RSSSanDisk won't specify Vista SSD problems, but is 'working with Microsoft'
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 23, 2008, 9:10 PM
Amid complaints that Windows Vista is hurting the development of solid state drives, SanDisk now says it is working with Microsoft to optimize SSDs for "the Windows experience." But the company refused to provide details of Vista's problem, and Microsoft seemed unaware of the collaboration.
In a statement to BetaNews today, Richard Heyes, who heads up SanDisk's SSD Business Unit, didn't elaborate on the areas of optimization, although he did talk about SSD performance on "full-featured" operating systems such as Windows Vista vs. "simple" systems such as XP Starter Edition -- and he predicted that operating systems in general will become more "SSD aware" in the future.
Heyes' e-mail came in response to a request from BetaNews for more information about complaints raised by SanDisk Chairman and CEO Eli Harari during the company's second-quarter earnings call on Monday.
As reported by BetaNews on Tuesday, Harari criticized Microsoft's Vista for slowing down the progress -- and, in turn, adoption -- of SSDs.
"Unfortunately, [SSD] performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs and that is why we need to develop the next generation, which we'll start sampling end of this year, early next year," Harari said without providing any technical explanation.
But although high capacity SSDs on Vista machines require manufacturers to develop "sophisticated" controllers, the same is not true for lower capacity SSDs on "very low-cost PCs, " according to the CEO.
In his response to BetaNews today, Heyes drew distinctions between the demands placed on SSDs by "simple OS" such as XP Starter Edition or Linux that run on "netbooks," and "full-featured operating systems such as Vista" running on commercial notebooks.
Beyond that, Heyes made further distinctions between the performance of the current crop of notebook SSDs and the upcoming "second generation" SSDs, which are slated to use less costly multilevel cell (MLC) technology.
"For netbooks or ULCPCs, the primary purpose of the device is to get the user online via a Web browser. These systems thus employ a simple OS such as Linux or Windows XP Starter Edition that place modest demands on the storage device, which can be either a solid state drive (SSD) or hard disk drive (HDD)," said Heyes.
"For commercial notebooks running a full-featured operating system such as Vista, first generation SSDs showed performance improvements in specific areas including boot-up and application launch, but they were not consistently faster than HDDs in all parameters. Second generation SSDs, such as those shipping in 2008, offer nearly twice the speed of first generation products. Furthermore, they show performance that at least matches HDD performance and provides a very satisfying Vista experience," BetaNews was told. "In 2009, SSDs will begin to shine as performance further improves beyond that of HDDs. Other opportunities for improvement will develop as operating systems become SSD aware and begin to treat SSDs in a more optimal manner than HDDs," Heyes maintained. In answer to a question about how Microsoft and Sandisk are addressing SSD issues, Heyes said the companies have been working together in that vein. "We are continuing our work with Microsoft to identify opportunities for optimizing SSDs for the Windows experience," he said. But Heyes did not answer a request from BetaNews to pinpoint the so-called "limitations" of Vista for SSD support, mentioned by Harari during Monday's conference call. Also today, BetaNews provided Microsoft with an opportunity to comment on the SSD issues raised by Harari and Heyes -- asking Microsoft, too, for information about any plans around greater "SSD awareness" in either Vista or the forthcoming Windows 7. But by the end of the day, the company was still investigating the matter. "We are still looking into this, and we will be back in touch whenever we have anything to share about it. Thank you for your patience," a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews.
For all of the Windows fanboys who are clueless regarding the variations in processing characteristics of SS memory, I think it is cute that while MS (and the posters here!)'seem' to be oblivious to such differences, other developers not only acknowledge, but are actively planning for exactly such differences in an evolving market.
In discussing the use of SSDs in th MacBook Air:
"However, the speed launch trick is only impressive at the first launch of an application after a reboot (on SSD). Mac OS X aggressively caches data (which) allows the slower HDD launch its applications nearly as fast on a second try.
As Flash prices drop, the performance advantage of SSD will begin to outweigh the cost, and current capacity limitations promise to be less of a factor as well. That will allow Apple to focus its Mac OS X development efforts on optimal SSD reading and cached writing, rather than catering its optimizations to the nature of standard hard drives with longer latency and seek times."
As usual...
aaaaaaaa....oh......
You folks might want to stick to whining about how unfair the world is such that you cannot illegally download music without compensation...
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Blah blah blah, will be, blah blah blah, next years, blah blah blah...
Sandisk, take your time to build a good product and stop talking senseless. Thank you!
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But the company refused to provide details of Vista's problem, and Microsoft seemed unaware of the collaboration.
This is the way most Vista problems are. The problems are blamed on the latest OS, while either no specifics are given, or the specifics are problems that the vendor knew about months if not years before the OS arrived.
In a nutshell: SanDisk didn't do their homework because they figured MS would bail them out. MS didn't, and now it's their fault.
"We are continuing our work with Microsoft to identify opportunities for optimizing SSDs for the Windows experience," (Heyes) said.
So...the release of a new OS might require some changes to the way you write drivers for your hardware? Imagine that!
That is exactly why MS waited so long to release Vista--to give more time for vendors like you to ready their products. Unfortunately, you didn't listen and expected the transition to be easy like it was from Windows 2000 to XP (less than two years apart vs. 5 years apart). So what were you doing during the Vista beta testing, Heyes?
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"Richard Heyes, who heads up SanDisk's SSD Business Unit, didn't elaborate on the areas of optimization..."
He is a business executive and doesn't care nor doesn't understand the deep technical issues involved. Talk to some engineer.
"Heyes drew distinctions between the demands placed on SSDs by "simple OS" such as .. Linux ".
My A...
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Sandisk may have come out with that 'it's x times faster than a traditional HDD'
It seems only the new OCZ drive has delivered (see the update) http://www.tomshardware....d-hdd-battery,1955.html
spreading this in the hopes the other SSD manufacturers properly take note.
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I don't trust a word that comes from Sandisk as their quoted speeds for the USB devices they sell always fall well short of what they actually achieve as with a lot of manufacturers (and yes i have tried the devices on several machines controllers in case any smart a** thinks of posting the old 'must be your machine' line).
All the statements they have made make is sound like it's Microsoft's fault that their devices don't perform well accross all operations rather than state the reality which seems to be that they tried to be clever and frig the figures for the devices by optimising them for certain operations as they weren't able to for all.
Sandisk was one of those manufacturers that orginally came forward with the whole 'it's x times faster than a traditional HDD' until reviews\benchmarks proved that not to be true and that is when the marketting swiftly changed to 'x times faster booting up and launching applications'.
The lack of a response from Microsoft sounds like they are thinking about a retaliatory strike otherwise they would have at least confirmed working with Sandisk on the issues they (Sandisk) had reported.
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