HDD's or Flash based memory

[Merlyn3D]

I'm thinking that with the advances in flash technology, that way down the line we might see flash drives replace hard drives as the primary form of storage. Seems to me they're more reliable and not susceptible to mechanical failure, or limitations of speed due to how fast the drive head can go back and forth. What do you guys think? Flash drives the way of the future?

 

[intogamer]

I'd go with HDD's

 

[Anubis]

itll be 20 years before 30 gig flash drives cost 200$

so HDD for the win

 

[bigrash]

Originally posted by: Anubis
itll be 20 years before 30 gig flash drives cost 200$

so HDD for the win

nope, samsung just introduced flash memory card for 30 gigs. give it a year or two before they're implemented in mp3 players at reasonable price.

 

[ElFenix]

flash drives can get no where near as dense as a hard drive any time soon. now, a hard drive has a lot of wasted space inside of it, but so would mounting a ton of flash chips on some pcbs in some sort of 3.5" half height form factor.

and i don't know that they're more reliable for 3-4 year usage.

also, the chips are really slow right now. i don't know if that is because of the interface or limitations on the way flash works, but sustained transfer rates are pretty darn slow.

 

[DaveSimmons]

solid state storage: sure, eventually.

flash: not any time soon.

Much lower number of read/write cycles before failure, and typical controller chips for flash only offer 11 MB/s transfer speed vs. 40-60 MB/s for typical HDDs.

Plus, you might get a 32 GB flash drive for $100 in 2009, but by then a platter HDD would offer 640-800 GB for that price.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Flash's biggest limitation is the number of times you can write to it. 100,000 may seem like alot until you consider how much your swap file is used.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: bigrash

Originally posted by: Anubis
itll be 20 years before 30 gig flash drives cost 200$

so HDD for the win

nope, samsung just introduced flash memory card for 30 gigs. give it a year or two before they're implemented in mp3 players at reasonable price.

it was 16 gigabit, or 2 gigabytes. apple's ipod nano uses 2 of them to achieve 4 GB of space. even giving you the benefit of the doubt, you're still 93% wrong.

 

[Merlyn3D]

Well...it just seems that hard disks have hit a barrier in terms of performance because of a mechanical limitation. I know nothing will replace them now, but later down the line I would suspect there would be something better, faster, and not prone to failure as often as a hard disk.

 

[Bozono]

Originally posted by: Merlyn3D
Well...it just seems that hard disks have hit a barrier in terms of performance because of a mechanical limitation. I know nothing will replace them now, but later down the line I would suspect there would be something better, faster, and not prone to failure as often as a hard disk.

enter SCSI.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Merlyn3D
Well...it just seems that hard disks have hit a barrier in terms of performance because of a mechanical limitation. I know nothing will replace them now, but later down the line I would suspect there would be something better, faster, and not prone to failure as often as a hard disk.

there are things that are all three, but none of them come anywhere near as cheap as a hard disk does. $0.15 cents per gigabyte is damn near impossible to beat. anything on that disk that is really important is backed up to another disk or tape or optical. it's cheaper to buy a backup system than to get something that is faster, especially if the speed isn't needed (which it usually isn't). plus, regardless of how fast or not prone to failure something is, disasters happen and if your only copy is your failproof solid state copy, you're f'ed. anyone who had all their data in new orleans two weeks ago is screwed. so you have to have a backup system anyway.

 

[spidey07]

I really don't see HDDs going away anytime within the next 20 years.

They are the pinnacle of price/performance and so far no emergin technology can approach that.

As far as performance the only thing that can outperform them is solid state storage.

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: Merlyn3D
Well...it just seems that hard disks have hit a barrier in terms of performance because of a mechanical limitation. I know nothing will replace them now, but later down the line I would suspect there would be something better, faster, and not prone to failure as often as a hard disk.

by mechanical limitation are you referring to rotation speed or the head or something of that nature

because if platter density can still increase (more GB/platter) than performance inherently increases just through an improvement in platter density alone

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
solid state storage: sure, eventually.

flash: not any time soon.

Much lower number of read/write cycles before failure, and typical controller chips for flash only offer 11 MB/s transfer speed vs. 40-60 MB/s for typical HDDs.

Plus, you might get a 32 GB flash drive for $100 in 2009, but by then a platter HDD would offer 640-800 GB for that price.

So you have your OS and programs on the flash drive/solid state and all the media on the HDD.

 

[Merlyn3D]

Originally posted by: mchammer187

Originally posted by: Merlyn3D
Well...it just seems that hard disks have hit a barrier in terms of performance because of a mechanical limitation. I know nothing will replace them now, but later down the line I would suspect there would be something better, faster, and not prone to failure as often as a hard disk.

by mechanical limitation are you referring to rotation speed or the head or something of that nature

because if platter density can still increase (more GB/platter) than performance inherently increases just through an improvement in platter density alone

Yes, I am. Mechanical limitation of how fast the drive head can move and how fast the platter can spin. Also mechanical limitation in that moving parts tend to break quicker than non-moving parts. This may not always be the case, but in my IT job, the general trend is a hard drive needs replacing after about 3-5 years (again this is not true of all HD's).

 

[randalee]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: bigrash

Originally posted by: Anubis
itll be 20 years before 30 gig flash drives cost 200$

so HDD for the win

nope, samsung just introduced flash memory card for 30 gigs. give it a year or two before they're implemented in mp3 players at reasonable price.

it was 16 gigabit, or 2 gigabytes. apple's ipod nano uses 2 of them to achieve 4 GB of space. even giving you the benefit of the doubt, you're still 93% wrong.

Maybe this is what he was talking about. It's coming. FAST.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: randalee

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: bigrash

Originally posted by: Anubis
itll be 20 years before 30 gig flash drives cost 200$

so HDD for the win

nope, samsung just introduced flash memory card for 30 gigs. give it a year or two before they're implemented in mp3 players at reasonable price.

it was 16 gigabit, or 2 gigabytes. apple's ipod nano uses 2 of them to achieve 4 GB of space. even giving you the benefit of the doubt, you're still 93% wrong.

Maybe this is what he was talking about. It's coming. FAST.

Pwned. I'd rather be 93% wrong than 100% wrong and looking like an ass in the process.

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: randalee

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: bigrash

Originally posted by: Anubis
itll be 20 years before 30 gig flash drives cost 200$

so HDD for the win

nope, samsung just introduced flash memory card for 30 gigs. give it a year or two before they're implemented in mp3 players at reasonable price.

it was 16 gigabit, or 2 gigabytes. apple's ipod nano uses 2 of them to achieve 4 GB of space. even giving you the benefit of the doubt, you're still 93% wrong.

Maybe this is what he was talking about. It's coming. FAST.

Pwned. I'd rather be 93% wrong than 100% wrong and looking like an ass in the process.

they were both referring to the same thing

elfenix was right that it was 16 Gigabit per chip

it just takes 16 of them to make a 30GB mem card which bigrash was right

since it is a mem card it most likely could easily be implemented into an MP3 player

though it is no rough estimate of the price i think 2 years is a fair estimate though if they will be commercially available in 2H 2006 but 3-4 years is probably more likely.

either way it will be way less than 20 years

 

[ElFenix]

well anyway, it'll be a while seeing as how they haven't got any makes lined up for production of cards.