[olePigeon]

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/03/21/32gb_ssd_samsung/

Wacka. Samsung released a 32GB flash drive. Something that's actually big enough for everyday use.

The problem? $6400 price tag. Although, it's predicted they'll hit below $1000 shortly. Still, $32 a GB versus $0.80 a GB. The upside is that it only weights 5 grams and uses 90% less power than a traditional 1.8" laptop HDD.

To answer some obvious questions before people ask:

1) Yes, it does have a finite write-to-disk, but it's hundreds of thousands to as much as a million (depends on the technology.) Whereas HDDs fail randomly, you can have a very close estimate to when your Flash drive will be unuseable, allowing for efficient backup.

2) The latest Flash technology does not suffer from "burn out." It will write files randomly to different cells to avoid single files being written to thousands of times and killing the flash memory in a matter of weeks.

3) Yes, they would be awesome in digital camcorders.

[MaxPower2k3]

It's just barely fast enough for use in a camcorder, assuming the specs samsung puts out are accurate. DV video needs 25mbits, that thing writes at 32mbits. Otherwise, it would be pretty cool to have bigger flash-based iPods and such.

and there already is a flash memory format for camcorders: Panasonic's P2 cards. They're $1,700 for 8 (yes, eight) minutes of video storage.