Thanks to the efforts of TruthSeeker we now have a list of threads where the flash memory debates took place. Lets use this new thread to keep all other discussions of flash-based hard drive takeovers from now on.

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”]
 
 
 
    Really good

    Where the Clone Wars….er….Flash Wars officially began   :D

    Probably the oldest reference

And the anti-flash original thread:

My personal flash-based laptop:

And of course, lets fuel that fire a bit:

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”]Give it another 2 years…mark my words…hard drives are going bye-bye in the mainstream PC’s. They will hang around as external storage / back up. Flash memory will also be quickly replacing Mini DV in camcorders.

Better buy Flash Ram stock now!! -Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:29 am

Let the war begin! {continue}

Oh boy.  You really dug up the dirt on my Flash prediction.  OK, maybe another 2 years!! :oops:

Make no mistake….I’m in no way letting go of the fact that flash will be a bootable drive in at least production laptops at some point.  Volumes are increasing and prices are always dropping.  I do not care how many terabytes can be bought for the same money.  I also do not care what mainstream businesses want.  There will always be niche markets.  I am clearly not the only one who would purchase such a system.

Sony may just be the first to do it because they love to miniturize everything.  Heat and power consumption are key here.

It is important to note that two other statements in my prediction are already happening.  Solid state camcorders have already been in production for a year, and are growing in popularity.  Again, volume and price are making this inevitable.  Also, solid stae companies have been growing rapidly and so has their stock!!

2 out of 3 would make me a lot of money in almost any sport…......... and meteorology.  :D

However, in the bible, if a prophet is wrong even once he must be stoned.  So a prophet I am clearly not! 

The solid state camcorders you speak of aren’t that popular yet. Most are lower end models only capable of low end video. Most aren’t even DV quality video. They say they are with their 640x480 resolution but that’s not the same as 720x480 DV. Also, HD DV is now becoming all the rage and storage requirements are rising at a staggering rate. We can only hope flash can keep pace.

JVC’s Everio GZ-MC500 relies on 4-6GB MicroDrives in order to offer cost/performance. While CF-sized they count as regular mechanical drives since they are.

Not only that, but most of the solid state camcorders (not the el-cheapo sub $200 ones) are very expensive for such poor quality.

Erik

Is that a bit like saying ‘always tomorrow’...

Of course tomorrow never comes

Here is an article that helped me justify my original post.  As you can see it was done in April 2004 and promises to deliver this technology in 2006:

Here is another:

Of course it is speculative and provides no real concrete evidence.  I used it anyways.  :D

Here are a list of companies who have already made similar products:

Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, JVC, and Sanyo. 

I will admit the quality - price ratio is not yet comparable to the latest HDTV camcorders, but I think you can clearly see where this is headed.

Yeah, that article had a lot of red flags in it. First of all, it was a prototype and secondly it said the camera itself was $3000. It didn’t say what kind of flash media/module it would take.

So you get a better picture about requirements for video storage…

Consumer DV (720x480) - 11GB per hour.
Prosumer DV50 (720x480) - 22GB per hour.
HDV - 1080i - 46GB per hour.

Uncompressed -
HD - 1280 x 720/24p - 146GB per hour.
HD - 1280 x 720/60p - 364GB per hour.
HD - 1920 x 1080/24p - 348GB per hour.
HD - 1920 x 1080/60p - 410GB per hour.

So, these should give you an idea of what the requirements are going to be for quality video. HDV is the rage nowadays and is the only affordable consumer HD option. It’s essentially HD video on a miniDV tape. So today’s and tomorrow’s flash memory do not meet these requirements for storing video.

Thanks gr00vy0ne.  You sure are up on the numbers.  It looks as if consumer DV is at least within sight.  I’ll take what I can get.  Consumer DV is more than enough for my petty family memories. :D

I am in awe thinking about how God made the human brain.  We can capture above the highest quality HD and a whole lot more than a few hours worth!

1Co 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

I am truely amazed why more do not believe.  Just look at the stars….we did not put them there, and neither did Darwin.

Sorry I got a little off topic.  Just rambling.

Pro-Flash:

Erik

my problem with flash… is that it’s slow.  10mb /sec… just can’t hold up to a bursting hd.  i’d almost rather see a 2.5” hd sitting in a camcorder.  when they get that speed upup and beyond, then we’re talking

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”]I am in awe thinking about how God made the human brain.  We can capture above the highest quality HD and a whole lot more than a few hours worth!

Ask a policeman or lawyer about that…

[quote author=“tifosiv122”] 

I think he’s taking the replacement of the iPod Mini with the Nano to be a lot more important in terms of flash vs HDs than it really is. The main reason there is a 4GB Nano instead of a 6GB mini is that Samsung made them essentially a half-price deal for the flash memory. Apparenly, more than a few Koreans (who are a pretty nationalistic bunch not unlike Americans) were upset that Samsung wasn’t giving this deal to a native son like iRiver. The idea that this is a portent of flash-based iBooks is pretty ridiculous. Putting even a 16 GB flash drive in it would at the very least double the cost, even at Nano pricing. The iBook currently starts with a 40 GB HD.

I agree 100%, I just posted the article, I am not supporting it

Erik

[quote author=“tifosiv122”]Pro-Flash:

Erik

Yeah, this guy is way optimistic. He seems to be out of touch with today’s storage requirements like I mentioned above. 32GB in a year or two? Are you kidding me? Why would people want to downgrade their storage? Even if they could make the form factor smaller, they’d still have to carry around external storage since 32GB doesn’t really hold a lot of stuff.

It would only make sense in a desktop system if it was sort of like a “smart terminal” and files were stored in a central home server with a fast connection to pump High Definition media through it.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Yeah, this guy is way optimistic. He seems to be out of touch [...]

That is the traditional definition of a Mac fan, isn’t it?

think about it…

new o/s (vista) requires more hdd space… this has been a trend from win 3.1 the more advanced an o/s gets the more space it needs. agree?

plus the further we go into the future the more advanced gaming and video gets.

i remember when i used to rip mp3s and think shit i cant use 128Kb streams they take up too much space.

install a decent game and youre looking at 2gig+
then download or rip a dvd (i wont talk about HD DVD yet)
a visual basic program, office suite, macromedia suite…i dunno the numbers but i guess 5gig+

so to have a laptop with decent amount of songs, movies, programs, games and a cushion to be able to transfer and move stuff around we do require quite a bit of space.

so us frequent computer users need space alot of it…. sure flash is there but is it feasible to put 100Gig of flash when the ipod nano costs $250+ for 4 gig?

consider the nano a small laptop…

the diff in price for 2 gig is 40GBP (which is peanuts compared to the 2GB Memory Stick £100+) that means a laptop with 100Gb assuming the price is ONLY based on the difference in price for ram on the nano would cost £2000 thats $4000… remember it would cost more as that is only the diff. in price, but also imagine the cpu… gpu… screen… dvd dl r/w etc.

if it were based on Memory Stick prices (assume 2Gb £100) we would be looking at £5000 or $10,000

is it worth it? prob. not.

then again prices will drop… but demand for space increases prob at the same rate so i dont think flash will ever meet demands to fullfill pc usage…
maybe only to support an o/s…

[quote author=“Mike”]new o/s (vista) requires more hdd space… this has been a trend from win 3.1 the more advanced an o/s gets the more space it needs. agree?

It’s been the trend for as long as there have been personal computers. I know a lot of the older (~30 and more) members remember their first computer which HAD no hard drive. The O/S was either in ROM or loaded from a floppy on PCs. (Just for the sake of argument, we’ll call DOS an O/S)

Speaking of which, how big if your XP c:\WINDOWS folder in total? Mine is just over 4GB and won’t fit on a Nano….