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Peaceful Coexistence

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Peaceful Coexistence misses the mark just slightly I think. The problem that I see is this...Flash memory wears out. Yes, it's umpteen thousands of write cycles and rust drives break down as well. But rust drives aren't INHERENTLY going to wear out. Some do last for years on end. Even under heavy use. I don't think that we will see a one or the other situation. I think that we will start seeing the rise of one and the other systems. The swap file will end up being on the "slow" rust drive...because it will be the killer of flash drives. Mass media files will also reside on rust...size matters. The OS and games will end up on speedy flash drives. Typically they will be written to once and then read from repeatedly...just what flash is good at. Now this all depends on whether or not the manufacturers can solve that little wearing out thing. Wear leveling only goes so far. Granted, for the typical user, the wear rates are probably not going to kill the drive for long periods of time....exception being the swap file. Who knows, with the rapid falling of RAM prices, maybe this will be the end of the swap file.
 
Size does matter. This could be an interesting new way to market games though. Can't you just see it, instead of being sold on cd's, games could be sold pre installed on flash drives.
 
Asr940 said:
Size does matter. This could be an interesting new way to market games though. Can't you just see it, instead of being sold on cd's, games could be sold pre installed on flash drives.

The problem is that flash drives tend to have a certain amount of writes they can do before dying. The number is high, but it's still there, and would increase with high-usage applications.
 
jcw...I think what he is saying is that it would be cool to see games come on flash media, that wouldn't require installing. In most cases you would only be reading data from, not writing to, these sticks. It's a cool idea actually. True game portability. Just plug it into any compatible system and play. The only reason to write to the stick would be for game saves. The number of write cycles is plenty high enough for that. I'd say that we are gonna need to see eSATA based flash before this will be doable. Most of the USB 2.0 based stuff is still way to slow. eSATA would break the barriers open a bit. There are actually many more apps than games that could use this. The main thing is, the ONLY real benefit of this is not needing to "install". Pricewise, CD's and DVD still whoop ***.

Flash memory still has a lot of catch up to do...speedwise, pricewise, and durability wise. It has potential to be sure, but for now we need to examine how to use it with it's limitations.

Once cheap, large, and more durable(write cycle wise) flash starts showing up, I see a system that houses data that needs to be read often and quickly stored on it. Store large media files that can stand slower access on rust, and add large amounts of RAM to eliminate the swap file and BAM! Awesome speed and reliability.
I also see potential problems...I have run into that rare and hateful program that REQUIRES a swap file. I see a failed stick of flash causing MASSIVE data loss(yes, I know. Backups, backups, backups...really, how many are truly religious about it?). Hard drives fail all the time, but at least they usually give a warning and are PARTIALLY recoverable. Flash has the potential for complete and total SUDDEN failure.

I guess what I meant by the article missing the mark, is that Flash will never be a magic bullet. It's not going to be a single solution to all the problems with todays storage systems. It can be a part of an overall system that will address those problems. Just like an electric car has it's shortcomings, and gas has it's...when combined they help to balance each other out and create an overall better system.
 
The limited writes thing is a worry. I haven't seen much talk about that issue being solved.

On the other hand, its not like conventional hard drives are the most reliable part in your modern computer.

For my own machine, a speedy 64gb drive would be great for loading my games fast. Any big stuff I have lives on a server and doesn't need to be loaded fast.
 
..I think what he is saying is that ...

Yes, what I meant to say. Thanks for clarifying.

It would require esata or at least a new USB rev though. Of course, esata is still extremely limited.
 
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