Updated 10 hours ago

Vista not optimised for solid state drives

SanDisk blames Microsoft for shortcomings

July 22nd 2008 | Tell us what you think [ 2 comments ]

ssds-are-on-the-increase-especially-in-laptops

SSDs are on the increase, especially in laptops

Windows Vista won't be able to take advantage of new solid state drives (SSDs) from SanDisk as the chief exec said the OS presents "special challenges".

Speaking about the company's second quarter financial results, Eli Harari believes the next level of SSDs, which will use multi-level cell technology to expand the frontiers of flash-based memory all the way up to 250GB.

Using a SSD in a PC or Mac makes perfect sense, given its shock absorbency and rugged nature; however in reality Vista is not able to use the drives effectively, where Macs have had no problem.

Vista: not looking ahead

"As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk," Harari said.

He credited this problem with Vista to the OS' desigen, despite Windows always having been clearly aligned with hard drives and using the systems embedded in them to work efficiently.

"The next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls," he said.

Harari also stated that this problem was forcing delays at SanDisk, as the company did not foresee the limitations.

"In very low-end, ultra low-cost PCs, existing controllers can get the job done for 8-, 16-, and 32-gigabyte storage because these are relatively unsophisticated and demanding requirements," he said.

 

Your comments (2) Click to add a new comment

philocrates


July 23rd 2008

2. I think the point is XP is unlikely to need SSD capabilities at the higher hard drive sizes, as it is an ageing system.

Vista works with some heavy multi-caching, which I think is the point of the piece. I don't have a clue about the way Macs work, but I know the virtual memory needed is way less.

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brian12346


July 22nd 2008

1. What are the demanding requirements? With multi-level cell technology, do you imply that Vista writes too much?

How does a Mac work and not Vista? What about XP? This article has no details.

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