I think the hard drive will be replaced, but not by RAM. Maybe when nano technology becomes available. RAM circuits take up far to much space as they are today to have Gigabytes/Terrabytes of storage. Besides, it will never happen until RAM keeps data after losing voltage, and then suddenly it's ROM, like mentioned above, and I don't think that'll ever happen. So: no.
I am very unsure about this and only playing with thoughts, so read it as a fairytale or a dull joke:
SRAM (Static RAM) is known to be faster than DRAM (Dynamic RAM) because Dynamic RAM holds it data by keeping a capacitor charged. And as many of us know, the capacitor empties itself over (very short) time and therefore needs to be "refilled" very often. That's why it's called "dynamic". Static RAM holds the data in a much larger chip (I don't know the english word, sorry) and there it stays until you delete it or replace it. Now, we would use SRAM this day, hadn't those damn chips which would replace the capacitors taken up so much room. Because of this they cost a hell of a lot per storage entity and is therefore not used. DRAM is still faster than the IDE/S-ATA transfer between the motherboard and hard drive though, so why not replace the entire hard drive with RAM? Same reason as previous example: costs WAY too much per storage. I payed about $350 for my 1GB RAM-chips in my sig, so a 250GB RAM-based storage would then cost me about $87.500. Seems as many people in here can afford that, but I can't, and will continue using my trusty bunch-of-plates-stacked-on-top-of-each-other until something better and cheaper comes along.
I guess this is a pumped-up version of cquark's very first answer.
And lastly: apoligies for my bad english.
I am very unsure about this and only playing with thoughts, so read it as a fairytale or a dull joke:
SRAM (Static RAM) is known to be faster than DRAM (Dynamic RAM) because Dynamic RAM holds it data by keeping a capacitor charged. And as many of us know, the capacitor empties itself over (very short) time and therefore needs to be "refilled" very often. That's why it's called "dynamic". Static RAM holds the data in a much larger chip (I don't know the english word, sorry) and there it stays until you delete it or replace it. Now, we would use SRAM this day, hadn't those damn chips which would replace the capacitors taken up so much room. Because of this they cost a hell of a lot per storage entity and is therefore not used. DRAM is still faster than the IDE/S-ATA transfer between the motherboard and hard drive though, so why not replace the entire hard drive with RAM? Same reason as previous example: costs WAY too much per storage. I payed about $350 for my 1GB RAM-chips in my sig, so a 250GB RAM-based storage would then cost me about $87.500. Seems as many people in here can afford that, but I can't, and will continue using my trusty bunch-of-plates-stacked-on-top-of-each-other until something better and cheaper comes along.
I guess this is a pumped-up version of cquark's very first answer.
And lastly: apoligies for my bad english.
Volatile? I'm guessing it has to do with the "keeping data after powerloss" part? I guess you're right. But the BIOS on a motherboard is ROM, right? Then that has to be EEPROM since you can change it either by altering the settings via keyboard and the BIOS interface/menu, or by using the Clear CMOS jumper to completely erase it and reset to standard? I've just started learning this, so bear with me on the misunderstandings please.
Those rocket drives seem sweet.... always thought that they were conceptually possible.... I mean, producing 512MB sticks of pc100 chips ought to be pretty cheap and even pc100 would give outstanding performance (esp. access times) compared to magnetic disk drives...
For the low price of $29000 you could get a 90GB SSD from M-Sys with a seek time of 20us and a sustained read/write of 30MB/s. Of course for the same price you could get a RAID0 with 4 of the 23GB ones and that would haul major ass.
http://www.wdlsystems.com/modperl/view_...es.cgi?request=list_aisle&aisle_id=284
http://www.wdlsystems.com/modperl/view_...es.cgi?request=list_aisle&aisle_id=284
The bottom line is, hard drives have certainly reached the end of the rope. There is only so fast those disks can spin, and so small they can get. But, I think hard drives are going to be just one of those things we'll use for a long long time, and 50 years from now, someone will be like, "why the hell are we still using hard drives?"
Googer
Lifer
- Nov 11, 2004
- 12,576
- 7
- 81
Uhh... Because that's about all we have DUH! And by the way I belive this is the 50th Anaversary of the hard drive! It has shrunk from 2 tons two less than two pounds! Now that's progress! I will give more statistics later.
Who would have ever thought we could have shrunk somthing that needed to be moved by trucks down to something the size of a quarter? I hate pessimists they never accomplish anything because they are always in doubt over every thing!
SagaLore
Elite Member
- Dec 18, 2001
- 24,036
- 21
- 81
I think at some point we'll see a revolutionary method of storing/retrieving data from a hard drive. My idea is to have the same platters, but instead of spinning the platters and reading bits in a linear line, there will be reader discs that sit right on top of the platters. To start with these discs will probably spin and have multiple read/write lines, but at some point they won't spin - instead the data is managed via radial grid coordinates.
my $.02 is NO, and yes
RAM, as in random access memory will someday replace hard disks. BUT it will not be PC88000 or any volitile memory. i see advances in flash memory and similar storage mediums like magnetic ram(mram) and molecular memory make big advancements and in 2050, their will be no hard disks.
in my opinnion.
RAM, as in random access memory will someday replace hard disks. BUT it will not be PC88000 or any volitile memory. i see advances in flash memory and similar storage mediums like magnetic ram(mram) and molecular memory make big advancements and in 2050, their will be no hard disks.
in my opinnion.
Why don't we just use RAM drives? I could foresee a system with multiple northbridges, one with the fast (DDR, XDR, whatever) ram, and then a secondary NB that can control oodles of slower RAM, but still much faster than a HDD. Use the 5v standby to keep refreshing your memory. the only problem is, IDK about how much energy that would use.
Yeah, but @$1493 those 4 gig M-sys are within the eventual reach of most enthuisiasts. 
Great OS/boot drive. Just don't put a page file on it, unless your worried that it won't be obsolete by the time you hit 5 million writes.
Great OS/boot drive. Just don't put a page file on it, unless your worried that it won't be obsolete by the time you hit 5 million writes.There's quite the disparity between the access times of the three products. BiTMICRO quotes an access time of 33-48 microseconds, the Rocket Drive has an access time of 0.6 microseconds, and the M-Systems FFD 3.5" UWSCSI has an access time of less than 20 microseconds. But, the M-Systems FFD 2.5" UATA has an access time of less than 0.04 microseconds. What the? Something's wrong here.
EDIT: The web page for the UATA drive quotes <0.04 milliseconds, which is in line with the other times. The PDF quotes <0.04 microseconds, which is messed up.
How is that possible?
EDIT: Access times are faster for the SCSI drives, throughput is higher for the ATA drives.
Ive thought for a long time there needs to be a movement towards solid state storage becoming mainstream. The hard drive is such a bottleneck in the system, weve moved from 300mhz processors to 3ghz ones and in the same time weve only doubled mainstream drive speeds.
This thing gives me a woody
Capacity
384 GB - 1 TB
Bandwidth
12 GB per second
Latency
Less than 20 microseconds
http://www.superssd.com/products/tera-ramsan/indexb.htm
This thing gives me a woody
Capacity
384 GB - 1 TB
Bandwidth
12 GB per second
Latency
Less than 20 microseconds
http://www.superssd.com/products/tera-ramsan/indexb.htm
RelaxTheMind
Platinum Member
- Oct 15, 2002
- 2,245
- 0
- 76
Holy crap... my woody got smashed by the sheer size of that monster. Giant 720lb hard drive. Will that fit in my ATX case? Or did the shrink ray not get invented yet.
I hate being from the future.
RelaxTheMind
Platinum Member
- Oct 15, 2002
- 2,245
- 0
- 76
humm... interesting. how long do you think before this trickles down to the general consumer market?
The idea of solid state hard drives has been around a long time. i dont think the supply will be there until there is a big enough demand.
economics 101
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