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posted by martyb on Thursday May 05 2016, @11:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the would-you-buy-one? dept.

AMD has begun selling a new line of solid-state drives (SSDs) bearing its name. The Radeon R3 devices are manufactured and serviced by Taiwan-based Galt Inc. They are 7 mm high and 2.5 inches wide. Read speeds are claimed to be ​510 MB/s to 520 MB/s and write speeds 360 MB/s to ​470 MB/s. The drives range in capacity from 120 GB to 960 GB; only the smallest is available so far. They are based on TLC flash.

Coverage:

Further information: AMD product page


[Ed. addition.]

There is an Amazon link on the AMD product page, which gives some details on pricing and availability, including:

Description Price Availabile
120GB SSD, 2.5" SSDR3L120G $40.99 Now
240GB SSD, 2.5" SSDR3SL240G $69.99 9-11 weeks
480GB SSD, 2.5" SSDR3SL480G $136.99 9-11 weeks

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Thursday May 05 2016, @11:48PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Thursday May 05 2016, @11:48PM (#342301) Journal

    Why does anything AMD need to be branded Radeon? Is this worth the brand dilution risk?

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:23AM (#342345)

      > Is this worth the brand dilution risk?

      I don't understand why AMD hasn't hired you. How have they been able to survive without your keen marketing insights?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @12:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @12:10AM (#342313)

    TLC Flash
    into the trash.

    • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday May 06 2016, @12:40AM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday May 06 2016, @12:40AM (#342328)

      120 GB SSD of any kind for $40 seems to be a deal.

      It is hard to get magnetic media of that size and price, and its not at that speed.

      For $40 -- I do not expect the media to contain the vault of my life's great works, so I don't consider the longevity of the $40 SSD to be a great concern, but I imagine it would last longer than an eco/green drive that gets sold for around the same price.

      The fact that vendors manufacturel hard drives with 90 day and one year warranties for this price point scares me, and the fact that consumers buy them without any real concept as to the longevity of the hard drive scares me even more.

      (Personally -- I try to keep with 5 year warranty drives, and I will pay the price premium for it. For disposable stuff -- 120GB for $40 is an absolute bargain, I think... but then this is coming from a guy that just retrofitted a 133mhz laptop with a bootable finger nail size SD card and an extreme speed CF card for the second drive... just so he could play Doom 1 over a network with it. The high speed SD and CF cards cost more than Radeon's cheapest drive offerings.)

    • (Score: 2) by gman003 on Friday May 06 2016, @01:06AM

      by gman003 (4155) on Friday May 06 2016, @01:06AM (#342340)

      You'd be surprised how much endurance you can get out of TLC flash these days. I wouldn't use it in a server or a workstation where lots of writes will be going, but for normal desktop use it's perfectly fine, even for gaming.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:29AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:29AM (#342347)

      Some empirical numbers for samsung TLC drives:
      http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand [anandtech.com]

      TL;DR - writing 10GB/day a 128GB drive will last 11+ years.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @04:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @04:44AM (#342422)

      The TLC drive I have had for 3 years is still going strong.

      I do not exactly baby the thing either. It says I have used ~30% of its capacity. Hell I even defrag it once a month just to piss people off :)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @05:31AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @05:31AM (#342438)

        i am pretty sure that there were no TLC ssds on the market 3 years ago

    • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday May 07 2016, @12:39AM

      by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Saturday May 07 2016, @12:39AM (#342757) Homepage Journal

      I take it TLC ram sucks? Can someone elaborate?

      --
      jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Snotnose on Friday May 06 2016, @12:51AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Friday May 06 2016, @12:51AM (#342333)

    Got 3 of them, 1 Linux only, 1 Linux/Win98 (haven't booted the Win98 in a couple years now), one Win10. None of them have physical space to add a second drive, so while I would love to have an SSD I don't see it happening until I buy another machine.

    That said, I see another desktop on the horizon. It will be a gaming box to replace my PS3, and it will damn sure have an SSD. Only problem is that over the last 3 years I've gotten really used to sitting in my La-Z-Boy gaming on my big-ass TV with my cat in my lap, where if I get a PC I'm back to an office chair on a 22" monitor and no room for the cat. Why don't I hook my gaming box into my big ass TV, you ask? Lag. Farking lag. I play online multiplayer, and lag more than 50ms or so means I die too often.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:16AM (#342362)

      Moved back to desktops. Was exclusive on laptops from 2003 - 2015. Now they are too brittle and one must make too many compromises (16:9 display, shit keyboards, non-removable batteries, poor support for anything not Windows, shitty trackpads, Secure Boot that you can't disable). Just get a comfortable chair. /r/battlestations should make you want a new desktop.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @03:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @03:04AM (#342386)

      Many laptops have additional space for additional drives. Almost all laptops let you replace the original drive. What kind of fucked up laptop did you buy that has a soldered in HDD?

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday May 06 2016, @09:21AM

      by isostatic (365) on Friday May 06 2016, @09:21AM (#342478) Journal

      My laptop has an SSD, has done for the last 6 years (the first wasn't great -- lacked trim support). Trouble is it's a 1.8" disk, so I'm stuck with a "240G" drive (213G of usable space). Would love 480 or 960 in that space. Would love a replacement for a t410s too.

    • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday May 06 2016, @02:15PM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday May 06 2016, @02:15PM (#342568)

      I can't really tell where your lag is. Are you saying that you are experiencing network latency because of your TV?

      Otherwise I think a different term is necessary for the performance loss you're experiencing.

      (This is why I am not good at fixing family member's computers... just tell me it's slow, don't use the wrong term, or I'll pursue the problem as if it was really caused by what you said it was!)

      I don't really understand how the TV is slower with online multiplayer simply because you moved the computer to it, or why the computer is slower because you connected to the TV..

      Do you have wireless or something? wifi isn't so great for realtime data, at least not consumer stuff.. convenient, yes. Perhaps you would be better off with a power-line/home plug adapter to provide a direct ethernet connection to your PC near the TV... if you don't put more than this onto it, you will get consistent speeds good enough for gameplay, even if you only get 10mb adapters.

      Before anyone laughs, just remember that HD TV, 1920x1080p, is 4mb through 8mb for the bitstream bandwidth. Your packets that indicate your three dimensional placement in a game online are not going to exceed HD TV bandwidth requirements. They hardly measure greater than a modem on dialup in many cases; it's the consistency of that data stream that is the issue, and on dialup, nothing was usually competing with the games. A good example is lord of the rings online -- big game, good graphics -- uses 2.7kbps on average for determining where you are in the world (the last time i checked.. in-game, there is a little desktop phone icon you can have as part of the UI that shows your bitrate to their servers). It is just as vulnerable to latency as anything else, but you do not need a gigabit router to send packets at 28.8kbps. Download a movie while playing, and it'll suffer despite the game not being a a recent AAA title. It's about your network traffic and what's interrupting it.

      Anyone with wifi related performance issues (specifically with gaming and probably voip as well) has a problem with their wifi configuration, poor coverage (high signal strength doesn't mean good quality connections), or just crummy integrated hardware. Realtek stuff often is cheap and built-in... it is often not what one would want to use for elite gaming purposes.

      You can't fix that through software, but you can help improve its performance via configuration settings both in windows and outside of it (router/switch/qos), or can be bypassed via using a wire. Even cheap integrated wired connections are better than the wifi ones.

      Set QoS on your game traffic and you can even DVR/download torrents to your hearts content and not suffer much due to local network issues. You can't fix the internet, but you can optimize your your network.

      • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday May 06 2016, @05:46PM

        by Snotnose (1623) on Friday May 06 2016, @05:46PM (#342638)

        I can't really tell where your lag is. Are you saying that you are experiencing network latency because of your TV?

        Here ya go. [displaylag.com] Things have actually gotten much better in the 2 years since I last looked into it, back then most TVs were in the 30-40 ms range.

        --
        Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
        • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday May 06 2016, @07:42PM

          by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday May 06 2016, @07:42PM (#342687)

          wow, I had no idea.

          I only have monitors...

          So how does this affect your online gaming, exactly? I guess I will read the "what is input lag" page.

          For the record, I never have experienced this issue, and had no idea consoles would have this problem. I haven't had a console newer than a Dreamcast because the PC has managed to do everything I wanted. I have an analog TV I use for DVDs and VHS tapes, and the occasional C64/Atari 2600 (and jaguar) connection.

          I've seen "game mode" on monitors, but I've never used it. Right now, I am using one of those South Korean 2560x1440 resolution monitors and generally play at that resolution or 1920x1200. If I ever play away from the PC, it's on a 17" monitor or a projector, so... I guess I have different, but perhaps just as bad, first world problems. Like how none of the USB joysticks on my mame cabinet let me play broforce split screen in Steam, and even plugging in two Steam controllers doesn't work because of the existing USB joysticks causing a conflict.

          • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday May 06 2016, @07:57PM

            by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday May 06 2016, @07:57PM (#342690)

            ah i see it -- I haven't bought any high end TVs, which seem to cause the most problems, because they are not designed for game console or PC use, and rather just support the feature.

            Lower end devices that aren't focused on HD don't seem to have many of these problems, since they aren't using sub quality parts to force an image.

            Back in the old days, this was considered to be a problem with wallet size. If your PC ran like a slide show in doom, and the Space Marine sloshed around like a drunken soldier... it means one needs to upgrade the system, or scale back the settings to something the hardware can handle. I sort of am surprised that the author suggests one buys two TVs to accomplish gaming and TV watching effectively, but i guess I have different PCs for different purposes, too.

            It sounds like similar concerns today exist for input display as it did for our original drunken space marine, but now the problem is far more expansive now that the game market has grown along with the TVs. A great screen for broadcasts can look fantastic, but may not be geared to real-time input display, a lot like the poor quality non-HD screens where instead of this "lag" you got "blur" when it couldn't update things fast enough to be in step with the input.

          • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday May 06 2016, @10:50PM

            by Snotnose (1623) on Friday May 06 2016, @10:50PM (#342738)

            I should have looked at the page more closely, I didn't realize the low latencies were all monitors. HDTVs seem to start a little over 20 ms.

            How it affects gaming is obvious. Last PC game I played was Day of Defeat. Knew all kinds of tricks to get my lag down to the 30 ms range (the server was about 100 miles away). On my PS3 it's hard to get a game with lag 100 ms. This is very noticeable. Having lag get added just getting the picture from the PS3 to the TV screen hurts quite a bit. I've got a 6 year old TV, my lag is probably around 40 (wag).

            --
            Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
  • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday May 06 2016, @12:52AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Friday May 06 2016, @12:52AM (#342335)

    wow, the price of SSDs has really dropped a lot! i can only assume this is the result of memory manufactures getting kicked in the nuts for price fixing.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 06 2016, @01:06AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday May 06 2016, @01:06AM (#342341) Journal

      A good sale price is roughly $0.22/GB, and it should decline again, perhaps in the next 6 months or so, as new generations of 3D NAND come out. 2 TB will become more common as 1 TB gets pushed to more reasonable prices.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:55AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:55AM (#342380)

      > i can only assume this is the result of memory manufactures getting kicked in the nuts for price fixing.

      More like Moore's law - double the capacity for the same price every 18 months.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2016, @05:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2016, @05:16AM (#342811)

      They are using TLC flash. Write endurance is about 1,000 writes. You get what you pay for.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 06 2016, @01:11AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday May 06 2016, @01:11AM (#342343) Journal

    Nvidia has an event tomorrow [anandtech.com] that could be the mainstream Pascal launch.

    Nvidia already launched a flagship Pascal card [anandtech.com]. AMD hasn't launched 14/16nm Polaris yet but recently launched a dual Fiji card [anandtech.com].

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:33AM (#342348)

    So the best way to get in on this SSD goodness if you have an older OS (XP/98/etc.)?

    Granted prices are starting to drop to a point where longevity isn't a huge concern, but it's getting harder to find magnetic HDs that are just plug-in for older systems.

    • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday May 06 2016, @02:53AM

      by GungnirSniper (1671) on Friday May 06 2016, @02:53AM (#342375) Journal

      On Windows 98 using the legacy IDE mode on the SATA controller should allow it to work, but look out for the OS hard disk size limits.

      With Windows XP as long as you have a driver for the SATA controller it should work well at first, although TRIM won't be supported. That might slow things down over time, depending on how heavily the system is used.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by andersjm on Friday May 06 2016, @10:26AM

        by andersjm (3931) on Friday May 06 2016, @10:26AM (#342492)

        They should make sure that the disk is returnable if it doesn't work, though. SSD manufacturers don't put a lot of effort into ensuring compatibility with systems that old.

        Even if it works, an old IDE controller will be a major bottleneck, if you combine it with a new SSD. My advice would be to get a new computer.

      • (Score: 2) by forkazoo on Saturday May 07 2016, @01:55AM

        by forkazoo (2561) on Saturday May 07 2016, @01:55AM (#342779)

        To be fair, slowdowns over time from lack of trim will probably be pretty acceptable in the case of a computer upgraded from a ten year old mechanical drive. I'm pretty sure you come out ahead on that tradeoff. And it takes quite a while for that sort of problem to become significant with typical home user workloads. By the time you have had enough churn after a few years that the SSD performance drops, you can probably consider finally replacing your Windows 98 machine...

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Nollij on Friday May 06 2016, @03:50AM

      by Nollij (4559) on Friday May 06 2016, @03:50AM (#342394)

      They aren't even comparatively cheap.
      Newegg has:
      6 drives (120GB) [newegg.com]
      16 drives (240GB) [newegg.com], and
      16 drives (480GB) [newegg.com]
      that cost the same or less than these, including some very big names (and even MLC).

  • (Score: 1) by oldmac31310 on Friday May 06 2016, @06:23PM

    by oldmac31310 (4521) on Friday May 06 2016, @06:23PM (#342650)

    How long are they? Could we have that in parsecs please? Doh!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @07:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @07:56PM (#342689)

      They are eight centirods long.

      You're welcome.