Solid State Drive...

[Geek-9pm]

About OS load time.
If you really need quick OS load time there are/was ways to do that much better than SSD. And for less cost. The point here is the OS load time is not a big reason for going SSD. It is a lessor reson.

If you need fast OS load time, you optimize the OS for the hardware you have and then embed it into ROM.  Such as Windows XP embedded.  for specific applications this is the method of choice that uses proven technology.

But of low power, size and weight and. are factors,  SSD is the best.

Unless you need massive storage at low cost per megabyte. Mmm, ahh, make that per Giga Byte.

By the end of this year there will be 4 terabyte hard drives in laptops. (And taht is not my idea, somebody else said that.)

But only time will tell.

[patio]

How do you embed an OS into ROM ? ?
That would be 1 big ROM chip...

[Crosshair]

Your hardware definition of seek time is correct.
But since we are discussing SSD drives with no hardware involved to me the seek time would be how long it is before the data is shown after it is requested.

Fair enough.
In that case surely it depends how much data is requested, and therefore crosses over into sequential read speeds.
That's getting rather off topic though, and more than a little nit picky (I tend to do that a lot), so I'll leave off there

[Computer_Commando]

Yeah, i'm guessing they didn't know what kind of price tag to put on storage, so a dollar per MB sounded good. Such quick advances in technology has changed that dramatically. As with just about all technology.

Your guess is incorrect.  Google "Moore's Law".
Only about 10 years ago, memory was about $1/MB.  128MB DIMM modules were the biggest made.

[Geek-9pm]

How do you embed an OS into ROM ? ?
That would be 1 big ROM chip...

My mistake. The term ROM is no longer a precise term. From about 2007 Flash memory has been used of large projects that would not fit on one ROM chip. Mask ROM is no longer a good choice for any embedded system, unless it is a very simple.  Windows is not.

An alternative to mask ROM is a type that can be programmed once.  It can be put in a socket and it is called 'firmware', but has to be replaced rather than re programed.

There are large differences is load time for different kinds of 'firmware' in current use.  Price, memory size, physical size, data path size  and power level are factors the influence the speed of any solid state device.

Devices made for  replacement for a Hard Drive are slower because they have to to emulate a hared drive. An embedded OS does not need a 'boot loader' to load itself into memory. It already is in memory.

For for information about 'Windows Embedded', check the Microsoft KB.
- OR -
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/downloads/default.mspx

The point I wanted to make was this.
Say solid state drives really become the thing, and the prices come down. The logic choice is to stop using a OS that has to load itself from 'disk file system' to RAM. We may all have some kind of embedded system in future.

With 64 bit CPUs that can directly read terabytes, who needs a traditional hard drive file system  anyway?

[t_blake07]

Your guess is incorrect.  Google "Moore's Law".
Only about 10 years ago, memory was about $1/MB.  128MB DIMM modules were the biggest made.

I wasn't serious when I said they didn't know. That's the whole point of R&D, and production cost estimations, and so on. This is the first time i've read up on Moore's Law though. Very interesting theory.

[BC_Programmer]

Say solid state drives really become the thing, and the prices come down. The logic choice is to stop using a OS that has to load itself from 'disk file system' to RAM. We may all have some kind of embedded system in future.

With 64 bit CPUs that can directly read terabytes, who needs a traditional hard drive file system  anyway?

yes, because embedded BASIC in the original IBM PC was so widely popular... actually, it wasn't, that's why people used dos.

Devices made for  replacement for a Hard Drive are slower because they have to to emulate a hared drive. An embedded OS does not need a 'boot loader' to load itself into memory. It already is in memory.

A few problems with the whole "already in memory" approach:
A:) it's been done before (windows CE)
B:) it sucked.

In order to be able to keep the OS in RAM all the time, the RAM has to be flash ram. oh, hey, guess what? flash RAM is slower even then SDRAM, so now while the OS is "always in memory" it's also very very slow memory.

The next best thing is actually storing the OS on a ROM chip... but this is simply unfeasible. Sure, BASIC can fit on a 128 k-bit chip, but I don't think Windows XP will be able to.

[Geek-9pm]

The next best thing is actually storing the OS on a ROM chip... but this is simply unfeasible. Sure, BASIC can fit on a 128 k-bit chip, but I don't think Windows XP will be able to.

My bad. I already admitted that I should not have use the word ROM. Noways nobody uses ROM for almost anything. It is all now some kind of solid state thing. I want to make a distinction between and device organized as a hard drive file system and a device that is seen just as memory.
Anyway, in just the two years there has been a lot of interest in advances in solid state devices.

 Solid State? What other state is thee? Have many of you have liquid computers? Or vacuum computers?

Yes, soon we will have PCs that do not 'load' the OS. You just turn it on.
The only mechanical limit is letting the fan come up to speed. If we still use fans by then. Maybe we will have ionic air flow.

[BC_Programmer]

Solid State? What other state is thee? Have many of you have liquid computers? Or vacuum computers? [/color]

We're talking about hard drives. persistent storage devices. try to keep up.

[rthompson80819]

I can't help but think that someday hard drives will be history and all computers will use SSD.  But I'm not even going to make a WAG of when that's going to happen.

[BC_Programmer]

I can't help but think that someday hard drives will be history and all computers will use SSD.  But I'm not even going to make a WAG of when that's going to happen.

doubtful. magnetic storage is slower then SSD but it's also far less expensive and has way more capacity.


Heck, backups are still streamed to DAT tapes in most places, because they are larger still then a hard drive, and cheaper for their size, too.

[rthompson80819]

Have many of you have liquid computers?

That reminded me of a video I saw on YouTube where they filed a computer full of mineral oil.  How high were they when they first thought of doing this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtufuXLvOok

[rthompson80819]

Heck, backups are still streamed to DAT tapes in most places, because they are larger still then a hard drive, and cheaper for their size, too.

True, but the cost of a tape cassette hasn't gotten cheaper, but you can but an equally sized HD for about twice the cost of the tape.

I just looked at a 160GB tape cartridge for $35, where you can buy a 160GB hard drive for $70.