Apple Notebook with Robson Caching?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Digitimes again (http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20060105A5020.html) is making waves on the Mac web about a possible use of Intel technology in upcoming Macs.

Although Intel only demonstrated its Robson cache technology in the fourth quarter of last year, sources now claim that Apple Computer will launch a notebook computer in the middle of this month that utilizes the NAND flash based cache memory technology.

Robson utilizes NAND flash memory instead of the hard disk for computer startup and launching frequently used applications. The use of this technology would allow for faster boot up times and improved battery life in portables utilizing the technology.

Apple is widely rumored to be announcing the first of the Intel based Macs next week at Macworld San Francisco (http://guides.macrumors.com).

Digitimes, however, as a source has been consistently unreliable. There maybe a small exception to this, in that they did predict 2GB and 4GB iPod shuffles (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/06/20050630070707.shtml) back in June. One could read into this as possibly referring to the recently released iPod nano (2GB and 4GB sizes). That being said, it's unclear if we can give Digitimes the benefit of the doubt. According to them a widescreen iBook (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/04/20050408071848.shtml) and G5 iBooks and G5 PowerBooks (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/01/20050114041111.shtml) were all due in 2005.

[WildCowboy]

Digitimes is going to have to hit a lot more rumors on the head before I'll actually believe one of them.

I'll believe this one when I see it...

[SiliconAddict]

Sounds like the same tech that is being codeveloped between Microsoft and I think Toshiba. Prob wrong on that. Vista is supposedly going to be taking advantage of this uber cache. What is more interesting is the fact that right here there are competing technologies being developed. Microsoft vs. Intel. Very interesting.

[bigandy]

this flash caching i bet is what'll be used on intel macs, not just because of instant bootup, but for anti-piracy. want to stop people stealing something? chuck part of it on a Flash chip. sorted :)

[StealthRider]

I was under the impression that NAND memory was, though faster than older types, still slower than standard hard drives...how would this improve boot time?

[Mac_Freak]

This technology has only few benefits, and it benefits Macs less. All it does is that it allows you to boot your system faster, but with Mac you just put your system to sleep in 2 sec and wake it up in another 2, which is what you can't say about Windows. Also this year a new HDD are to come out with the new perpendicular writing technology which will improve capacity as well as performance of them. Current HDD are capable of reading at speeds of 50MB/s, just how much faster that NAND memory can be?

[BlizzardBomb]

I really want a fast-boot system. Sleep is a total waste of electricity.

[Superhob]

The way I understand it, Robson is primarily intended to save power. When you put your mac to sleep, it is using battery power to keep the ram "alive" until you wake up the computer. Try leaving your powerbook or ibook on sleep overnight and you'll notice a fairly sizeable drop in battery charge.

Robson uses NAND flash, similar to the one in the nano, to store data without the need for a constant power draw.

[nagromme]

I assume this means there would still be an HD.

HD-less NAND-only sounds great, but would cost too much... for now.

[Mac_Freak]

....Robson uses NAND flash, similar to the one in the nano, to store data without the need for a constant power draw.
Isn't there some kind of new RAM memory under development that will allow you to do that?

[Diatribe]

Isn't there some kind of new RAM memory under development that will allow you to do that?

Yes. I forgort the name though. But it is available only in small sticks like in the two digit area of MBs.

[Diatribe]

this flash caching i bet is what'll be used on intel macs, not just because of instant bootup, but for anti-piracy. want to stop people stealing something? chuck part of it on a Flash chip. sorted :)

That might actually be a pretty good reason to use it. Put part of the system on there that is needed and that does its checks from there so it cannot be altered and you have yourself a viable anti-piracy option.

[Doctor Q]

AppleInsider (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1442) picked up the story too.

[iMeowbot]

Apple could get very quick boots in many cases by doing a cache to disk right now. If state was saved when the system gets to the login screen, the same restore used for safe sleep could be used. If the quick boot fails (say, because the hardware configuration has changed), if could fall back to a conventional boot. I don't see where flash would add any sort of major boost to this.

[grahamtriggs]

Well, whilst trying not to make any real comment on Digitimes accuracy, there is an interesting way to look at the highlighted 'false' rumours:

G5 ibook / powerbook - talks about 2Q 2005, which might lead towards a WWDC announcement... and may have been on the cards in January, and switch to Intel decided afterwards when it wasn't going to work out...

Widescreen iBook - talks about 4Q 2005. Possible postponment, or even production ready for January with Intel processors (as rumours seem to be suggesting widescreen Intel iBooks).

I'm not trying to defend Digitimes, but maybe these weren't as far wide of the mark as they seemed at the time?

[thejadedmonkey]

Well, whilst trying not to make any real comment on Digitimes accuracy, there is an interesting way to look at the highlighted 'false' rumours:

G5 ibook / powerbook - talks about 2Q 2005, which might lead towards a WWDC announcement... and may have been on the cards in January, and switch to Intel decided afterwards when it wasn't going to work out...

Widescreen iBook - talks about 4Q 2005. Possible postponment, or even production ready for January with Intel processors (as rumours seem to be suggesting widescreen Intel iBooks).

I'm not trying to defend Digitimes, but maybe these weren't as far wide of the mark as they seemed at the time?

I agree, it seems like Digitimes was blasted more than necessary.

However, rumor wise, ******* iWeb, THIS is the real rumor. who cares who reported it, iWeb was around in 2004 or something too. this should be page 1.

Ok, I'd love this in a laptop. Turn off the hard drive, use Ram...uber battery save.

I read on the new vista site that Vista will have this too.

[Spectrum]

Yes. I got my PB loaded with memory with the naive premise that the hard drive could spin down most of the time (only active for loading saving), but it hardly ever spins down - OSX is too busy accessing it for various reasons of which I have no comprehension. Why doesn't it just fill up the available RAM with everything it needs? There's plenty of space available (normally 1GB+ free).

...Ok, I'd love this in a laptop. Turn off the hard drive, use Ram...uber battery save...

[yankeefan24]

I really want a fast-boot system. Sleep is a total waste of electricity.
I put my laptop to sleep last night with a full charge. Less than 20 hours later, i lost over 10% of battery charge. I just use sleep because i like apps like ichat mail and safari to stay open. When i boot up it takes forever for ichat to log in and safari and mail are also slow. This is something i'm hoping for, but i have to say that the rumor might not be reliable. BUT APPLE ALWAYS HAS TRICKS UP STEVE JOB'S SLEEVE.

[hscottm]

Just an obvious point - IF theres a PVR-type thing coming to market, this would be quite handy.

[Lacero]

Just how much faster is the transfer rate of NAND over HD? I can see the use of NAND memory to store OS states, so you can turn off a laptop without having to reboot, similar to saved states in Virtual PC. A very useful option.

Second point, isn't there limited write-erase cycles on NAND memory, like there is on compact flash memory, or they the same thing? Interesting, nonetheless.
Here's to the Crazy Ones http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=35452 (http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/movies/think-different.mov)

[BOOMBA]

October 18th, 2005

"Source: Apple to use Intel’s “Robson flash memory” technology to increase battery life, reduce boot time in Mactel machines"

http://macenstein.com/default/archives/62

[arn]

You guys might think I'm not being fair to Digitimes... but these are not unfounded concerns.

Digitimes lost credibility back in 2003, when it was clear a pattern was being formed...

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/09/20030917033706.shtml


The Loser?

Beyond all the sites that offered premature predictions of PowerBook updates, one site in particular stands out as a source of misinformation.

Digitimes.com claimed in January 2003 that Apple was going to start production of a 15.4" PowerBook in the "near future", and later claimed that 15.4" PowerBook production was ramping up in June. It turns out, that these reports were wrong... and, in fact, may have sparked off all the (inaccurate) speculation and rumors of PowerBook updates over the past 8 months.

Digitimes has previously had other inaccurate reports, including 19" iMacs, termination of 17" iMac Production, and an Apple Tablet. As a result, future reports from Digitimes should be met with skepticism.


You can try to explain away the last couple... but then you have to explain away the last 8 stories. And you're left with practically nothing that has actually come true.

arn

[Lacero]

You guys might think I'm not being fair to Digitimes...<snip> but then you have to explain away the last 8 stories. And you're left with practically nothing that has actually come true.
Digitimes is like the ugly sister in the family. We'd all like to forget about her, but we can't.

I guess we can just shove her in the closet. :D

Here's to the Crazy Ones http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=35452 (http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/movies/think-different.mov)

[solvs]

I think they just pulled the 2 and 4 GB shuffle thing out of their butts. Or maybe they heard it somewhere else, as we've heard this NAND thing before. Speculation of course. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[macnews]

The way I understand it, Robson is primarily intended to save power. When you put your mac to sleep, it is using battery power to keep the ram "alive" until you wake up the computer. Try leaving your powerbook or ibook on sleep overnight and you'll notice a fairly sizeable drop in battery charge.

Robson uses NAND flash, similar to the one in the nano, to store data without the need for a constant power draw.

I don't know what the heck you guys are talking about. I know my laptop and two other friends who can go to sleep for hours and maybe lose 1-2% charge. And we are talking about a two year old 17" pb, month old 15" pb and 5 month old 14"ibook. Maybe the three of us are lucky, but this is the first I have heard of 10% battery loss in sleep mode (cover shut). Matter of fact, I could swear I have gone 24+ hours with maybe 8% power loss.

[backspinner]

battery consumpion in sleep depends on the amount of RAM it has to keep alive

[iMeowbot]

Just how much faster is the transfer rate of NAND over HD? I can see the use of NAND memory to store OS states, so you can turn off a laptop without having to reboot, similar to saved states in Virtual PC. A very useful option.
You're really going to be running into the diminishing returns problem there. A ten second boot vs. 2 minutes is a major usability difference. Ten seconds down to a couple less? Meh. I don't think that truly instant on is going to be practical for general purpose computers for a while yet, there are still things that will cause delays, such as peripherals that need to wake up and report that they're ready. Even keyboards and pointers have little processors that need to start up.

Second point, isn't there limited write-erase cycles on NAND memory, like there is on compact flash memory, or they the same thing?
Yep, same thing. There's a finite life to all read-write media, including magnetic disks. Flash would hold up to having stuff written fairly often, sya a few times a day, but it's not a place you might want to store temp or swap files.

[BOOMBA]

I agree it sounds like something that would be useful in a media center PC DVR thing that needs to turn itself on quickly at a certain time to record something, or so you don't have to wait a minute before you can watch a DVD or something.

More like regular "TV start up times".

[MacQuest]

DigiTimes rocks!!!

;)

[CaptainHaddock]

The speed of Flash RAM would probably depend more on how the memory units are accessed. If you put many memory units into a kind of speed-optimized RAID, you could read and write data very quickly, at the same speed as volatile RAM.

Considering that, a 50% speed boost for booting and launching your most frequent applications isn't such a bad idea; or else, as suggested, Macs could gain an instant sleep function that didn't use up any battery power. My iBook does run out of battery power after two days or so asleep. Sleeping to Flash RAM would be good for 10,000 sleep cycles or so.

[Spock]

or so you don't have to wait a minute before you can watch a DVD or something.



A little off topic but i think HP just released a new notebook that can play DVDS without booting up the computer its pretty cool

Im on a roll here but the thing is called Quick Play and v2.0 is on a upcoming notebook with what looks like it has a intel Yonah

[blakbyrd]

A little off topic but i think HP just released a new notebook that can play DVDS without booting up the computer its pretty cool

Im on a roll here but the thing is called Quick Play and v2.0 is on a upcoming notebook with what looks like it has a intel Yonah
Yeah, I heard about that. Pretty cool.

[06m1r3m86]

Some of ya'll are asking how this makes booting times faster. Well, the way I understand it, in order for a computer to boot, the info has to be transfered from the Hard Drive to the RAM. Since NAND is RAM and it retains data even if it doesn't have power, the instant it does have power it can boot almost instantly from the flash memory and then transfer things into main RAM once the computer is up and running.

[gnasher729]

I was under the impression that NAND memory was, though faster than older types, still slower than standard hard drives...how would this improve boot time?

MacOS X boot times are irrelevant anyway; how often do you boot your Macintosh?

Flash memory is a bit different from harddisk: 1. Access time is much much lower. You can read any byte almost immediately from Flash; on a harddisk it takes several milliseconds until you can read or write the data. 2. Transfer rates are much much lower than on a harddisk; only one or two megabyte per second instead of 50. 3. Power consumption is much much less. With a harddisk, you need to keep a huge amount of mass rotating at 5400 rpm; that takes a lot of battery life.

If you make a copy of a 5 GB folder; flash memory will not be able to help at all. But for many uses, flash memory in a laptop together with a clever operating system will be able to save a lot of energy, and possibly make the laptop even run faster; mostly if your applications access lots of small chunks of data.

[mdavey]

MacOS X boot times are irrelevant anyway; how often do you boot your Macintosh?

The idea is to remove the difference between wake-from-sleep and boot, so that when a computer sleeps, it is using no power and when it boots after a power loss, it starts almost instantly. Leaving today's desktop computer on standby isn't energy-efficient. Leaving today's laptop computer on standby drains the battery.

[azzurri000]

Warning: very newbish question ahead -> Would this technology make the notebooks more expensive?

[iMeowbot]

Warning: very newbish question ahead -> Would this technology make the notebooks more expensive?
I'd assume so, but even at retail a GB of name brand flash is pretty cheap these days.

[Norse Son]

Digitimes is like the ugly sister in the family. We'd all like to forget about her, but we can't.

I guess we can just shove her in the closet. :D

Here's to the Crazy Ones http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=35452 (http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/movies/think-different.mov)
Heck, about a month ago one site on the Net was quoting Digitimes and a rumor they had - based on "reliable sources" that Apple would release Yonah PowerBooks in Taiwan in... late Spring, or June? And they were talking about the worldwide debut, too, not just the Taiwanese market... Why would Apple release a Yonah PowerBook in Taiwan, months after their PC competitors, and in June, right when they're focusing on WWDC?

No, I haven't put much faith in anything DigiTimes has said for a couple of years now...

And speaking of relatives, DigiTimes kinda reminds me of that crazy, one-wide-eyed & scowling, grizzle-bearded uncle, who sat on the porch drooling & snoozing the day away, but then would suddenly rustle to life and bellow out, "Back when I was a kid, we used to have to spacewalk 5 miles to school through an asteroid field both ways, and had to share one umbrella during meteor showers... zzz... And did I tell you about the time I gave old Gracknee Brrrz 3 black eyes and a broken antennae just for lookin' at my girl with his horns tied behind his back... zzz..."

Still, a flash drive would be handy if it was big enough to store the MacOS X environment (keep a continuously-updated copy on main hard drive)... Kinda how a traffic cop can see better what's going on at a busy intersection if they're looking down on it, and can then better direct traffic to avoid accidents & bottlenecks - does that make sense? How it would work with NAND flash is a tad beyond my knowledge... But Apple can't be putting all those flash chips they've been buying up between now and 2010 in iPods - where are they gonna put 'em?

[Norse Son]

this flash caching i bet is what'll be used on intel macs, not just because of instant bootup, but for anti-piracy. want to stop people stealing something? chuck part of it on a Flash chip. sorted :)
After I left this afternoon that same idea occured to me, too. It sure didn't take long for MacOS X x86 to appear on the web after developers started receiving the kits following WWDC. And I'm not putting much faith in the TPM chips Apple will likely use on its Intel systems, so this kinda makes sense.

If MacOS X doesn't find the Apple-certified mobo + TPM + NAND-disk combo on a computer it will refuse to install and/or boot... The TPM could well be used by other PC manufacturers, but I doubt they could duplicate the NAND-disk's embedded instructions in order to load MacOS X. So, until such time as Apple decides it makes business sense to license MacOS X - and, by extension, the TPM/NAND-disk - to Dell, HP, Sony, et al, it will be near 100% certainty (I did say, "near") that only Apple's Mac + Intel will tri-boot (MacOS X, Linux and... ugh... Windows).

[mac15]

I don't know what the heck you guys are talking about. I know my laptop and two other friends who can go to sleep for hours and maybe lose 1-2% charge. And we are talking about a two year old 17" pb, month old 15" pb and 5 month old 14"ibook. Maybe the three of us are lucky, but this is the first I have heard of 10% battery loss in sleep mode (cover shut). Matter of fact, I could swear I have gone 24+ hours with maybe 8% power loss.


Thats right, they don't have a clue what they're talking about. My powerbook could sleep for a week or two although I don't think I could leave it there that long to test it out :)