That's a very good question, one I've given some thought to before, so maybe I can start some ideas flowing in here about this, or upturn some info about what's coming up on the cutting edge.
I have wondered about this for some time, because flash technologies use less energy, and are virtually vibration/shake proof. Because they aren't a form of rotating storage, I would imagine they have the potiential to be quicker. I've just figured it was much like the flatpanel industry... The exporters had invested so much in 19" and 21" tubes, so it kept the flatpanel prices up high for a number of years, while the tube stock was depleted. Panels have been available for a long time now, but only in the past year or two have the prices made them a feasable alternative to tubes. I figure that mass-storage flash technology as bootable internal drives has been held back by the same economic situation. I'd love to see an all-flash system. Can you imagine it? You could have flash slots for, say, an SD chip, say three slots. Tell your PC through BIOS which it should boot from first (similar to the way we select boot order... Floppy, cd-rom, HD, etc), and you could literally use the slots to swap in complete OS's for booting.. Or use them for additional storage, portable file transfers from PC to PC, etc. Actually, taking the boot order one step further, BIOS manufacturers could add USB port assignments to the boot lists, so if you have a so-called "click" or "jump" drive, you could assign that usb port to boot, and boot off of the device. It would mean that BIOS would have to integrate USB2.0 drivers into its functions. So what? Have a feature that disables the support when the OS boots up, so the OS native drivers could take over. Just some thoughts. Flash and our newer USB and SD-style media could make things very flexible. We already can share whatever files we want between our ditigal cameras, MP3 players, cellphones, etc. Why not take it to the next level? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dale E. Heltzer Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 4:51 AM To: [email protected] Subject: PCWorks: Solid-State Drives? I was reading in the Sept. PC World about HD replacements that use flash memory. Is anyone here using a system with this technology, and if so, what kind of performance difference is there compared to using only a conventional HD? Thanks. ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
