Rather it should be HDD + Flash!

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=39449&liArticleTypeID=1&liChannelID=108&src=rssfeed

It’s a very fascinating idea and should bridge the gap until high speed, large capacity solid state drives are available. 1Gb is nice but that’s really only 128MB of cache. But it’s much larger than the common 2-16MB we see in today’s drives. How about a nice 8Gb version?  :wink:

The eternal question comes up yet again: What’s the price premium on these new drives compared to the 8MB cache versions?

This idea of a HD with flash memory has promice but I think it should have been developed much diffrently specifically with the developer in mind. Imagine a world like this. I’m going to use a PC game as an example seeing as it utalizes more resources then the typical mediaplayer etc.

Currently the load process puts as much textures etc into memory until its full. If we did have some system where a developer could dump things into a say 5 gig flash unit then it would be interesting but as for the current use of 1 gig i see no need seeing that PC ram is alreadxy at 1 gig but its still a good concept i guess who knows really what the application will truely be but it will be cool!

Its not intended to replace or even supplement PC ram at all.  PC ram, or volatile sram cells, are much much faster than even flash ram.  Since flash is non-volatile, it acts more like a faster, less power-consuming portion of the hard drive.  Stuff like windows drivers, executables, frequently accessed user files, etc: imagine if you could load, run, modify those as if they were on your hard drive, but without having to actually spin the platters.  Thats what the whole point of this is about.

This is an idea thats long overdue.  Personally I don’t see full flash drives ever replacing hard drives simply because the growth rate of hard drive capacity always outpaces the growth rate of flash capacity at the same price point.  Sure servers and specialized applications might use it, but I don’t see it ever becoming commonplace for the end-user.  This hybrid hard drive is probably a good go-between until a sufficiently cheap non-volatile solid state memory can replace platters.

Well, probably the best thing about this technology is that Longhorn will have support for it and possibly allow “smart” caching or allow programs to use if more effectively.

Also, it should help the sleep/resume process on Windows speed up dramatically. Hibernation could be nearly as quick as Standby mode.

Oh, and it’s not 1GB (we wish) of NAND memory. It’s 1Gb.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Oh, and it’s not 1GB (we wish) of NAND memory. It’s 1Gb.

And probably a Metric (as opposed to binary) Giga at that.

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen…”

(Darth Sidious voice emphasized)

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”]“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen…”

(Darth Sidious voice emphasized)

You’re only a master of flash memory, Darth. If you give me a product announcement and a pricepoint, I shall give you a better GB/$ (and lower cost-of-entry price) HD-based solution at that time than you can possibly imagine.

Maxtor’s 16MB drives have dropped to around/below $100 (300GB) with coupons from Staples and such.

Erik

[quote author=“Drachen”][quote author=“TruthSeeker”]“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen…”

(Darth Sidious voice emphasized)

You’re only a master of flash memory, Darth. If you give me a product announcement and a pricepoint, I shall give you a better GB/$ (and lower cost-of-entry price) HD-based solution at that time than you can possibly imagine.

I’ve never argued about that.  You win.  Volumes continue to rise and prices fall.  Flash will be in mainstream system hard disks soon.  Obviously I will be jumping onboard a liitle earlier than mainstream.

Come to think of it….I don’t think any of us are mainstream. :wink:

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”]I’ve never argued about that.

Unlike for CPUs and graphics cards, storage will never be ‘cool’ for the teeming millions, so you’re not going to have a lot of gamers and other high-end consumers drooling over the latest hard drives. I can’t offhand think of any gamer rigs that are sold with an array of 10k RPM Ultra III SCSI drives, but systems with 2 high-end video cards? Systems with multiple CPUs? Sure! Businesses these days tend towards arrays of relatively low-cost drives, so there’s not much of a high-end introductory market for the flash-enabled hard drives. It all depends on the price delta between the large flash-enabled HDs and the drives available when these products hit the market. Like I said (or rather tried to say) was: give me a product. Let’s check out the technology when there’s actually something to see.

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”]Come to think of it….I don’t think any of us are mainstream. :wink:

Nope. 8)