Comments on: Old thinking about 7200rpm drives http://joemaller.com/2006/10/24/old-thinking-about-7200rpm-drives/ .com Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:17:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Bruce Heavin http://joemaller.com/2006/10/24/old-thinking-about-7200rpm-drives/#comment-5109 Bruce Heavin Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:56:10 +0000 http://joemaller.com/2006/10/24/old-thinking-about-7200rpm-drives/#comment-5109 <p>Frankly I think the day will come where solid state Nand memory will be the driving force for storage with no moving parts as in the current iPod Nano's flash memory. This would have a grand advantage as not to destroy data when dropped or worn out through worn moving parts / motors. Also Nand memory is to be much faster than todays conventional HD. Currently Nand memory will take up less power, create less heat than todays current HD's and help contribute to longer battery life with laptops, devices & tablets. Perhaps this will not be Nand memory, but another memory technology that hasen't come yet, but it should be coming around the bend sometime, somewhere. Nand memory could also boost the boot time of the computer OS significantly.</p> <p>The interesting thing about using Nand memory or any high speed memory as a HD replacement is that it will also make virtual disk storage semi-mute as the memory of the laptop and the storage of the laptop become inter-changable. This means as systems move to 64-bit systems they can run with 16GB of RAM and take away from storage, or 8GB of RAM for 32-bit systems giving more storage space. Additional storage could be as close & simple as adding additional chips, or USB memory keys. However we would be limited to the speed of the USB bus, where the chip can potentially have much greater throughput of data. Perhapse adding PC cards into the laptop would be a better more elegant solution to adding storage in a RAM based manner with better data throughput.</p> <p>Hopefully I am either right, or a better more brilliant storage solution emerges and proves me very wrong. Either way, I welcome advances here as I plan to fully take advantage of them as they appear. I can never have too much, or too fast memory / storage.</p> Frankly I think the day will come where solid state Nand memory will be the driving force for storage with no moving parts as in the current iPod Nano’s flash memory. This would have a grand advantage as not to destroy data when dropped or worn out through worn moving parts / motors. Also Nand memory is to be much faster than todays conventional HD. Currently Nand memory will take up less power, create less heat than todays current HD’s and help contribute to longer battery life with laptops, devices & tablets. Perhaps this will not be Nand memory, but another memory technology that hasen’t come yet, but it should be coming around the bend sometime, somewhere. Nand memory could also boost the boot time of the computer OS significantly.

The interesting thing about using Nand memory or any high speed memory as a HD replacement is that it will also make virtual disk storage semi-mute as the memory of the laptop and the storage of the laptop become inter-changable. This means as systems move to 64-bit systems they can run with 16GB of RAM and take away from storage, or 8GB of RAM for 32-bit systems giving more storage space. Additional storage could be as close & simple as adding additional chips, or USB memory keys. However we would be limited to the speed of the USB bus, where the chip can potentially have much greater throughput of data. Perhapse adding PC cards into the laptop would be a better more elegant solution to adding storage in a RAM based manner with better data throughput.

Hopefully I am either right, or a better more brilliant storage solution emerges and proves me very wrong. Either way, I welcome advances here as I plan to fully take advantage of them as they appear. I can never have too much, or too fast memory / storage.

]]> By: Ross Brown http://joemaller.com/2006/10/24/old-thinking-about-7200rpm-drives/#comment-4927 Ross Brown Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:58:59 +0000 http://joemaller.com/2006/10/24/old-thinking-about-7200rpm-drives/#comment-4927 <p>The Core2 Duo iMacs above 2 GHz seem to support the same RAM configuration -- 1 slot with a 2 GB PC2-5300 SODIMM with 1 GB in the second slot. Ramjet sells that 2 GB part for an astounding $675, and according to their site, in the iMac "If you install two 2Gig SO-DIMMs, OSX will register 4Gigs, but will only be able to use 3Gigs." An odd limitation.</p> <p>It's great that Apple's notebook offerings finally support more than 2 GB of RAM. Still, OS X and applications are RAM hungry beasts -- my G5 can eat up 4 GB with my working app set without hiccuping. I'd love to move back to having just a notebook on my desk -- the new machines are plenty fast -- but I'd be bumping my head on that RAM ceiling immediately, and swapping is a workflow killer.</p> The Core2 Duo iMacs above 2 GHz seem to support the same RAM configuration — 1 slot with a 2 GB PC2-5300 SODIMM with 1 GB in the second slot. Ramjet sells that 2 GB part for an astounding $675, and according to their site, in the iMac “If you install two 2Gig SO-DIMMs, OSX will register 4Gigs, but will only be able to use 3Gigs.” An odd limitation.

It’s great that Apple’s notebook offerings finally support more than 2 GB of RAM. Still, OS X and applications are RAM hungry beasts — my G5 can eat up 4 GB with my working app set without hiccuping. I’d love to move back to having just a notebook on my desk — the new machines are plenty fast — but I’d be bumping my head on that RAM ceiling immediately, and swapping is a workflow killer.

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