Are Motherboards With Integrated Hard Drives The Next Step?
Solid state disks are making a splash. Their gradual decrease in cost is making it finally affordable* for end users to have one in their machine, although this market segment is still generally limited to enthusiasts with high-end rigs (gamers with too much money, media developers, and techies that simply like things fast) that are looking for ultra-high performance out of their storage media.
The cost of adoption is still prohibitively high, but this will change – and soon. Because of this I can definitely see motherboards with onboard SS hard drives in our future.
Crazy? I don’t think so.
I can still remember the days when you had to purchase a separate I/O controller to hook up your floppy disk and giant 5.25″ hard disk that only held 125MB. It wasn’t too many years ago that video controllers weren’t standard issue either. With the price of flash memory steadily dropping, and more and more people funneling money into the manufacturers by purchasing the now ubiquitous flash drives for their portable storage; I honestly can’t see any good reason for the motherboard manufacturers not to eventually throw a 500GB solid-state chip next to the southbridge.
Think about it – from a performance standpoint it makes perfect sense. The mobo manufacturer could interface directly with the memory using whatever bus system they see fit, and could tune said system to squeeze as much speed out of it as possible. It also makes sense from a laptop manufacturer’s point of view as well – having no separate drive means that space is saved for other items, which means that more features could be packed into a small area where space is already at a premium. I shouldn’t even have to mention the obvious power savings – another boon for portable computing. Not only would their product have an inherently fast storage solution, but they can add more features all the while advertising an increase in battery life.
So keep an eye out – I will not be at all surprised if we see the first mobos with on-board solid state hard disks within the next four years.
*At ~$650.00 for a 256GB solid state disk purchasing one is certainly feasible, but the term “affordable” is still pretty subjective.
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Oh yeah, we’re really seeing more and more solid state devices entering the market place.
I think that a more likely bet for the near future will be integrated processors… but, who knows, you could be right!
The last USB flash drive I purchased had 32 GB of available space. How is that even possible? 32 GB on my key chain! Simply amazing.
But, I was thinking about it a few months ago… what if they integrated something like that on the system board for just the OS?
The motherboard would ship with the entire OS and all of the drivers for the motherboard and integrated components right on the “built-in” system drive.
Just a thought.
@Brad:
Actually, your idea was something that I had thought about some time ago myself as well. Years ago I would fantasize about peripherals that came with their drivers included within the device. You’d simply plug it in, and then would be able to instantaneously have the item work courtesy of the onboard driver.
I figure if they go about throwing on a drive large enough to have the OS on it they may as well make the solid state drive large enough to have your applications too. Files saved and whatnot (aside from regular docs) could be saved to a separate regular-ass magnetic drive. I do this already anyway; my OS drive has my apps installed, and I save everything for the most part to my 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black (which has great performance for a magnetic drive, BTW) disk.
I like the idea of the integrated hard drive and Bradley is right on with putting the OS on the drive. Sounds great to me.
In the past, I was in favor of separate components so I would have control of what’s in my pc but today and in the future, I see most computer manufacturers bundling systems and components together. They pretty much do this now, but we are starting to see new systems like the old imac in a flat screen touch model. This may be our future. Basically a 52″ iphone.
The industry changes everyday..its exciting.
Troy
Integration has always been the end game for every other component and, even though I had never thought about it before, I think you are right on with your thinking. I read another article a few months ago talking in the same vein about the operating system eventually being a part of the BIOS chip (reminds me of my old Commodore 64, RIP). I will tell you what I would like to see: A BIOS that you can flash with the static system files (of your OS of choice) and then an integrated SSD that could “wrap around” those files to make one visible drive. It would be much more secure and blazing fast. I’m sure it would be more complex than I am imagining it but it would be a beautiful thing indeed.
For laptops,netbooks, or nettops it may make sense to do something like that in the interest of reducing cost and saving space.
However, what happens when the on board ssd drive fails?
Many people still prefer the current modular design so servicing and replacement your hard disk is relatively easy.