Flash in the Can

Hard on the heels of Hitachi’s 5 terabyte hard drive (see below) comes more data storage news, this time the promise of cheaper and more reliable and longer lasting solid state drives (SSDs). Later this year Samsung are about to start production on 64 and 128Gb SSDs, with 256Gb drives in the pipeline later in the year. The Flash memory modules are mounted inside a metal case that’s the same size and can directly replace standard SATA II type hard drives in laptops, and since there are no moving parts they are not only faster than HDDS but they also out-perform and consume less power than rival first generation SSDs.

How Flash Memory Works

Flash memories are solid state electronic devices with random access memory capabilities used for fast digital information storage. They are used in a wide range of applications, such as storing BIOS routines in typical digital computers, as medium capacity hard drives for digital cameras or as memory cards for laptop computers and video consoles.

The technology used to manufacture flash memories is based on EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) chips, which consist of memory banks formed of storing cells disposed in a grid of columns and rows. A basic storing cell has two MOS-FET transistors at each intersection, and are separated by an oxide layer. The two transistors are known as the floating gate and the control gate. Read More »

Is This The One? £99 Laptop Launches next Week

It had to happen sooner or later. We’re already accustomed to laptops costing less than £300, and if you don’t mind downsizing there’s the excellent Asus Eee PC for £200 or thereabouts but now Elonex have beaten everyone with a laptop selling for just £99. It’s called The One and it’ll be on sale from next week. It’s aimed at school students, which also explains why it is being launched at the 2008 Education Show on February 28th.

Like the Eee PC and OLPC X0 it runs on Linux, and has a compact 7-inch screen but don’t let that put you off. It can do almost anything a full blown Windows or Mac PC can do, including surf the web, send and receive emails using its built-in wi-fi adaptor, it can play and share multimedia files and it comes with a full office suite of programs. Read More »