Super speed...

The CF only allows about 10000 writes before it dies. If you can handle replacing it every so often go for it.

 

nope

No, you wouldn't gain enormous speed. Access time isn't everything. Throughput is half or more of the equation. The fastest CF cards have slower data transfer than standard hard drives. So for lots of tiny files you may get a speed increase, but not for anything "normal"

And also, 4 GB CF cards are just around the corner.

Flash hard drives (not just Compact Flash) do have potential, if they read from several areas at once in serial, like a RAIDarray. Non volitile fast storage would be cool (but expensive!)

 

the access time isn't too important, methinks, compared to the sustained transfer rate. what is it on a compact flash?

[edit]looks like acj beat me [/edit]

 

transfer rate

I think the fastest CF cards are 40X, which is rated the same way as CD drives, so 40x150 KB per second, or about 6MB per second theoretical MAX. In contrast, a 7200 RPM hard drive will transfer at about 35MB/s in the real world. If you ever capture DV video through firewire, that's about 30MB/s...

 

solid state HDs are the future. they'll get better with time

 

posibilities

There are always posibilities like a solid state HD for the OS and common programs, so boot and load times are super fast. Then you have your terrabyte spinning disc for file storage and all that.

Or a RAM disc that is mirrored on the HD if the power cuts out.

Years and years ago I impressed my (equally nerdy) friends by loading DoomII off a RAM disc. Doom always was slow to load, like 20 seconds on the fastest computer available. Mine did it in a second or two. I think this was on my first PC, a pentium 90.