Jon,
Interesting concept, I like the idea but it looks like consumer technology
is not up to par quite yet, maybe very soon. Thanks for the information
Kony!!
Edward W.
El Paso, TX
"Jon Davis" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Okay then. So I retract. There went that longing. whoosh .. LOL .. *sob*
>
> Jon
>
> "kony" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > On Fri, 21 May 2004 16:49:19 -0700, "Jon Davis"
> > <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >
> > >It would seem that a flash drive with a Serial ATA interface would be
the
> > >way to go for installing the operating system. I've been wanting to do
> that
> > >for years, but the capacities of flash drives have only recently come
> done
> > >enough to where this is feasible. There are 4GB IDE flash drives
> available
> > >now for like $400... not bad when you consider how expensive 128MB
flash
> RAM
> > >was five years ago.
> > >
> > >Does anyone know of any problems one would run into that I might not
have
> > >thought of? For instance, is there a limit as to how many times you can
> > >read/write with flash RAM, or if so is the number smaller than a
> mechanical
> > >hard drive?
> >
> > Yes, that is one of the reasons very few people use flash drives.
> > Typically they'll withstand 10,000-1,000,000 write cycles. Best use
would
> > be to put a swap file or any other often-accessed files on a ramdrive of
> > system memory instead of the flash drive.
> >
> > >Also, I notice that my 128MB USB flash drive is a lot slower
> > >than my hard drive, but I figure that's because of USB 1.1 backwards
> > >compatibility. But is it possible that perhaps flash RAM is
significantly
> > >slower than standard RAM?
> >
> > yes, it is much, much slower... another reason why few people use flash
> > drives. IIRC the peak is still under 10MB/s.
> >
> >
> > >And what about the interface; will mechanical hard
> > >drives' transfer rates ever exceed the bottleneck of the fastest
> interface
> > >(i.e. Serial ATA, or whatever's faster if anything), and if so what
would
> be
> > >the point of switching to a flash drive?
> >
> > Well it's a chicken-or-egg situation. IF the interface were much
faster,
> > the drives could be redesigned to transfer from their cache much faster,
> > and it would be more beneficial to have larger cache. The platter
itself
> > is still slower though.
> >
> > The point of using a flash drive is elimination of moving parts, for
shock
> > resistance, a smaller system case, or power reduction.
> >
> >
> > >Might also like to move the swap file over to this drive.
> >
> > That is exactly what you don't want to do.
> >
> >
> > >I'd like to hear people's opinions on booting from a flash drive. Might
> even
> > >like to know about large RAID configs... whether for increasing the
> capacity
> > >or increasing the speed.
> >
> > What is there to have an opinion about so far as booting is concerned?
> > It's a drive, you boot it, same as any other, but with all the
limitations
> > and benefits of flash memory.
> >
> >
> > >Not much about computer hardware thrills me anymore. Graphics card
> > >technology has accelerated so fast that the fun is gone. But this stuff
> ...
> > >this stuff is the last lingering concept that still thrills me.
> >
> >
> > Every now and then I think about running a system from a flash drive,
but
> > done a little differently. My idea was to use MS Drivespace, with the
> > flash drive holding the partition image file, then when system boots the
> > first thing that happens is a ramdrive is created, the partition image
is
> > copied over from the flash drive (which is the end of the flash drive's
> > function in the system), then system boots Windows (probably 98lite)
from
> > the Drivespace volume on the system-memory ramdrive. The key to making
> > tha work might be to have the ramdrive drivespace volume file copied
back
> > to the flash drive whenever the system is rebooted, so it's good for a
few
> > thousand reboots at least.
>
>
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