You cant even get SSD as an upgrade option in iMac.
SSD is too damn expensive, and why would you put SSD in an iMac? They're better suited for laptops because laptops at least move around and are far more prone to shock/damage. SSD is barely an improvement in terms of actual performance, not to mention they have crap capacities, they're more useful for removing the mechanical damage factor that you get with traditional hard disks.
SSD is too damn expensive, and why would you put SSD in an iMac? They're better suited for laptops because laptops at least move around and are far more prone to shock/damage. SSD is barely an improvement in terms of actual performance, not to mention they have crap capacities, they're more useful for removing the mechanical damage factor that you get with traditional hard disks.
#2. Wrong. Shock damage is not and never has been the concern. The concern is that physical drives themselves SUCK, and even remaining motionless, wear themselves out in short order.
#3. Actual performance of the average SSD is more than 30% FASTER. That's not what you call "barely".
#4. Capacity for the internal storage of non-removable harddrives isn't much of an issue. Apple currently offers 128 and 256, albeit large markups. Those are more than enough for internal storage.
What Apple should be doing, is offering 16, 32, and 64 gb SSD options as well. This would enable lower price points. They simply refuse.
#2. Wrong. Shock damage is not and never has been the concern. The concern is that physical drives themselves SUCK, and even remaining motionless, wear themselves out in short order.
no, shock damage is a factor. Not the only one, mind you.
Quote:
#3. Actual performance of the average SSD is more than 30% FASTER. That's not what you call "barely".
On what? reading? writing? I recall reading some benchmarks where only certain tasks performed better while others were marginal at best
Quote:
#4. Capacity for the internal storage of non-removable harddrives isn't much of an issue. Apple currently offers 128 and 256, albeit large markups. Those are more than enough for internal storage.
now don't be pigheaded: for many people even 256 isn't enough. For instance, I've used up ~200 gb at work (luckily we have a servor for me to dump my crap on) in 2.5 months.
Quote:
What Apple should be doing, is offering 16, 32, and 64 gb SSD options as well. This would enable lower price points. They simply refuse.
They do - in the touch. If my music fills it up, I'll need more for my computer. Unless you mean a small SSD along with an HDD, though I don't see much benefit except perhaps on a laptop. Perhaps.
No bickering; the $500 I spent on a Intel X25-M G2 160GB for my Mac Pro is by far the best performance-increase-for-buck purchase I've ever made.
When people spend a few hundred $ to simply upgrade their CPU option from 2.5 to 2.66, the ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE higher perceptible performance increase you get from a SSD is far more valuable.
When you watch iTunes / Photoshop / anything else big & bloated open in one bounce, you will weep tears of pure joy!
(That said, 160 GB is too small for all my non-boot, non-app "stuff" - so I have a RAID-0 arrangement of 2x 320MB Seagate Barracuda drives = 640 GB of relative fast storage for things like the iTunes Library. Going purely SSD in a one drive machine is a challenge.)
do they need to be backed up? (i'm assuming yes), but if they don't fail then they are more durable
so backup not as critical?
I read that even when blocks "fail" on SSDs, it is only failure to write. You can still read from it. So in that way, they're far safer than disk drives. Also apparently the controller makes a huge difference. The controller from Intel or Indilinx is fast. Other controllers are much slower. I have to say, after reading about these things for a year, they're still a ways away from replacing disk drives in laptops, at least for most users, since the 160 gig drives are ~$600 for the ones with good controllers. The 128 gigs are a few hundred less but that would be a downgrade for me. After this research I decided to probably just go for a 7200 rpm drive with a lot of fast cache when I get the 13" MBP in a few months.
Having researched this a bit and owning 2 OCZ Vertex SSDs I can say that the technology is certainly promising but still in its infancy.
IMHO SSDs are not ready for the general consumer. And not just because of their high price.
Currently you really need to know what you are getting yourself into.
Here are some of the issues:
- It's all about the controller and drivers
While potentially superfast, it all depends on controllers and drivers. And controller manufacturers and driver programmers are still learning. This technology is just so new that there are still kinks. Some controllers work faster, others slower. None are perfectly optimized yet.
You need to research this before you buy as each has pros and cons.
Some early SSDs worked fast initially but got slower and slower over time until you had to 'reformat' (recondition) them. You lose all data in the process.
Newer drivers take care of this by doing smart garbage collection to basically 'autotune' the drive while idle, reconditioning on the fly within an hour or two.
Yet even that is not without pitfalls. For example the 1.3 OCZ drivers had issues with drives locking up during garbage collection. I had one of my two drives lock up and needed to RMA it back to OCZ. 2 1/2 weeks later I'm still waiting to get a replacement drive...
The new 1.4 drivers solve this. But it only proves early technology has its pitfalls. I understood this from the start and I'm not complaining! But I am sure average Joe would not be so happy.
- OS Support
SSDs can work much more optimized if the OS supports TRIM.
Mac OS X currently does not support TRIM (Windows 7 does). OS X surely will eventually support it but without TRIM the OS is not ready for an 'SSD Primetime' IMHO.
- File Security
With HDs users are accustomed to write over a certain block again and again to securely erase data. Even the Finder supports this feature.
Well, this doesn't work with SSDs because writing is spread out as much as possible to different cells to level wear. Overwriting the file will not in fact erase the original copy.
Currently it is rather impossible for SSDs to securely erase their data on a file by file basis. You'd have to wipe the whole drive.
In future SSDs will support hardware encryption and other security features, but AFAIK none of the common drives do that currently.
Users have to re-think their file security.
- User Education
Certain practices users are used to from HDs should not be done with SSDs as they will reduce their lifespan. Things like defragmentation or HD tuning.
People need to be aware that their current HD tools are actually harmful when used on SSDs.
SSDs really do speed up your workflow. But you need to know the pitfalls.
Even with them SSDs already make a lot of sense in laptop as
a) users typically don't expect huge storage capacities in laptop HDs,
b) laptop HDs are typically slower than their desktop counterparts and
c) due to generally slower mobile CPUs (still no quad-core CPUs!) any system speedup is welcome. Especially for the MacBook Air which uses an even weaker (because lower-power) CPU.
They also make sense in high-end desktops for people who need the fastest work environments.
But these early adopters typically know about SSD limitations and accept them for the speed gained.
Now that I have more time, let me look into my crystal ball.
SSD is a technology that's been around for decades but is just now poised
to move into the mainstream. This is happening based on a few technologies.
1. Higher density NAND storage. Current fab processes now make it feasible to create large chunks of storage.
2. Cell packing technology. Currently MLC (Multi Level Cell) technology offers the ability to store two bits per cell doubling the amount of physical storage (thus 40GB of NAND can store 80GB)
The future is going to yield even more storage via patents by Sandisk which allows for three bits per cell and four bits per cell so expect to see affordable 80/120/160GB drives in the next few years.
Controller technology is improving and there is a standards body (Onfi) that works on interoperability of SSD technology.
The reason I'm so optimistic about SSD storage is because it represents a large leap forward in addressing the slowest storage subsystem in the computer. The typical SSD of today is orders of magnitude faster than HDD in latency. Read numbers numbers are improving as well with 200MBps being typical.
Consumers, to date, have only been concerned how much storage they can buy per dollar. The decision between 5400 or 7200rpm drives is fairly trivial.
SSD though represents a fundmental change in computing architecture. The fastest SSD deliver performance in areas that HDD simply cannot touch. To leverage this is going require changes in how operating systems deal with storage. Today they always assume that the storage subsystem is operating within HDD speed parameters but as we move forward these assumptions will fall by the wayside.
Now we hear about Light Peak replacing today's legacy ports. I cannot understate the potential of Light Peak. With Fiber Optic cable you now have the ability to attach peripherals up to 100 meters away. Not only is Fiber Optic faster than copper cable technologies but the latency is far superior. Ok ..let's wrap this up.
In 2010 SSD will still be expensive items that are primarly used in laptops and in enthusiast desktop.
By the end of 2011 and into 2012 we're likely to see SSD become mainstream. Three and Four cell SSD will be delivering 240GB & 320GB SSD drives (based on 80GB NAND ).
The real kicker could be if Light Peak is ready. OS X is based off of a directory structure and it's fairly easy to separate your boot items from your "user" items. On a PC it's the equivalent of taking the "My Documents" folder and placing it on another drive. The advantages here should be evident. If you can boot off a fast SSD you reap all the benefits of speed and if you have external storage connected with a fast connection (Light Peak) you reap the reward of being able to use large scale storage placed conveniently.
Because Snow Leopard employs some nifty compression and other enhancements most of us were able to gain back a significant amount of storage. I don't see this stopping with 10.7. In fact with an small and relatively compact OS in a couple of years the feasibility of purchasing a SLC based SSD for your boot partition reduces the fill issues or write problems associated with MLC SSD.
Apple will continue to adopt SSD for more of their platforms and the SSD themselves will grow larger and controller more sophisticated. I think Apple's just waiting for better supplies before they place SSD across the whole lineup.
If not even Intel, considered by many the best SSDs, can get their drivers right all the time it only proves that SSDs are not ready for everyone just yet.
Or when was the last time you upgraded your HD drivers? And did this cause you troubles?
In the meantime people still lose data with SSDs due to driver and other issues.
For many the speed gained is worth the hassle, but not everyone will agree.
You just have to know the risks.
I am sure this will all get much better over time. Yet I hope people would stop asking for Apple to go all SSD now.
Wow, thanks HoBIT and hmurch for the extremely informative and insightful posts! Hmurch after reading up on SLC I see what you mean. Perhaps for laptops, though, we'll have two drives: a speedy SLC boot drive with the OS and a small space for key files or apps, and a larger HDD for most files. I know they're already starting to make "hybrid" drives. Anyhow that's what I'd hope to purchase in a few years.
Another SSD advantage I neglected to mention was that since there are no moving parts, I'd assume they're a lot more resistance to shock and dropping, thus good for laptops, right? I also read that flash drives are essentially impervious to data loss from contact with a magnet, although to be fair I also read that HDDs are also essentially safe. (By essentially I mean from a kitchen-strength magnet)
Next year SSDs will get even more interesting. I attended a couple of Intel's SSD tracks at IDF this year and got a glimpse into what Intel is working on. Through TRIM and other architectural enhancements Intel is expecting to deliver much higher consistent performance on its future SSDs, regardless of how full they are. We can also expect to see a decoupling of capacity from the number of channels the controller supports; right now Intel has a couple of oddball sizes compared to the competition, but future designs will allow Intel to more closely mimic HDD capacities regardless of controller configuration.
I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves
The resistance to to shock, lower power consumption and speed make SSD very important especially considering we're moving to Quad Core as the standard and benchmarks show a SSD's speed advantage increases with more cores at play.
One big problem is that Flash based SSD have hit a size limit so we aren't going to see huge strides in capacity for SLC. This will have a significant impact on Flashes growth in capacity and inversly it's reliability. So I don't expect to see significant growth in Flash based SSD capacity growth. It certainly won't catch up with spinning technology any time soon.
The future of SSD appears to be phase change, at least for the near future. This technology has the potential to eliminate some of flash based SSDs problems. More so it can deliver incredible bit density.
In any event I digress the big problem, right this minute, is that flash SSD just don't have the capacity that the average user needs. Generally SSD are about a third of the capacity of a rotating disk and three times the cost. That in a nut shell highlights the problem with SSD.
Especially for people like me who would like a terabyte of storage in his laptop. All the negatives aside Apple needs to get better about offering options with SSDs being one of those options. I just don't see people jumping at the chance to go SSD right now. I wouldn't reject however something like a 150GB SSD in a laptop along side a large capacity HD. The SSD for apps and the HD for user data.
In any event the real question this article raises is why do we call them SSDs and not SSS? That is Solid State Storage because there is no disk in the manic box.
Hell...since SSD isn't beholden to size you can squeeze in a 1.8" bay and a 2.5". The 1.8" SSD are pretty much as fast as the larger 2.5" SSD they just hold less chips.
1.8" for boot and 2.5" for large scale data if size is an issue or just two 2.5" bays. Voila.
Proves that even if SSDs are stuck at some kind of compactness limit they can about achieve parity with current 2.5" HD storage capacities.
And I still expect them to reach 1TB in a 2.5" format with today's technology.
Might be enough storage for a while.
Of course their prices are still lots higher than HDs. That 512GB SSD would be about $1,000 - $1,600.
Yet at a 10-15x higher price you also get a substantially faster storage. And it's more resistant to shock.
Wizard69 made a good point about calling them SSS and at the same time I'd really like them to move away from those 1.8" and 2.5" 'disk' formats.
With OLED displays reaching <0.5mm in thickness how thin can a laptop screen get? 1mm? Surely not because then the screen would just flex too much.
How about making it 3mm thick and stacking a 1mm OLED with a 1mm full surface area layer of flash chips behind it? Rigidity for the display at 3mm total thickness and all the laptop's storage you need! This should be enough surface area for 1TB of SSS storage! And it will allow the bottom laptop part to be even smaller as no HD needs to be placed there.
Nice thread, thanks for all the informative posts.
My prediction is that SSD will be 50% market share with normal hard drives, across all desktop and laptop markets... in 2012. I think mid 2010 to mid 2011 there'll be some breakthrough that will push things ahead in SSD-land.
Comments
You cant even get SSD as an upgrade option in iMac.
SSD is too damn expensive, and why would you put SSD in an iMac? They're better suited for laptops because laptops at least move around and are far more prone to shock/damage. SSD is barely an improvement in terms of actual performance, not to mention they have crap capacities, they're more useful for removing the mechanical damage factor that you get with traditional hard disks.
Wait a couple years.
Bingo
SSD is too damn expensive, and why would you put SSD in an iMac? They're better suited for laptops because laptops at least move around and are far more prone to shock/damage. SSD is barely an improvement in terms of actual performance, not to mention they have crap capacities, they're more useful for removing the mechanical damage factor that you get with traditional hard disks.
#1. They definitely are too expensive.
#2. Wrong. Shock damage is not and never has been the concern. The concern is that physical drives themselves SUCK, and even remaining motionless, wear themselves out in short order.
#3. Actual performance of the average SSD is more than 30% FASTER. That's not what you call "barely".
#4. Capacity for the internal storage of non-removable harddrives isn't much of an issue. Apple currently offers 128 and 256, albeit large markups. Those are more than enough for internal storage.
What Apple should be doing, is offering 16, 32, and 64 gb SSD options as well. This would enable lower price points. They simply refuse.
#1. They definitely are too expensive.
yes
#2. Wrong. Shock damage is not and never has been the concern. The concern is that physical drives themselves SUCK, and even remaining motionless, wear themselves out in short order.
no, shock damage is a factor. Not the only one, mind you.
#3. Actual performance of the average SSD is more than 30% FASTER. That's not what you call "barely".
On what? reading? writing? I recall reading some benchmarks where only certain tasks performed better while others were marginal at best
#4. Capacity for the internal storage of non-removable harddrives isn't much of an issue. Apple currently offers 128 and 256, albeit large markups. Those are more than enough for internal storage.
now don't be pigheaded: for many people even 256 isn't enough. For instance, I've used up ~200 gb at work (luckily we have a servor for me to dump my crap on) in 2.5 months.
What Apple should be doing, is offering 16, 32, and 64 gb SSD options as well. This would enable lower price points. They simply refuse.
They do - in the touch. If my music fills it up, I'll need more for my computer. Unless you mean a small SSD along with an HDD, though I don't see much benefit except perhaps on a laptop. Perhaps.
When people spend a few hundred $ to simply upgrade their CPU option from 2.5 to 2.66, the ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE higher perceptible performance increase you get from a SSD is far more valuable.
When you watch iTunes / Photoshop / anything else big & bloated open in one bounce, you will weep tears of pure joy!
(That said, 160 GB is too small for all my non-boot, non-app "stuff" - so I have a RAID-0 arrangement of 2x 320MB Seagate Barracuda drives = 640 GB of relative fast storage for things like the iTunes Library. Going purely SSD in a one drive machine is a challenge.)
can data get corrupted
do they ever need to be wiped clean??
do they need to be backed up? (i'm assuming yes), but if they don't fail then they are more durable
so backup not as critical?
do ssd fail?
can data get corrupted
do they ever need to be wiped clean??
do they need to be backed up? (i'm assuming yes), but if they don't fail then they are more durable
so backup not as critical?
I read that even when blocks "fail" on SSDs, it is only failure to write. You can still read from it. So in that way, they're far safer than disk drives. Also apparently the controller makes a huge difference. The controller from Intel or Indilinx is fast. Other controllers are much slower. I have to say, after reading about these things for a year, they're still a ways away from replacing disk drives in laptops, at least for most users, since the 160 gig drives are ~$600 for the ones with good controllers. The 128 gigs are a few hundred less but that would be a downgrade for me. After this research I decided to probably just go for a 7200 rpm drive with a lot of fast cache when I get the 13" MBP in a few months.
IMHO SSDs are not ready for the general consumer. And not just because of their high price.
Currently you really need to know what you are getting yourself into.
Here are some of the issues:
- It's all about the controller and drivers
While potentially superfast, it all depends on controllers and drivers. And controller manufacturers and driver programmers are still learning. This technology is just so new that there are still kinks. Some controllers work faster, others slower. None are perfectly optimized yet.
You need to research this before you buy as each has pros and cons.
Some early SSDs worked fast initially but got slower and slower over time until you had to 'reformat' (recondition) them. You lose all data in the process.
Newer drivers take care of this by doing smart garbage collection to basically 'autotune' the drive while idle, reconditioning on the fly within an hour or two.
Yet even that is not without pitfalls. For example the 1.3 OCZ drivers had issues with drives locking up during garbage collection. I had one of my two drives lock up and needed to RMA it back to OCZ. 2 1/2 weeks later I'm still waiting to get a replacement drive...
The new 1.4 drivers solve this. But it only proves early technology has its pitfalls. I understood this from the start and I'm not complaining! But I am sure average Joe would not be so happy.
- OS Support
SSDs can work much more optimized if the OS supports TRIM.
Mac OS X currently does not support TRIM (Windows 7 does). OS X surely will eventually support it but without TRIM the OS is not ready for an 'SSD Primetime' IMHO.
- File Security
With HDs users are accustomed to write over a certain block again and again to securely erase data. Even the Finder supports this feature.
Well, this doesn't work with SSDs because writing is spread out as much as possible to different cells to level wear. Overwriting the file will not in fact erase the original copy.
Currently it is rather impossible for SSDs to securely erase their data on a file by file basis. You'd have to wipe the whole drive.
In future SSDs will support hardware encryption and other security features, but AFAIK none of the common drives do that currently.
Users have to re-think their file security.
- User Education
Certain practices users are used to from HDs should not be done with SSDs as they will reduce their lifespan. Things like defragmentation or HD tuning.
People need to be aware that their current HD tools are actually harmful when used on SSDs.
SSDs really do speed up your workflow. But you need to know the pitfalls.
Even with them SSDs already make a lot of sense in laptop as
a) users typically don't expect huge storage capacities in laptop HDs,
b) laptop HDs are typically slower than their desktop counterparts and
c) due to generally slower mobile CPUs (still no quad-core CPUs!) any system speedup is welcome. Especially for the MacBook Air which uses an even weaker (because lower-power) CPU.
They also make sense in high-end desktops for people who need the fastest work environments.
But these early adopters typically know about SSD limitations and accept them for the speed gained.
But they won't suit the average consumer - yet.
Now that I have more time, let me look into my crystal ball.
SSD is a technology that's been around for decades but is just now poised
to move into the mainstream. This is happening based on a few technologies.
1. Higher density NAND storage. Current fab processes now make it feasible to create large chunks of storage.
2. Cell packing technology. Currently MLC (Multi Level Cell) technology offers the ability to store two bits per cell doubling the amount of physical storage (thus 40GB of NAND can store 80GB)
The future is going to yield even more storage via patents by Sandisk which allows for three bits per cell and four bits per cell so expect to see affordable 80/120/160GB drives in the next few years.
Controller technology is improving and there is a standards body (Onfi) that works on interoperability of SSD technology.
The reason I'm so optimistic about SSD storage is because it represents a large leap forward in addressing the slowest storage subsystem in the computer. The typical SSD of today is orders of magnitude faster than HDD in latency. Read numbers numbers are improving as well with 200MBps being typical.
Consumers, to date, have only been concerned how much storage they can buy per dollar. The decision between 5400 or 7200rpm drives is fairly trivial.
SSD though represents a fundmental change in computing architecture. The fastest SSD deliver performance in areas that HDD simply cannot touch. To leverage this is going require changes in how operating systems deal with storage. Today they always assume that the storage subsystem is operating within HDD speed parameters but as we move forward these assumptions will fall by the wayside.
Now we hear about Light Peak replacing today's legacy ports. I cannot understate the potential of Light Peak. With Fiber Optic cable you now have the ability to attach peripherals up to 100 meters away. Not only is Fiber Optic faster than copper cable technologies but the latency is far superior. Ok ..let's wrap this up.
In 2010 SSD will still be expensive items that are primarly used in laptops and in enthusiast desktop.
By the end of 2011 and into 2012 we're likely to see SSD become mainstream. Three and Four cell SSD will be delivering 240GB & 320GB SSD drives (based on 80GB NAND ).
The real kicker could be if Light Peak is ready. OS X is based off of a directory structure and it's fairly easy to separate your boot items from your "user" items. On a PC it's the equivalent of taking the "My Documents" folder and placing it on another drive. The advantages here should be evident. If you can boot off a fast SSD you reap all the benefits of speed and if you have external storage connected with a fast connection (Light Peak) you reap the reward of being able to use large scale storage placed conveniently.
Because Snow Leopard employs some nifty compression and other enhancements most of us were able to gain back a significant amount of storage. I don't see this stopping with 10.7. In fact with an small and relatively compact OS in a couple of years the feasibility of purchasing a SLC based SSD for your boot partition reduces the fill issues or write problems associated with MLC SSD.
Apple will continue to adopt SSD for more of their platforms and the SSD themselves will grow larger and controller more sophisticated. I think Apple's just waiting for better supplies before they place SSD across the whole lineup.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/27/i...der-windows-7/
If not even Intel, considered by many the best SSDs, can get their drivers right all the time it only proves that SSDs are not ready for everyone just yet.
Or when was the last time you upgraded your HD drivers? And did this cause you troubles?
In the meantime people still lose data with SSDs due to driver and other issues.
For many the speed gained is worth the hassle, but not everyone will agree.
You just have to know the risks.
I am sure this will all get much better over time. Yet I hope people would stop asking for Apple to go all SSD now.
This does not make sense - yet.
Another SSD advantage I neglected to mention was that since there are no moving parts, I'd assume they're a lot more resistance to shock and dropping, thus good for laptops, right? I also read that flash drives are essentially impervious to data loss from contact with a magnet, although to be fair I also read that HDDs are also essentially safe. (By essentially I mean from a kitchen-strength magnet)
Next year SSDs will get even more interesting. I attended a couple of Intel's SSD tracks at IDF this year and got a glimpse into what Intel is working on. Through TRIM and other architectural enhancements Intel is expecting to deliver much higher consistent performance on its future SSDs, regardless of how full they are. We can also expect to see a decoupling of capacity from the number of channels the controller supports; right now Intel has a couple of oddball sizes compared to the competition, but future designs will allow Intel to more closely mimic HDD capacities regardless of controller configuration.
I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves
The resistance to to shock, lower power consumption and speed make SSD very important especially considering we're moving to Quad Core as the standard and benchmarks show a SSD's speed advantage increases with more cores at play.
The future of SSD appears to be phase change, at least for the near future. This technology has the potential to eliminate some of flash based SSDs problems. More so it can deliver incredible bit density.
In any event I digress the big problem, right this minute, is that flash SSD just don't have the capacity that the average user needs. Generally SSD are about a third of the capacity of a rotating disk and three times the cost. That in a nut shell highlights the problem with SSD.
Especially for people like me who would like a terabyte of storage in his laptop. All the negatives aside Apple needs to get better about offering options with SSDs being one of those options. I just don't see people jumping at the chance to go SSD right now. I wouldn't reject however something like a 150GB SSD in a laptop along side a large capacity HD. The SSD for apps and the HD for user data.
In any event the real question this article raises is why do we call them SSDs and not SSS? That is Solid State Storage because there is no disk in the manic box.
Dave
Hell...since SSD isn't beholden to size you can squeeze in a 1.8" bay and a 2.5". The 1.8" SSD are pretty much as fast as the larger 2.5" SSD they just hold less chips.
1.8" for boot and 2.5" for large scale data if size is an issue or just two 2.5" bays. Voila.
Proves that even if SSDs are stuck at some kind of compactness limit they can about achieve parity with current 2.5" HD storage capacities.
And I still expect them to reach 1TB in a 2.5" format with today's technology.
Might be enough storage for a while.
Of course their prices are still lots higher than HDs. That 512GB SSD would be about $1,000 - $1,600.
Yet at a 10-15x higher price you also get a substantially faster storage. And it's more resistant to shock.
Wizard69 made a good point about calling them SSS and at the same time I'd really like them to move away from those 1.8" and 2.5" 'disk' formats.
With OLED displays reaching <0.5mm in thickness how thin can a laptop screen get? 1mm? Surely not because then the screen would just flex too much.
How about making it 3mm thick and stacking a 1mm OLED with a 1mm full surface area layer of flash chips behind it? Rigidity for the display at 3mm total thickness and all the laptop's storage you need! This should be enough surface area for 1TB of SSS storage! And it will allow the bottom laptop part to be even smaller as no HD needs to be placed there.
My prediction is that SSD will be 50% market share with normal hard drives, across all desktop and laptop markets... in 2012. I think mid 2010 to mid 2011 there'll be some breakthrough that will push things ahead in SSD-land.