Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:21:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Chien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] 800MB 2.5" <6mm flash hard drive replacement report
> I've read in the past that certain types of flash memory can only take
> a finite number of write cycles before they die. Do you know if this
> is an issue with this type of drive?
same with this drive, too. usually, you'll get well over 5 years of typical
use on a flash drive with normal wear before anything happenes. after all, the
50,000-100,000 minimum cycle life of each cell is pretty steep when you add
wear leveling and error checking.
what'll happen, with most flash ram drives, is that when a cell goes bad
(detected during the write cycle), it'll get marked bad, and teh data rewritten
elsewhere automatically. Thus, overtime, you're drive will shrink, but you
should never see a case where there's a 'bad sector' and you can't read the
information again. Hopefully, sectors reaching their send will already have
been relocated.
anyways, these are used in military crafts all the time, so they're up to
the task for sure -- flash is far more rugged and reliable than a spinning
platter anyday.
----
Anyways, more testing on a Thinkpad 700Mhz shows that the read speeds are
very fast 1.x to 2.x faster than a regular HD, and probably limited by the IDE
connector or CPU. Write speeds are usually slower than a regular HD, and that
means that long data writes result in the system pausing for the HD to complete
it's tasks.
This is expected since writing to flash is slow, and the added verify after
write to catch bad blocks takes twice as long as just a write only. Thus, if
you write a lot of new data to the HD, flash HDs maybe slower (the latest ones
are fast, but very expensive). So, installing programs goes as slow as a
regular HD or sometimes a touch slower, but once installed, they start up in a
flash and the whole system runs better than with a HD for internet, email, word
processing and other general use.
definitely cooler than a regular HD since the thinkpad usually heats up a
lot under the HD, but still can't tell how much heat the flash HD generates by
itself due to conduction from the CPU to the HD bay. still, expect it to be
cooler than with a regular HD.
Nothing more to say other than it installs and works just like a regular HD.
=====
adorable toshiba libretto
The latest news and information for the Toshiba Libretto owner.
http://www.silverace.com/libretto/
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