A Dutch company developed a hard disk entirely made out of SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random access memory) memory. It connects and performs like a very fast hard disk. It can be of excellent use with all applications that are disk input/output intensive, e.g. video processing, database and online environments. They are looking for companies that can develop or have developed applications especially for use with this hard disk.

The hard disk that is called, HyperDrive II, is an Integrated RAM Drive Electronics (IRDE) interface-based Solid State Disk (SSD). Solid State refers to the fact that there are no mechanical moving parts, which directly results in high durability and low access times. The device behaves like a standard IDE (integrated drive electronics) device and appears to the computer system and BIOS (basic input/output system) to be an IDE storage device, like any other hard disk. Therefore no drivers are needed and it is not bound to any operation system. This truly makes the HyperDrive II a plug-and-play device. A HyperDrive II can be partitioned, formatted and be used as any other IDE storage device. A direct result of being IDE-compliant is that a HyperDrive II is automatically detected by a system’s BIOS as an IDE storage device. This makes the HyperDrive II bootable. It is even possible to place the whole OS (operating system) and some applications on it. However a HyperDrive II is more expensive than conventional hard disks and thus not a replacement for existing storage resources but is used to complement existing storage devices.

Mechanical latency is responsible for over 90% of the access time of a genuine hard disk. Solid State Disk’s data access is fast. Both the data read and data write actions of SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random access memory) are performed at the same speed and offer substantial better IOPS (input/output per second) handling, in the order of 10 to 20k IOPS. A HyperDrive II dramatically speeds up anything that is limited by access time. The random access time of a HyperDrive II is no more than 0.15ms instead of the typical 9ms access time for a genuine IDE hard disk. A HyperDrive II offers a significant performance increase in any situation where disk I/O (input/output) forms a bottleneck, especially if data is fragmented and read and write data is not cache-able.

Innovative Aspects:

A good hard disk can do around 40,000 stops and starts at 40 degrees centigrade (Hitachi/ IBM Deskstar 180GXP). The HyperDrive II doesnt mind how many stops and starts it does because it has no moving parts. The fastest hard disks today with ATA133 Buses provide a sustained data rate between 20 and 55 MB per second depending where the data is on the mechanical rotating platter. This figure is around the same as the HyperDrive II with an ATA33 Bus. But the seek time for the HyperDrive II is at silicon level (microseconds) rather than mechanical magnetic level (milliseconds). So the read and write times for the HyperDrive II are over 30 times faster than a hard disk.

Main Advantages:

- Ultra low power consumption (1 Watt per GB)

- Completely silent and vibration-free

- No mechanical moving parts at all

- Much more shock resistant than a conventional hard disk

- Near light-speed performance; an access time of 150µs

- Made out of DRAM but has its own power supply so it retains data when power is switched of or when PC is rebooted

- Battery backup to cover power cuts

- Will run Windows 95OSR2, 98, Me, NT, 2K, XP, 2003 entirely from RAM

- Super fast boot-up

- Plug-and-play device

• Syntens Den Haag
• NL - 2280 CD
• Tel.: +31 70 414 55 55
• Tel.: +31 (0)70 414 55 55
• Fax.: +31 70 414 55 44
• rdv@syntens.nl