Flash Memory and Apple iPods and Laptops

[GanleyBurger]

A lot of posts have been disappearing lately, with no notice or explanation.

We must have a few newbie moderators who think that they're gods....

They'll get over it soon, and realize that people hit these pages for open discussions.

[Hey newbies - "page hits" == "$"]

And I thought that I was the only one... Several of my posts suddenly "disappeared," or I was shut down. So much for freedom of speech!!! 😱 But you won't read this...it will probably be shut down... 🙄 (ha!!!)

 

[Snide]

I guess I am slightly in favor of deleting things like Safari Is Snappier™ posts and PBG5 next Tuesday too as repetitious and spam. What I object to more is deleting actual content.
Rocketman

This thing is, I didn't write a one-line Safari Is Snappier™ post.
Obviously that gets old (but nowhere near as lame and useless as
PBG5/Tuesday). I basically wrote that I was surprised that no one had,
because Safari was indeed faster - and I reported that the WiFi connection
had more bars at one location. So my post had informative content which
might have been useful to someone debating whether to update right away.
And it was summarily deleted. I wonder whether that was really necessary.

Macrumors is still my favorite Mac site. I hope it stays that way...

 

[trule]

Overall, though I would suspect very good in field life of the flash drives compared to magnetics. You just don't have the mechanics to worry about. The price difference though is significant and won't close any time soon. I think hybrid or combination setups will be common. Get the immediate/instant on benefit of 32GB SDD flash and still have the 500GB storage of the HDD.

Interesting aside on magnetics...they are rated for spin-ups, a laptop drive (2,5) will be rated somewhere between 100k and 300k and server rated versions over 500k. Once the disks are spun up they don't wear out...so they can, in theory, run for quite a long time. 3,5 disks have lower ratings.

The power consumption of an idle 2,5 disk is around 1 watt, and spun-up perhaps 3 watts...the 32G flash uses 0.5 watt "spun-up"...but I guess that is linear so 64G = 1 watt and 128G uses 4 watt etc. while the disk is constant at 3 watts regardless of capacity.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Interesting aside on magnetics...they are rated for spin-ups, a laptop drive (2,5) will be rated somewhere between 100k and 300k and server rated versions over 500k. Once the disks are spun up they don't wear out...so they can, in theory, run for quite a long time. 3,5 disks have lower ratings.

The power consumption of an idle 2,5 disk is around 1 watt, and spun-up perhaps 3 watts...the 32G flash uses 0.5 watt "spun-up"...but I guess that is linear so 64G = 1 watt and 128G uses 4 watt etc. while the disk is constant at 3 watts regardless of capacity.

There may be some increase in power consumption versus capacity for Flash. But I'm not sure it would be linear. That's because you don't need to power up all the Flash cells all the time - one benefit of Flash technology is that individual cells don't need any power to retain their value, only to read or modify them.

So an ideal design (from an energy consumption perspective) would power off the Flash all the time, except for the specific points in time where a request is made to read or write certain data -- and then, only the individual page in Flash containing the requested data would need to be powered.

 

[SactoGuy18]

What I think will happen is that we will see nanotechnology breakthroughs that will enormous increase the storage capacity of non-volatile RAM by 2010. That will make it possible to have as much as 250 GB of flash RAM (or its equivalent) in a portable media player about the size of the iPhone. And hard drives will be replaced by 1/3-height 3.5-inch "drives" with up to one terabyte of non-volatile RAM. 🙂

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

Now that would be cool. Imagine a Macbook pro with 500GB with dual flash drives. Ok that's probably not going to happen for a long time, but it's nice to dream.😀

 

[sparky672]

i thought installing OS in iPods are never recommended because it does not have cooling system inside.

Why? The processor "using" the OS is still inside your computer. The iPod is nothing more than an external hard drive.

 

[princealfie]

Now that would be cool. Imagine a Macbook pro with 500GB with dual flash drives. Ok that's probably not going to happen for a long time, but it's nice to dream.😀

Holy smokes, where does that exist bud? I was planning to build a 16 GB Powerbook 12" soon.

 

[BigPrince]

Why? The processor "using" the OS is still inside your computer. The iPod is nothing more than an external hard drive.

The HD still overheats though after some use. Not something I would reccomend to anyone doing often and for long periods of time. Just for emergencies and backups.

 

[Butthead]

If, and that's an unknown, 128GB 2.5in flash are available at around the same price as the current Sandisk 32GB, then they may be added as an option for Mac laptops. If only 64GB are available by then, and the price is higher, it's a no go.

If and only if the price drops dramatically will you see the 1.8in version of these in a iPod, as currently the 1.8 32GB Sandisk is much more expensive.

Consider, Seagate, Fujitsu (and soon Hitachi) all have 7.2k 160GB drives to appear for sale this month or next, @$155 (froggle search, none in stock yet), then flash mem is all but a high performance option, not a standard component. In that by the time the 128GB flash mem is available at the Sandisk 32GB price, Hitachi or another will have a 200GB 7.2k drive coming onto the market. I just don't see flash mem prices plummeting as much as is necessary to make it a viable option for the majority.