computerworld.com — "Flash memory is being integrated with the hard disk by Seagate and Samsung and onto the motherboard by Intel. Potential benefits: faster read/write performance; fewer crashes; improved battery life; faster boot time; lower heat generation; decreased energy-consumption."
Jul 31, 2006 View in Crawl 4
ntensifyJul 31, 2006
Disadvantages:Flash on Hard Drive means no upgrading Flash later. Want to save the entire contents of RAM to Flash for instant on? Better get two gigs up front (which now is a LOT more expensive than it will be in, say, a year). Intel's implementation allows for the Flash RAM to be placed on the motherboard and socketed for update later. It also means that the Flash RAM is on the otherside of a SATA link (which is pretty damned fast, but being hooked directly into the South Bridge [or North Bridge if Intel goes the integrated memory controller route] will be much lower in latency). The differences can be seen as pedantic and that "only overclockers will care" or whatever, I just hate being locked into backwards designs. Here's hoping Apple will go with Robson instead of a Seagate drive.[Technically, you /could/ use both, but that sounds a bit silly to me...]
kubudubudubuntuAug 1, 2006
"PuRAM™ using Solid State System Drive Technology for real-world disk speeds over 100 times faster than the fastest standard disk drives delivering raw I/O speeds at over 6GB/s, capable of over 150.000 requests/s,"
digeratiprimeAug 1, 2006
just fyi if your careful about what pc your build/buy as an upgrade it can technically pay for itself in the long run on just energy savings alone. Of course time saved doing repetitive tasks with a faster computer means alot too.
Closed AccountAug 1, 2006
Okay we've been reading about this for a while....need to come out now!
Closed AccountAug 1, 2006
Unless I'm missing something, that's a purely solid-state drive. We're talking about a hybrid here; the majority of data is still stored on platters, but the boot sector can be permanently stored for fast booting, and other frequently used sectors can be stored for faster access. Basically it's just a regular hard drive, but with a bigger, non-volatile cache.
Closed AccountAug 1, 2006
Flash memory WEARS OUT. It is NOT a replacement for hard drives, nor a long-term enhancement to them.YAY FOR IGNORANT NOOBS WHO KEEP RE-POSTING THIS BULLs**t!
gsmitheidwAug 1, 2006
Forget flash - MRAM is the way forward:<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAM">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAM</a>It doesn't suffer the same anomalies as flash for deletion and longevity.
cquinndAug 1, 2006
MRAM won't be the way forward until it is available commercially. Yes it is coming, and we can hope for it to get here soon... but until it does there will be uses for this hybrid and other technologies as well.