Flash Memory HDs

[bladephoenix]

I was just pondering the huge load times of Sims 2 just a while ago, and an idea came to mind. I have heard that increasing transfer speed of the HD's only provides marginal performance increase, as there is not much difference between ATA66 and ATA100. SATA I is only a little more faster than ATA100, and SATA II is only slightly better after that.

The problem is that the maximum transfer speed can never be fully realized unless the data the system is looking for happens to be at the exact spot the head happens to be at that time (which is pretty much 1:1 Trillion chance). Thus, the real bottleneck of HD access is head movement. If that can be eliminated, then the transfer rates can be fully realized.

Then it came to mind that we already have permanent memory which does not require a head -- flash memory. Why don't manufacturers like WD, Samsung, etc, just look into making "Flash Memory" like HD's, instead of the traditional platter spinning setup? It is already in use in most electronics...

 

[thescreensavers]

ya I heard ther coming out with some thing like this. I wish they will make drives that are the smae size of hard drives but all flash memory

 

[n0cmonkey]

A lot of the flash type stuff out there is slow and has limited writes.

 

[Cerb]

Um, Samsung is coming out with flash-based HDDs.

 

[bladephoenix]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
A lot of the flash type stuff out there is slow and has limited writes.

True, but it can't be much slower than a moving head (I think). On top of that, flash memory HDs would have less chance of failure, more lifespan and run vitually noiseless. It not sure about how hot flash memory HDs would get, but even any heat generated by flash memory could probably be dissipated with internal heat spreaders -- something that cannot be employed with platter style HDs.

 

[bladephoenix]

Originally posted by: Cerb
Um, Samsung is coming out with flash-based HDDs.

Interesting...I didn't know that. Any links?

 

[thescreensavers]

Probaly in the future they wont be spining harddrives that flah memory will be so cheap and advanced. that spinning hard drives will be absoleat.

 

[0roo0roo]

they do have ram drives. but they cost a decent amount. there are cheaper ones that plug into a pci slot and let u install dimms. the performance improvement doesn't justify cost. esp from the reviews i remember seeing..i can't remember which site had a review grr im' sure someone else does. you can get 10k rpm raptors cheap these days. load times for sims2 shouldn't be long unless you've got a slow system....

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
they do have ram drives. but they cost a decent amount. there are cheaper ones that plug into a pci slot and let u install dimms. the performance improvement doesn't justify cost. esp from the reviews i remember seeing..i can't remember which site had a review grr im' sure someone else does. you can get 10k rpm raptors cheap these days. load times for sims2 shouldn't be long unless you've got a slow system....

Anandtech reviewed the Gigabyte iRam. And I think the performance might be justified for niche cases, gaming not really being one of them.

 

[0roo0roo]

ah yes that was one of em.. gigabyte

 

[0roo0roo]

loaded it up again to refresh my memory
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2480&p=8
the game benchmarks. not justifying the cost. would do worse against a scsi 15k drive, and the costs aren't all that different once you start filling it with enough ram to do anything worthwhile. theres also raid 0 setup with raptors, that doesn't cost much

 

[Jiggz]

Flash drives are now available. Although the rated transfer speed is not much different from current platter hdd, the access time is. But the price is about 10X more. The evolution of the hdd from platters to flash ram will be almost like that of the car (from gas to electric). The current experiement going on right now is to make an hybrid hdd. It will consist of few GB of flash rams and combined with a disk drive. The rams will be used for caching programs. In fact, Intel already demonstrated this in their laptop to make it boot faster. When the manufacturing of flash drive has peaked, then and only then we will see flash drive being available to the masses.

 

[egkenny]

Companies such as Memtech make flash drives in 1.8", 2.5", and 3.5" Form Factors and IDE, SATA, SCSI interfaces. They probably cater to buyers where ruggedness is more important than cost. Memtech was bought by SimpleTech a better known maker of Compact Flash media.
http://www.memtech.com/memtech_products_home.html

Mainstream hard drive manufactuers will start making flash drives when they are more competive in price with regular drives.

Where I used to work they were building launchers for missile systems that had SCSI flash drives for the embedded computers. They were quite expensive but a lot more rugged than regular hard drives.

 

[ribbon13]

They have existed for quite some time now.

M-Systems
Bitmicro

Also note that the maximum STR of most flash drives is actually pretty low. It's the microsecond level access time and massive IOps that make these so desirable.

They certainly are expensive toys

 

[bladephoenix]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
load times for sims2 shouldn't be long unless you've got a slow system....

I dunno. My load times are huge. When going from lot to lot, it takes at least 1-2 Mins to load the scenes. For more complicated lots people make on the 'net, maybe even up to 20 mins for the ones with a tons and tons of objects and lighting.

I am currently using a P4 2.53b and an ATI AIW Radeon 9800. It's not a speed demon, but it is above the recommended game spec. I had just assumed that it was slow to load because the CPU has to grab all the polygon data of the scene from the HD. Much like the process of booting up Windows.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
They have existed for quite some time now.

M-Systems
Bitmicro

Also note that the maximum STR of most flash drives is actually pretty low. It's the microsecond level access time and massive IOps that make these so desirable.

They certainly are expensive toys

Has the i-RAM disappeared entirely? I can't find a mention of it on Gigabyte's site, and no place has it for sale (at least in stock). OTOH, some of those flash drives listed on WDL Systems aren't that much more expensive than a fully-outfitted i-RAM setup ($300 for two i-RAMs plus $800 for 8 1GB DDR modules equals $1100, versus $1700 for an 8GB SSD). Hopefully Samsung will jump into the SSD market with something that's a bit less cost prohibitive for the average enthusiast, but given how RAM-based disk news seems to go, I'm not holding my breath for that, either.