One more thing - while hard drives are much slower than static or dynamic RAM, they are really fast compared to flash memory used in memory sticks.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
One more thing - while hard drives are much slower than static or dynamic RAM, they are really fast compared to flash memory used in memory sticks.
Not really. Hard drives have an edge in STR (maybe 50-60MB/sec. STR compared to 10-30MB/sec. for flash memory), but flash is easily two orders of magnitude faster in terms of seek time (which tends to dominate desktop computing hard drive usage). Flash is measured in microseconds, hard drives in milliseconds (1 ms = 1000 us). This is why flash-based SSDs are so blazingly fast, even though they technically don't transfer data as quickly as a normal hard drive.
Originally posted by: Calin
Originally posted by: Matthias99
One more thing - while hard drives are much slower than static or dynamic RAM, they are really fast compared to flash memory used in memory sticks.
Not really. Hard drives have an edge in STR (maybe 50-60MB/sec. STR compared to 10-30MB/sec. for flash memory), but flash is easily two orders of magnitude faster in terms of seek time (which tends to dominate desktop computing hard drive usage). Flash is measured in microseconds, hard drives in milliseconds (1 ms = 1000 us). This is why flash-based SSDs are so blazingly fast, even though they technically don't transfer data as quickly as a normal hard drive.
My 128 MB memory stick certainly doesn't have 30 MB/s transfer rate, more like a 2 MB/s write. However, my hard drive is having some 20+MB/s read transfer rate.
Originally posted by: NOLOVE
What do you think?
Originally posted by: Deskstar
The hard drive will be replaced; it is a product that has moving parts and thus prone to failure.
450mb/s is the theoretical transfer rate of the standard, not of the device.Originally posted by: SagaLore
Originally posted by: Calin
Originally posted by: Matthias99
One more thing - while hard drives are much slower than static or dynamic RAM, they are really fast compared to flash memory used in memory sticks.
Not really. Hard drives have an edge in STR (maybe 50-60MB/sec. STR compared to 10-30MB/sec. for flash memory), but flash is easily two orders of magnitude faster in terms of seek time (which tends to dominate desktop computing hard drive usage). Flash is measured in microseconds, hard drives in milliseconds (1 ms = 1000 us). This is why flash-based SSDs are so blazingly fast, even though they technically don't transfer data as quickly as a normal hard drive.
My 128 MB memory stick certainly doesn't have 30 MB/s transfer rate, more like a 2 MB/s write. However, my hard drive is having some 20+MB/s read transfer rate.
Are you talking about flash memory? For normal memory, it is:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram4.htm
Flash memory:
http://www.vtec.co.uk/memory_transfer_speeds.asp
450mb/s is pretty fast. And at 50ns access time, that's really fast.
Only the rocket drive is a RAM drive. The other two are flash memory-based, which means that they have poorer performance than real [volatile] memory.
Originally posted by: AMD Die Hard
How do you think people feel that shelled out $17,000 for a 40' LCD five years ago?
Originally posted by: AMD Die Hard
Originally posted by: Deskstar
The hard drive will be replaced; it is a product that has moving parts and thus prone to failure.
This is absolutely correct. The fact that a hard drive has moving parts is exactly what will doom it as a technology. As bus speeds, processor speeds, and RAM speeds continue to increase, the bottleneck will ultimately be the physical rotation and mechanical reading of a disk substrate. As someone pointed out earlier in this post, there are RAM based hard drives for high end governmental applications tha tcost thousands of dollars. It might be like that now, but remember a VCR used to cost $1000 at a time a $1000 was worth more than it is today. DVD burners were $500 not to long ago. Every new technology can go into mass production and come down in price. How do you think people feel that shelled out $17,000 for a 40' LCD five years ago?
The technology drives itself. Ultimately the technology will demand faster "disk" access to keep pace with other electronic information flow. At that time, the technolgy in its infacy today will be thrust mainstream by someone who wants to make a truckload of cash.
Do you mean to say plasma. Five years ago plasma set ranged from $17,000 to 50,000. I almost bought one for a christmas gift in 1999 untill I got to Sound Advise and found out the price.How do you think people feel that shelled out $17,000 for a 40' LCD five years ago?
Originally posted by: Howard
450mb/s is the theoretical transfer rate of the standard, not of the device.Originally posted by: SagaLore
Originally posted by: Calin
Originally posted by: Matthias99
One more thing - while hard drives are much slower than static or dynamic RAM, they are really fast compared to flash memory used in memory sticks.
Not really. Hard drives have an edge in STR (maybe 50-60MB/sec. STR compared to 10-30MB/sec. for flash memory), but flash is easily two orders of magnitude faster in terms of seek time (which tends to dominate desktop computing hard drive usage). Flash is measured in microseconds, hard drives in milliseconds (1 ms = 1000 us). This is why flash-based SSDs are so blazingly fast, even though they technically don't transfer data as quickly as a normal hard drive.
My 128 MB memory stick certainly doesn't have 30 MB/s transfer rate, more like a 2 MB/s write. However, my hard drive is having some 20+MB/s read transfer rate.
Are you talking about flash memory? For normal memory, it is:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram4.htm
Flash memory:
http://www.vtec.co.uk/memory_transfer_speeds.asp
450mb/s is pretty fast. And at 50ns access time, that's really fast.
Originally posted by: kcthomas
450MB/s is the speed of USB 2.0 not the flash drive. this is the speed that the data from the drive gets to the computer. the speed of the drive however is not that fast. picture this
1)cpu sends a signal to the flash drive to read data (at 450MB/s)
2)flash drive finds information and retrieves it (much slower)
3)flash drive sends information back to the cpu (450MB/s)
the speed of the operation is only as fast as its slowest part