Smells like BS. Let's ASSUME Microsoft gave 100% best-possible OS support for MLC SSD. How much would that bring the cost down and how much faster, compared to the current real life scenario? I'd say insignificantly...

A 32GB SanDisk SSD drive costs $400... For $130 you can get a 750GB SATA hard drive... Maybe in 5+ years the average ~$1500 laptop will have an SSD drive. Until then - unreliable CHEAP harddrives are the obvious choice, hopefully together with some backup solution.

This person sounds like his personal feelings about Vista are getting in the way of his professional views.

Wondering why Vista has features to take advantage of "old fashion" hard-drives with memory controllers so it will boot faster. I don't see how its the fault of Microsoft if the SSD manufacture use piece of crap controllers.

Sounds like he should worry about making his own company money instead of faulting the features of a OS that is perfectly fine. Of course Vista has its issues, they will be solved at some point.

The only thing I know is the following about Vista. I have ran Windows Vista and Windows XP on my main machine. To be honest I feel I like Vista more, and my machine is faster, but I don't have a cheap computer.

I am sure I will be flamed for my thoughts, which is what most Anti-Vista users do because they have little ground to stand on because of their views are just personal views more often then not.

I absolutely love Vista. Today, I had a professional scan done on my notebook as I have never installed any anti virus or spyware removers of any kind. I've been relying on Windows Defender.

My notebook is a year and a half old, and the only thing on here were a couple dozen cookies.

Anyone who still wants or uses XP over Vista is a retard. My brother-in-laws XP tower has Norton and some $79.00 spyware detector / remover, they found 512 infected files, almost all malware and viruses not including cookies.

I had to laugh, as I do at anyone who refuses to accept Vista is better than XP in every way.

Lovely. The really disproved the point about SSDs.

Mhh, and you blame XP for your retarded bother-in-law? The problem is not the OS but who sit in front of it.
IMHO, a lighter OS that is able to do THE SAME with less resources is better, and XP win every day.

There is no OS that will stop human... actions... Vista will ask you first, but if you act like a lemming, there is no way to stop the crap.

I used XP for over 5 years without a resident AV installed and NEVER had a virus o malware, and I am not a lucky guy: I do test a high amount of software, surf the web (Opera and/or Firefox) and receive 50 daily mails, average. The only tools I use to protect my personal computer is a good application firewall and common sense.

By your reasoning, you should be using Windows 2000. Or maybe Me. 98? 95?

Windows 2000 is a nice OS.
Me, 98 and 95 had many problems, including memory leaks and design problems that made them awful.
I still maintain some 2000 boxes and I am happy with them, spite of some quirks.
In fact, I had some NT4 servers running until last year... +10 years running like a rock (doing a weekly reboot), I still miss them.

The problem with Windows 9x is that DOS was never designed to be a multitasking operating system. NT 4 is a piece of crap most notably due to its lack of PNP support and no journaling file system. NT 4 also took forever to boot up even when there were no disk errors.

Remember folks,

This is the guy spending ~$300 for Pixar cars and complaining about folks paying ridiculous prices for iPhones...

He probably paid $400 for Vista when it came out too!

Remember folks,

This is the guy who's a troll and tries to make everyone else wrong.

He's probably a 500 pound man who sits at his computer all day.

Ive used XP since it came out and have had many issues regarding spyware, viruses, etc...
Ive used Vista for about a year and a half and haven't had a single issue regarding those.

But you are quiet right about there is no OS that will stop human actions....at least not yet :P

I receive about the same amount of email and about 1% ever gets opened!

With the higher capacity MLC SSD drives, "the next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls," according to the SanDisk CEO.

No... the next generation controllers need to be designed to work with OSes that are designed to work with them, not necessarily Vista. Design them to work with Windows 7, hmm? It seems like a lame excuse to lay the blame on Microsoft simply because they're not progressing as fast as they would like.

At least Microsoft introduced technologies such as ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive with Vista... though not offering the glass-shattering performance boosts we were led to believe they would offer, they do work.

Perhaps he was addressing the issue with Windows as opposed to the more marginal market players simply because Windows is the dominant desktop OS!

Regarding much of the responses to this entire thread:
Why is it that when anyone suggests otherwise or laments the fact that the fanboys point out that Windows IS the dominant desktop environment, and then when anyone treats it as exactly that, the overwhelmingly dominant desktop OS and generalizes around it, the same fanboys want it treated as just one of many environments?

Who cares! The fact is that SS memory in large amounts has characteristics that must be considered which are not necessarily those which current OSes (be it Windows, UNIX, whatever) employ with more traditional MO memory!

And as such there will be issues preventing the assumptions that so many here are so quick to assume - especially if you recall the response to the recent announcements of SSDs!

"Why is it that when anyone suggests otherwise or laments the fact that the fanboys point out that Windows IS the dominant desktop environment, and then when anyone treats it as exactly that, the overwhelmingly dominant desktop OS and generalizes around it, the same fanboys want it treated as just one of many environments?"

Uh...maybe because Windows is the dominent OS in an environment where it's one of many? Just trying to make sense using well known facts rather then spitting out random elitist nonsense....I guess you wouldn't understand though...lets see how long your flaming response will be this time?:)

He's back!

Thank you for your insight acknowledging exactly the point just made that "Windows is the dominant OS in an environment where it's one of many".

And you are "just trying to make sense"?
Keep trying, you have a long way to go.

Now maybe you will go back and dive back into the melee where so many are arguing over that issue and why "Windows was singled out" and the others who counter by arguing that "its not just Windows"!

Are all of your posts so 'insightful'? I can see why someone so logically challenged would find the obvious so elitist. But keep practicing. One day perhaps you can employ logic and become part of the elite... In the mean time it will serve as a source of amusement. LOL!

"Perhaps he was addressing the issue with Windows as opposed to the more marginal market players simply because Windows is the dominant desktop OS!"

Exactly... that's what I took from that as well, and attempted to respond to accordingly.

It seems as though SanDisk is attempting to place the blame for the relatively slow development and adoption of SSDs on Vista's inability to use them effectively or efficiently (at higher capacities).

Continue to develop and improve SSD technology, and the major players will take notice. Simply because Vista cannot utilize them "properly" (according to SanDisk) now does not mean that Microsoft will never take the necessary steps to allow Vista to do so in the future, once they deem SSD a worthy and viable successor to MO alternatives.

But who knows... with their development team supposedly knee-deep banging Windows 7 into shape by now, and taking into consideration Microsoft's own admittance of Vista's less-than-stellar popularity, it's probably not an area of Vista they're too concerned with improving upon. With Windows 7, that's most likely a very different story... at least I hope it is, along with so many other features.

At any rate, I agree with you. :)

He's not generalizing around Vista. If that were the case, it would have been "OSes like Vista", not "Vista".

He's not leaving any room for anyone to consider the possibility other OSes may be affected.

Below you ask that we consider the technical issues...and that would be great...if such issues were even mentioned, or so much as alluded to in the statements by the CEO posted in this article.

"the next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls,"

This isn't a generalization, this doesn't allow the reader to consider the technical issues of the technology. It is flat-out scapegoating.

Vista's memory management is an impediment to the use os SS memory. As the largest most pervasive desktop environment, it makes complete sense to focus on it! Duh!

But the issue nevertheless extends to other common methodologies employed by other OSes are as well.

Making a high level statement regarding the problems they are incurring due to the methodology Vista employs is a valid statement.

It is also valid for engineers on BOTH sides to delve into the technical issues in order to resolve the conflicts if BOTH want the technology to be optimized. But the hardware presents some hard limits, whereas the software is more flexible in its scheduling and methodologies.

Personally, I don't care if the technology ever works with Vista.

But the continuing 'its their fault, no it their fault' whine is not only hilarious, its ludicrous. So in that sense, its business as usual!

So much nonsense.

Check out
http://research.microsof...papers/ssd-usenix08.pdf

http://storagemojo.com/category/ssdflash-disk/

http://storagemojo.com/2007/06/14/flash-chance/

and others for more insight.(including the new and recent Tom's Hardware performance tests...)

Due to the physics of SSDs, the write schedules and other management processes can indeed have an impact!

SS memories are NOT necessarily the low power consumption solutions many fancy them to be.
Nor is their memory management or internal organizational linear. Find out what you are talking about...

But why should knowledge of how both SS memory and/or how Vista and other management systems work stop anyone here? ...It certainly never has in the past!

Change, just because its change, is not necessarily better...by now that should be obvious in many circles...

I think this is exactly the point SanDisk's CEO is making. Right now, SSD really isn't having much of a performance boost in its current iteration. If the OS was designed for SSD from the ground up, the situation may be different. And since that's not the case, second-generation SSD drives will resolve a lot of the problems with the current drives because the controller will handle the scheduling and other aspects more efficiently.

At least, that's what I'm assuming the point is. Jackie is waiting on further technical details from SanDisk.

I would expect a further optimization with time as well.

As much as the software developers are concerned, they would be wise to become cognizant of the hardware characteristics to better compliment the capabilities and limitations of the technology to optimize performance.

Still, folks would do well to familiarize themselves with some of the less than Utopian characteristics of some of the emerging SS memories that are not in keeping with many of the assumed characteristics that are so often touted as fact.

SS memory will definitely be desirable in certain environments, but the jury is definitely still out on the wholesale replacement of MO drives at least in the next 5-10 years.

Huh? What does this have to do with Vista? Are any of the desktop OS's "optimized" for SSD? I would think, if anything, ideally it would be "transparent" to the OS.. with the exception of you know.. being smart enough to not defrag, etc.

I dont like Vista, but you can't blame it for everything.

Ahh, nonsense. I defrag my 8GB USB flash drive all the time. :)

It sounds like someone is trying to justify the short comings of the company to the stock holders so he doesn't get fired.

Wow. Article needs more sarcasm...and cowbell.

What a load of BS. SSD is progressing slowly because the demand for it is not enough to fund a massive push for greater speeds, sizes and production numbers.

It'll get there, possibly even while Vista's on the market (though more likely during or after Win7...I don't actually expect to see widespread use of SSD, in desktops at least, for 6 or more years).

Blaming Vista is apparently in vogue, even though a decent controller, as Floodland stated, would be OS agnostic.

Mhh, many words without technical data. Would anyone provide the info on Vista limitations for this technology?
It does not make any sense to me: If the product developed has good internal controller, it only needs a simple bridge to a standard SATA interface, which already has decent drivers. Or are we talking about (dark) proprietary tech?
If they are talking about readyboost, better forget it and develop something better (not hard at all) and transparent to the OS. THAT is what I call a good internal controller.
Just curious...

I was wondering that as well.
Why does it need a special "sophisticated controller"?

Wow Eli Harari.
What a lame excuse.

""We have very good internal controller technology, as you know," he contended. "That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment.""

You didn't understand because you probably did not do your research when SSDs were first in development. And why would Microsoft even of needed to develop the controller for Vista at the time when they didnt even know if SSDs would be a big hit?

I wouldn't be suprised if it has to do with some DRM that is in Vista and NOT in XP, notice they only said Vista O/S. I know Vista constantly thrashes my roomates hard drive all the time. I have no idea what its doing, but it constantly does that, and he doesnt do anything but surf using firefox and get e-mail, no games on his machine, nothing, and its a 2GB dual core system, no integrated graphics or sound on the machine.

Yea..it's DRM that is to blame...spoken like someone who has no clue what they're saying (as proved by the rest of your post).

Your roomates Vista OS is constantly thrashing for two reasons...one is the search indexing...you can disable that if you want. The other...2Gb with all the options enabled in Vista doesn't work all that well. He either needs to disable some of the visuals or upgrade to 4Gb.

But...it's DRM's fault right? Do you even know what DRM does??

You sound to me like you obviously have no idea what your talking about.

One last time:

If it's a 32bit system, 4 GB won't be fully recognised and is probably a waste of money.

3GB or 3.5GB is max if you have enough RAM slots.

Wow.

Vista, FYI, has no DRM. It only contains *support* for more methods of DRM than previous OSes.

I know Vista constantly thrashes my roomates hard drive all the time.

Indexing, caching, and normal program operation. (Those things on the sidebar, and those things in the tray are *still* running)

and he doesnt do anything but surf using firefox and get e-mail,

Why isn't he using Linux? No, I'm not joking. If that is *all* he does, he will be *much* happier using Ubuntu.

and its a 2GB dual core system, no integrated graphics or sound on the machine.

What graphics then? If it ain't integrated, what's the card he's got in there? If it has less than 256MB on it, disable Aero.

For the record, the OP didn't state if he was running 32-bit or 64-bit.

Shoot, my one computer that runs Vista Business has 1 gig of ram and runs just fine (I have aero enabled as well).

Wasnt the best for playing Halo 2 on thou. lol

So the product that came 1st is to blame for the under-performance of the product that came after? That's rich.

Exactly what im saying. Its funny how they try to blame it all on Microsoft.