HD drive new technology comming up to replace the spinning?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:18 am

Isn’t there any new HD drive project that you know off that will use the technology found in a PenDrive? I think the spinning drive will have to die to let virtual storing data come along the way and cover the market. I have always thought this will once come as a standard. Is it just my imagination and logics, or is it truly something that will be implemented? What do you think or know? Cheers

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:15 am

There are already computer systems out there using solid-state rather than disk-based storage.

Swings and roundabouts though; writing to flash is still a bit (too) slow (for the purposes of recording audio) and requires wear-levelling routines to spread writing over the memory range of the flash.

(edit) as an extra thought, given the amount of RAM modern systems are able to handle (many GBs), why not just record straight to RAM-disk then 'offload' this to e.g. flash storage at one's convenience? That'd be incredibly fast with loads of bandwidth.

Ben Walker · Post by **Ben Walker** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:26 am

I thought this was quite an interesting article on the subject:
http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/computer ... 47,00.html

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:58 am

Some PenDrives are truly fast little pieces of storage, but I mean quite fast... why could the not reproduce it a larger scale? What is missing along the line?

Cool article Ben, cheers. I see, the problem so is cost, way too expensive. Anyway, if I had to just guess, I would expect for them to become cheaper and better, with newer technologies and the spinning will disappear. Yea, I can be stubborn sometimes.

Post by **garyb** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:13 pm

a magnetic harddrive is lightyears more dependable in my book(i can be wrong, however).

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:04 am

my humble explanation for the lack of fast solidstate solutions is that the harddisk industry probably has a strong lobby

(I refer to DDRam solutions on a card without the ATA interface, as that slows things down a lot)
My Win98 scope system is based on a 1GB Flashdrive, but archiving, installing of temporary apps and track writing is done on a physical harddisk, though.
I've ordered an ATA interface for an(other) 8GB flash drive - let's see how fast and reliable it will be. Both units did cost me about 150 Euro, there's a price drop indeed.

cheers, Tom

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:32 am

Very interesting project Astro... Look foward to see how it goes

Post by **garyb** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:45 am

stardust wrote:you mean: moving parts are prone to drop out ?!

no, i mean i trust those magnetic plates to hold my data more than i trust flash memory. if the moving parts fail the data can still be saved. flash is there or...not. magnetic storage has already passed the test of time. i saved data from my mother's piano recital recorded over 40 years ago remember? optical and flash storage is much more fragile....