Toshiba announce DDR memory for SSDs

[danrok]

More speed, less power consumption.

See front page:
Toshiba announce DDR memory for SSDs

Comments?

[booman]

I'm confused, they are using DDR for the actual SSD hard drive, or its onboard memory cache?
Just asking because SSD drives are already made of flash memory and DDR is temporary memory...

[danrok]

That's the point, this is DDR flash memory.

[cloasters]

Cool, faster SSD's are on the way. Here's hoping that their price will drop considerably. Thanks for the link, danrok!

[booman]

how the heck are they making DDR permanently store data?

[Gizmo]

DDR simply specifies the interface speed and type, not the memory type. The fact that up to this point DDR has been used in conjunction with SDRAM is just a historical coincidence (and matter of convenience). Technically, I could interface a hard drive to the system using the DDR signalling scheme if I really wanted to.

Up to this point (AFAIK), flash memory has used a parallel bus signaling scheme (set an address on the address pins, read the data out 8 bits or 16 bits at a time on the data pins). This scheme is the way pretty much all memory operated 30 years ago. Modern hardware uses some type of serial signaling scheme (SPI, DDR) because it can be driven faster and is easier to route signals for.

[booman]

Its pretty cool. So are they projecting DDR will read/write faster and have a longer life span?

[Gizmo]

No, all DDR will do is allow them to get the data to/from the chip faster. Being able to read/write the chip faster or have a longer life span really has nothing to do with the signaling scheme.

It's worth noting, though, that up to this point, the read/write speeds on flash have been such that there really wasn't any POINT in using a different signalling scheme.

[cloasters]

Those Toshibans, what'll they do next?

[eissa4444]

thaaaaaaaaanxxxxxxxxxx