Solid state drives on their way

**Phatose** · 12-03-2006, 05:30

Originally Posted by Geezer57

I seem to also remember that article - I think the card was PCI based, which meant it was limited to the max available speed over the PCI bus. That's probably why it wasn't clearly dominant over regular hard drives.

I also remember a local manufacturer here in the late 1990's that made RAM drives for Macs - I had a friend there who worked in Tech Support. Their RAM drives were insanely expensive, given memory module prices of the day, and transferred data over the SCSI bus. Which gave them low latency and higher transfer rates, but at the cost of volatility. It wasn't a solution the average home user could opt for.

It just used the PCI bus for power though - was used a typical hard drive connection.

**Spino** · 12-06-2006, 18:23

I just love it when technology jumps ahead like this. I can't wait for the day when I can boot up my computer and not hear any clicking, scratching or humming sounds being emitted from the case. From power up to a fully loaded desktop in a few seconds sounds wonderful.

Flash memory technology is progressing at an impressive rate so it shouldn't be too long before solid state hard drives become commonplace on the market. I recently bought a Sandisk Cruzer Titanium 1gig USB flash drive during the Black Friday sales bonanza and wanted to put it to the test. It took me roughly 30 seconds to copy over 500megs of files! It's read/write speeds are rated roughly 15meg/sec! Amazing for a device that is about as long and wide as the keys it resides next to on my keychain.

Best thing about my new flash drive is it only cost me $15 after factoring in the sale, google checkout discount and rebate!

**BDC** · 12-07-2006, 10:38

I think we'll see hybrid drives first. Say 1 terabyte of the usual disc-based drive, and a few gig of flash to store startup and commonly used files.

**gunslinger** · 12-11-2006, 16:57

This has me thinking. . . Would it be possible to install programs on a flash drive and run them from there?

What about installing your O/S on a flash drive? Then when Windows gets buggy and full of spyware and other junk (as it always does at least once a year) you can just reinstall it on the flash disk, and not have to lose all your programs and files on the regular HDD.

Could you direct your internet browser to allow things downloaded from the net to ONLY be copied to a flash disk, completely forbidding access to the HDD, thereby eliminating the possibility of malware reaching the HDD?

**BDC** · 12-12-2006, 19:14

Originally Posted by gunslinger

This has me thinking. . . Would it be possible to install programs on a flash drive and run them from there?

What about installing your O/S on a flash drive? Then when Windows gets buggy and full of spyware and other junk (as it always does at least once a year) you can just reinstall it on the flash disk, and not have to lose all your programs and files on the regular HDD.

Could you direct your internet browser to allow things downloaded from the net to ONLY be copied to a flash disk, completely forbidding access to the HDD, thereby eliminating the possibility of malware reaching the HDD?

You can do that anyway. The issue is if you remove Windows, you lose all the registry stuff, and no programs work anyway. Good way of saving vital documents though.

**x-dANGEr** · 12-12-2006, 19:55

You can always backup registry files.. But then it takes too much trouble IMO..

**Phatose** · 12-13-2006, 06:16

Not to mention that bringing along the registry would likely also bring along the spyware and bloat that you were trying to get rid of by reinstalling in the first place.

**Spino** · 12-13-2006, 17:13

Originally Posted by BDC

You can do that anyway. The issue is if you remove Windows, you lose all the registry stuff, and no programs work anyway. Good way of saving vital documents though.

Not entirely true. I keep the OS, page file and a handful of small apps on a 5-10gig C: partition and put everything else on the D: partition. This makes nuking and reinstalling the OS as easy as can be. Best of all most programs (especially my beloved games with all my settings and saved games) will still run without a hitch.

**BDC** · 12-15-2006, 14:31

Originally Posted by Spino

Not entirely true. I keep the OS, page file and a handful of small apps on a 5-10gig C: partition and put everything else on the D: partition. This makes nuking and reinstalling the OS as easy as can be. Best of all most programs (especially my beloved games with all my settings and saved games) will still run without a hitch.

Really? I'm impressed. Had enough trouble getting them to run after that back in Windows95 days, surprised it still works. Good to know though. After my last reformat I did that cunning partition thing too...