RiData 16GB 1.8-inch Solid State Flash Drive

The Bottom Line
The RiData 16GB solid state flash drive is a welcome addition to the notebook storage market, but it will have limited appeal. It certainly will benefit systems by extended battery life with its low power consumption and quick file access, but the limited space and high cost will certainly detract many from using such a drive.

Pros

* Very Low Power Usage
* Extremely Fast Access Times
* Durable Design Due to Lack of Moving Parts

Cons

* Very Expensive
* Limited Storage Space
* Average Sustained Transfer Rates

Description

* 16 Gigabytes Storage Capacity
* 1.8-inch Notebook Form Factor
* IDE/ATA-6 Ultra DMA 5 Interface
* 40MB/s Read, 35MB/s Write Performance
* .5W Power Consumption

Guide Review - RiData 16GB 1.8-inch Solid State Flash Drive

The RiData 16GB SSD flash drive is the first such product from RiTek. The 1.8-inch drive uses the ATA-6 interface that allows it to be a drop in replacement for notebooks that uses the standard drive size.

First off, the 16GB of storage space of the RiData drive is very limited. The average install size for Windows XP can range from three to four gigabytes in size. This may be why many notebook companies are looking to use solid state as primary storage and having a secondary hard drive unit.

One of the big draws to solid state drives is their extremely fast access times. In fact, during testing of the RiData 16GB SSD, the flash drive was roughly ten times faster at accessing data on the drive. This can greatly improve performance for tasks that require frequent data access. The interface speed is limited to 40MB/s though, and this means that sustained transfer rates are not really any better than a normal hard drive. Many ask me if this will speed up a cold boot of Windows, and the answer is yes, but not by very much.

The real major advantage of the RiData 16GB SSD drive is power consumption. The average notebook hard drive draws roughly a half watt of power when idle and up to three or more when fully running. The solid state drive on the other hand consumes less than a half watt of power regardless of its active or idle state. This can greatly extend the battery life of a notebook system, something extremely important for ultraportable notebooks that have limited space for batteries.

Of course, the cost of solid state drives is still quite high, and that is no different for the RiData drive. This is really a drive for those willing to sacrifice space and cost for battery life.