Micro SD Cards... Why arent they used as primary storage in netbooks/laptops?

[ibex333]

I just had this thought, and it seems like a good idea because it would allow to decrease the overall size of the laptop or free up valuable space for perhaps a larger video card?

I realize that sd cards may be too slow, but are they really that much slower than a 5300RPM hard drive? With sizes around 32GB falling in price, it would be plenty for some peole who don't need a lot of storage space.

 

[TheStu]

Well, here is an example. Class 10 MicroSD cards have something like 10MB/s read/write speeds. That is apparently a minimum, but the max probably isn't anything to write home about. You could RAID them, I guess, but that is adding points of failure, and additional space.

Conversely, 5400 RPM drives apparently hit around 60MB/s read/write on average. So that is a 6 fold speed difference. If you want to save space, then use an mSATA SSD, those are hitting something like 400MB/s transfer rates at this point now I think.

 

[pitz]

SSDs and flash has only been dirt cheap for the past year or so. A year ago, the BOM price for 32gb in flash would have been around $80 or so, and 32gb is hardly adequate. Contrast this with $60-$70 500gb HDDs.

During the present design cycle, solid state storage is likely to be incorporated, in an embedded fashion, into far more laptops. I personally expect that designs 2-3 years from now will probably not even accomodate 2.5" form factor drives, but rather, will be mSATA-based, or even based on some other proprietary connector (ala Apple). Consumers want smaller, thinner laptops, don't need/want DVD drives anymore, so it is quite logical that both the DVD as well as the 2.5" bays will dissappear on many designs.

Business/enterprise laptops are likely to have the SSD easily removable, probably through some compartment on the rear that can be removed with a screw. Much like RAM upgrades.

 

[paperwastage]

I was originally thinking of combining this + 32 / 64GB microSDHC (for media files) and a relatively small 60GB SSD for laptops...

but I instead decided to wait for SSDs to go cheap, and got a 96 (and 120gb)

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Microsd is way too slow, hdds were several times faster even 10-15 years ago

 

[ElFenix]

msata SSDs are already around. the MBA uses one for its storage. it doesn't have a spinning disk at all.

you wouldn't want to use a flash card as storage for programs and operating system. the controllers aren't built for that usage model. there's no native wear leveling, garbage collection, TRIM, etc. on a basic flash card. there's also little to no parallelism so performance is usually terrible (parallel access to flash chips is why larger SSDs are generally faster than the smaller ones in the same family). major operating systems aren't optimized for use with flash card storage either (iirc there's some linux distros built to operate off of CF cards that are designed with the limitations of flash card storage, such as wear levelling).

flash cards are also more expensive per gigabyte than a spinning disk (and SSDs are more expensive than the cards).

in short, flash cards are best used for what people already use them for: media storage.

 

[TheStu]

msata SSDs are already around. the MBA uses one for its storage. it doesn't have a spinning disk at all.

you wouldn't want to use a flash card as storage for programs and operating system. the controllers aren't built for that usage model. there's no native wear leveling, garbage collection, TRIM, etc. on a basic flash card. there's also little to no parallelism so performance is usually terrible (parallel access to flash chips is why larger SSDs are generally faster than the smaller ones in the same family). major operating systems aren't optimized for use with flash card storage either (iirc there's some linux distros built to operate off of CF cards that are designed with the limitations of flash card storage, such as wear levelling).

flash cards are also more expensive per gigabyte than a spinning disk (and SSDs are more expensive than the cards).

in short, flash cards are best used for what people already use them for: media storage.

Although most PC ultrabooks I think are using mSATA, the MacBook Air and the Asus Zenbook (which is essentially identical to the MacBook Air internally, no really.) both use something else. I am not sure if it is uSATA or what, but it is a supported spec. Narrower than mSATA, but like twice as long.