SSD question

[beachycove]

I was looking this weekend at SSD laptop drives (for a G4 PB with an ATA-100 bus), and after gulping at the prices for even smallish drives, two thoughts struck me:

1. What do you suppose are the chances of the prices coming down in the next year or thereabouts, so to make an SSD an affordable proposition for upgrading something like a G4 PowerBook?

2. Given the rate of change (in this case, to SATA) in the computer industry, what do you suppose are the chances of PATA SSD drives even being available by the time the prices do come down?

 

[waynestewart]

I'm sure the price will drop. Look at how much flash drives and camera memory cards have come down in the last couple of years.

Most of the SSDs made will be SATA but there will be ide SSDs available, at least for a few years. They'll be more expensive and less available. They already are right now. At a local store %80 of the drives are SATA.

 

[Mars478]

There is such thing as a SCSI SSD so I believe it will be easy to find a ATA one. Another kludge you can use is:

Getting a 2 Compactflash enclosure that goes to EIDE

Put two 32GB Cards in there

RAID them

You now have a 64GB SSD

 

[Anonymous Freak]

1. What do you suppose are the chances of the prices coming down in the next year or thereabouts, so to make an SSD an affordable proposition for upgrading something like a G4 PowerBook?

Very very good! (At least to all but the last two words, see below.)

2. Given the rate of change (in this case, to SATA) in the computer industry, what do you suppose are the chances of PATA SSD drives even being available by the time the prices do come down?

Not so good. PATA drives are going by the wayside VERY quickly, and essentially all current development is toward SATA. If the SSD revolution had happened just one year earlier, PATA likely still would have been a major player. But not so much any more.

You can look out for people selling first-generation MacBook Air SSDs, though.

 

[Christopher]

There is such thing as a SCSI SSD so I believe it will be easy to find a ATA one. Another kludge you can use is:Getting a 2 Compactflash enclosure that goes to EIDE

Put two 32GB Cards in there

RAID them

You now have a 64GB SSD

You can't boot OS X off of a Striped Raid. I tried. :'(

That thread is somewhere around here....

 

[Bunsen]

From what I've read (never tried it) those two-slot adapters will often only recognise a single card when used in a Mac.