fail to see how 56-nm technology produces a higher density than Sammy’s 50-nm processes. So who’s right? Who cares! Just as long as the trend towards cheaper, faster, and smaller flash memory continues.

[Via AVING]
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from engadget

Toshiba’s closed the gap between HD DVD and Blu-ray releases with the triple-layer 51GB HD DVD disc. That’s one more than currently marketed 50GB Blu-ray movies.

One of the main ticks in the comparison sheet between Blu-ray and HD DVD was the higher storage capacity of BD (50GB discs just debuted a few months ago) compared to HD.

Going up to 51GB, the HD camp can finally say they’re equal to BD in storage, even though it takes three layers to do it—which in turn amps up the price to make these discs. However, the 51GB disc doesn’t exactly level the playing field, seeing as Blu-ray has discs of up to 200GB (8 layers) coming. – Jason Chen

HD-DVD goes beyond 50GB with new disc [DVDTown]
from gizmodo

PQI just announced the availability of their 64GB, 2.5-inch drive — doubling the size of current SSDs packed in either 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch IDE enclosures. That’s news, big news in and of itself. But these drives are also the world’s first to sport SATA. That’s right, thick juicy SATA which should make it possible to do a one-for-one swap with your existing laptop’s spinner. So check it DV editors, before the end of the month you too will have access to ultra-fast flash for your video. No word on pricing yet, but 64GB of NAND on a SATA interface will likely buck the trend of falling SSD prices. Temporarily anyway.

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from engadget

Hot on the heels of all this last minute, pre-CES HD DVD-related action is the SD-H903A, which Toshiba touts as “the world’s first dedicated PC-based HD DVD burner” that writes “to all main optical discs.” Aside from the obvious (albeit expected) hand-to-the-face to BD-Rs in that last claim, the burner does manage to write nicely to HD DVD-R (single and dual-layer at a measly 1x), DVD +/- R, DVD-RAM, DVD +/- RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. Additionally, it’ll include an 8MB buffer, and if all goes well, should play back all your precious HD DVD titles without complication. While we’ve no idea how much coinage will be required to pick this (admittedly sluggish) drive up, sample shipments are scheduled to take off this month, and we should get a good look at just what it’s capable of at next week’s CES.

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from engadget

If yesterday’s announcement by Samsung was a tiny step in the direction of solid state disk (SSD) ubiquity, then today’s announcement by SanDisk is a freakin’ leap. That’s right, the big bad daddy of consumer flash — SanDisk — joins Samsung and TDK today with a 32GB SSD drive all their own. The 1.8-inch SSD delivers a sustained read-rate of 62MBps and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer – more than 100 times faster than most hard disk drives. Fine, but the most notable detail in the press release is the price. According to SanDisk, their 32GB SSD could increase the end-user price by “around $600″ when released in laptops computers in the first half of 2007. That’s down — way down — from the $900 to $1,400 premium we were paying for SSD equipped gear. Come ‘ere, group hug all.
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from engadget