32GB NAND Flash Drive in Samsung Q30 Laptop

Enjoy your hard drive while you have it. The flash-based solid state disks (SSDs) are on their way, a lot sooner than you think. Samsung Electronics is releasing in early June in Korea its first such notebooks based on SSD technology-the Q1, an ultramobile device, and the Q30 notebook with its 12.1-inch display, both of which feature a 32 GB flash-based NAND SSD. Flash-based memory storage has upsides on traditional hard drives. The Samsung SSD-based devices can take twice the beating (drops, collisions, drop kicks) that a hard drive can, without being wrecked.

When and if they do succumb to malfunction, they are easier to retrieve memory off. The Samsung SSD is about half as heavy as your typical laptop hard drive as well, but the capacity is only 32 GB.

However, it reads three times faster and writes one and a half times faster. That means you’ll have no problem running multiple apps, saving data from one and then other, simultaneously with a flash-based storage system. It also means, for instance, that your typical Windows XP operating system will boot up in as little as half the time with a Samsung SSD, compared to the average hard drive.

If that wasn’t enough, an SSD-based notebook is also completely silent. There’s no whirl of the hard drive as it tracks down data, no crescendo toward explosion as you work your laptop to its limits.

Wait, Bob, there’s more. The devices in question, the Samsung Q1 and Q30, both come with DMB TV receivers. The Q1 will be even able to tap into video and still photos on its flash drive without having to be booted up. You, on the other hand, may want to boot when you see the prices. The Q1 goes for about $2,430 retail, the Samsung Q30 $3,700.

Samsung says it will continue to put out more and more SSD-based laptops. So like every other technology, hopefully prices will drop the more commonplace they become.

By Henrik Stigell – Laptopical