SanDisk opens for business with point-of-sale terminal SSD SanDisk has built an SSD for point-of-sale terminals, digital signage and surveillance gear, saying it’s better than disk drive use. Tablet, notebook and PC OEMs could use it too, so long as they don’t need more than 256GB. The idea is to price the SSD “on a par” with disk drives, while pointing out that the Z400s outperforms …
I have found flash bought at a supermarket lasts for minutes, but flash bought from a distributor that specialises in computing kit lasts for years. The difference between the two is that the good stuff is made with the correct new silicon during office hours. The rubbish is made after most of the workers have gone home, out of whatever half sized, second hand silicon they could scrape off the bottom of the bargain basement bin. The firmware is always told to lie about the capacity of the device. Something that works might report up to 75% of the installed capacity. The broken stuff will report at least 200%.
I have confidence that a supermarket buyer can put the right smell by date on a fish, and have evidence that it was correctly refrigerated from death to display. I am less confident that the same person can buy working flash given the abilities of the forgers.
The thing I found surprising is how little write endurance is actually required on an ordinary desktop/laptop. On Linux, you can find the number of sectors written to each disk from power on with:
awk '{print FILENAME,$7}' /sys/class/block/sd?/stat
This is just Sandisk marketing and nothing new.
The fast food company I work for has been using HP POS systems (AP5000 and RP7) equipped with SSDs for over 5 years now. The 64GB drives have been HP OEM'd Samsung 830s and Intel's (520?) and the SSD has failed in less than 5 systems - out of over 1000 systems.
... looks like BS to me. I can't recall *ever* having to wait while a sales terminal of any type reboots. OTOH I frequently have to wait while the last customer paws through their wallet searching for last week's cash rebate or tries to find their loyalty card.
There's a slight clue there about what needs changing to speed up the checkout line.
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