Why are there no flash type drives in PCs?

[Kelemvor]

I'm sure there's a reason but I guess I've just never seen the specs to know why.

Flash drives have gotten quite large in size lately meaning up to 16gig drives are becoming more common these days. 16 gigs is more than enough space to contain an install of XP with room to spare or Vista should fit as well.

So why has no one integrated a flash drive type chip into a PC to hold the OS and maybe some Apps and then just have a normal drive as the second drive for all your data or other less critical apps?

Wouldn't this make the PC run so much faster than running XP/Vista off a normal hard drive for most things? Or are current HDDs able to read/write/etc as fast as the flash type drives can?

And if you had a couple gig drive could you just install XP right on the drive and boot to it and just run your PC that way or would the USB2 speeds cause a hang-up?

Just brain storming but it would seem that this would be the logical next step in the evolution of PCs...

 

[Lonyo]

Um, they have.
They are called Solid State drives (SSD's) and they come in sizes up to 160GB.



http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6220
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6145
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5688
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5645
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5568
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4962
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4535

 

[bignateyk]

I think it has to do with the limited number of write cycles.

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Um, they have.
They are called Solid State drives (SSD's) and they come in sizes up to 160GB.



http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6220
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6145
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5688
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5645
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5568
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4962
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4535

I know they exist but I'm wondering why haven't they become more mainstream yet. I've never seen a PC advertised as coming with them, never seen it as an option when customizing any PC, etc. Never seen a review of one in an actual PC with how the speeds compare to a standard HDD....

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Um, they have.
They are called Solid State drives (SSD's) and they come in sizes up to 160GB.



http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6220
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6145
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5688
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5645
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5568
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4962
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4535

<UT2004> LINKING SPREE </UT2004>

- M4H

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Kelemvor

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Um, they have.
They are called Solid State drives (SSD's) and they come in sizes up to 160GB.

I know they exist but I'm wondering why haven't they become more mainstream yet. I've never seen a PC advertised as coming with them, never seen it as an option when customizing any PC, etc. Never seen a review of one in an actual PC with how the speeds compare to a standard HDD....

Well if you look, you will see some of those articles have a price listed.
You can't have a mainstream SSD HDD when they cost a lot.
You don't see the option in most laptops for 7900 mobile graphics cards. Same reason, they are expensive.

Try looking at super high end, possibly rugged, small/compact laptops that are targeted around the $2k price point.

By adding the 16GB or 32GB Samsung SSD to the notebooks, prices jump by $700 USD and $1,400 USD respectively

 

[IceBergSLiM]

According to their roadmaps, Dell laptops will be shifting to solid state storage towards the end of this year.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Mainly cost.

8GB CF: $90
250GB HD: $80

 

[Dudewithoutapet]

Like others have said, man. Its all about the cost.

And LOL @ M4H hahahaha

 

[KarmaPolice]

obviously its the cost. If you could buy a 200gb flash drive for the same price as a 200gb hard drive..there would be a hell of a lot more flash drives. They really need to get the price down..once they do this laptops can have flash drives and save on battery life big time.

 

[ElFenix]

they're ridiculously expensive and probably do little to nothing for you. gigabyte put out a product a few years ago that used regular SDRAM (which is faster to access than flash, iirc) that hooked into the IDE controller. all it did was let you boot windows a tiny bit faster, start a game a tiny bit faster, etc.

solid state storage at this point is more about power consumption, allowing the hard drive to spin down while buffering to flash (or using a solid state drive to supplant a hard drive in ultra-portable notebooks).

if you really want a solid state drive, an 8 GB compact flash card and a simple IDE adapter will do. compact flash uses the IDE interface, so those adaptors only cost a small amount.