BofA echos reports of flash-based Apple sub-notebook in 2H07

[AppleInsider]

Bank of America Securities this week joined a chorus of other Wall Street firms who say they believe Apple Inc. is working on flash-based notebook and video iPod designs for a release sometime later this year.

The financial reports arrive on the heels two recent AppleInsider pieces which similarly detailed the Cupertino-based company's plans to move into the flash-enabled sub-notebook and flash-based video iPod markets later this year.

"We believe that Apple will introduce a new notebook, with flash based storage in [the second half of 2007]," analyst Keith Bachman wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. "Turn on time will be shorter (with flash), and we imagine the form factor will be thinner, than existing notebooks."

Bachman, who maintains a buy rating shares of the Mac maker, said he does not believe the capacity point for the new Apple notebook has been determined but expects it will end up around around 30GB.

"We don’t yet know if Apple’s potential move into flash based notebooks is an anomaly or a trend, and we need to get a better handle on other vendors’ intentions to assess the impact to [hard disk drive makers] Western Digital Corp. and Seagate Technology," he told clients. "Our initial take on the recent developments is that the impact to the drive market from the encroachment of flash should be very small in 2007, outside of lower potential unit growth in the small form factor drives, such as 1.8 inch."

Similarly, and speaking more broadly, the Bank of America analyst said he is not yet convinced that the notebook market will significantly shift to 30GB flash capacity in the near term, as the target ultra portable notebook market consists of only about 2 percent of total drive units (or about 6 percent - 7 percent of total notebooks). Another major deterrent is Microsoft's Vista operating system, he said, which would require about half the 30GB of drive space for installation compared to the 2GB – 4GB required by Apple's Mac OS X.

"We believe that flash based Vista notebooks would be best suited for business travels that use the network as primary storage, meaning we think the impact to the drive market from the encroachment of flash should be relatively small, though admittedly more of a force than we previously figured," he wrote.

In his note to clients, Bachman also echoed reports of forthcoming flash-based video iPods, which he said will arrive later this year as a complement to the current line of hard disk drive-based models.

Overall, the analyst remains bullish on Apple shares, which have significantly outperformed the Nasdaq stock market over the last three months, rising some 4.2 percent compared to the Nasdaq's 2.7 percent decline.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[anantksundaram]

So a 30GB iPhone can't be too far behind? Just when I was thinking I should put in my order in June (or whenever), I am tempted to wait until Christmas....

[desarc]

i'm getting the 8GB iPhone as soon as i possible can - within hours of announcement of availability.
if you want to wait for the 30 gig - possibly around christmas, why not wait for the HSPDA, 128 gig w/ built in GPS coming @ january '09? heck, why not wait for the full HD screen version w/ HD video recording capabilities coming in june 2010? or the 2012 model w/ 32 megapixel 10x optical zoom camera?

no matter what you get it will be outdated VERY quickly.
i'll buy in june, then again as soon as 2 things happen:
a] my 2 year contract is up, then
b] immediately after the next revision is out

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by desarc

i'm getting the 8GB iPhone as soon as i possible can - within hours of announcement of availability.
if you want to wait for the 30 gig - possibly around christmas, why not wait for the HSPDA, 128 gig w/ built in GPS coming @ january '09? heck, why not wait for the full HD screen version w/ HD video recording capabilities coming in june 2010? or the 2012 model w/ 32 megapixel 10x optical zoom camera?

Because 600 bucks is a lot, and I'd like to avoid getting the 6G iPod on top of the iPhone and carry two gadgets at the same time (like I have to do now)?

I can live with it going to 128GB; that is less of a qualitative leap, at least for me, than going from 8 to 30GB.

I've wondered why Apple doesn't make the design a bit modular on products that are not that terribly inexpensive -- if such a significant capacity upgrade is likely to happen in the matter of a few months to a year after a release, they should be able to charge me a little extra (say $100), take out the 8GB, and put in the 30GB.

[Clive At Five]

These claims are proof that Analysts have no idea what they are talking about.

I will only say this once:

FLASH MEMORY IS NOT YET SUITABLE TO RUN A FULL-FLEDGED OS!!!

Anyone informed about Flash memory also knows of its limited number of read/write cycles. Anyone informed about OSes know that there are tons and tons of R/Ws take place, especially on UNIX-based OSes. Anyone able to put 1 and 1 together also knows that running OS X on Flash will DESTROY it in a matter of a couple years.

Two things need to happen first:
1) The ZFS file-system must be used.
2) Flash capacity needs to increase.

#1 will append changes to a disk, not overwrite them, thus saving r/w cycles
#2 will be necessary as a condition of #1. HD space will fill quicker, making 30GB feel much smaller.

When both of these things happen, then we'll start seeing flash-only devices, but not before.

I repeat: NOT BEFORE.

-Clive

[Gee4orce]

Interesting. I'm sure one day that the idea of storing our data magnetically on rotating platters will make our grandchildren laugh.

...but that day has not yet come

[aplnub]

In the other thread that AI posted today this was said.

Intel says the Z-U130s will distinguish themselves from other solid state product offerings by their extensive validation, including more than 1,000 hours of accelerated reliability testing. The drives are expected to meet an average mean time between failure (MTBF) specification of five million hours.

I think 5 million hours will do.

[Dasmo]

This + Multi-touch support + Leopard multi-touch support = teh win

[ZachPruckowski]

Current flash-memory has wear-leveling, which spreads writes out among the transistors. That adds dramatically to flash life. Additionally, the number of writes the flash can handle is way the heck up there, like a few million writes or so. That will give you the 4-5 years that a hard drive is gonna be rated for. More to the point, it's probably about as likely to fail under warranty as a 2.5" or 1.8" HDD.

Also, the Vista comment is flat-out false. 10-15 GB for Vista is largely swapfile and stuff. My OS X install uses about 5.5 GB of Virtual Memory on my HDD (with just email, browsing, and TextEdit open), and if you factor in iMovie, GarageBand, and stuff like that, you get near that 10-15 GB number overall. To fit easily in a 5 GB pre-install, Apple needs to slim down as much as Vista does.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by desarc

no matter what you get it will be outdated VERY quickly.
i'll buy in june, then again as soon as 2 things happen:
a] my 2 year contract is up, then
b] immediately after the next revision is out

I understand what you mean, but if one buys something that's already insufficient for their desired uses, then it will be insufficient for the device's life. That person is better off waiting.

If it gets oudated very quickly, then one might as well wait until the specs are up to desirable levels. Then, it will at least be sufficient for two or so years, even if it has been superseded. I still haven't replaced my 1gig nano or my 4G ipod, they served the desired tasks, and they still do.

[ZachPruckowski]

Originally Posted by aplnub

I think 5 million hours will do.

Indeed. That's more than most hard drives (which claim a million or two but rarely ever reach that).

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski

Indeed. That's more than most hard drives (which claim a million or two but rarely ever reach that).

Hard drives probably never reach that. They are replaced long before that. The system for measuring MTBF don't account for failure due to old age, where failure rates keep increasing after a certain age. Two papers that were released in the recent months showed that there really wasn't much of an infant mortality phenomenon, most drives in the test fail from old age. How they measure their drives is to operate a certain number of drives for a certain number of hours. From what I understand, if 1000 drives operate for 1000 hours each and only one drive dies, it has an MTBF of 1,000,000. That's what makes it somewhat disingenuous, because as I noted, old age doesn't become a factor in such a test.

[Porchland]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

If it gets oudated very quickly, then one might as well wait until the specs are up to desirable levels. Then, it will at least be sufficient for two or so years, even if it has been superseded. I still haven't replaced my 1gig nano or my 4G ipod, they served the desired tasks, and they still do.

But they aren't NEW.

[DeaPeaJay]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

These claims are proof that Analysts have no idea what they are talking about.

I will only say this once:

FLASH MEMORY IS NOT YET SUITABLE TO RUN A FULL-FLEDGED OS!!!

Anyone informed about Flash memory also knows of its limited number of read/write cycles. Anyone informed about OSes know that there are tons and tons of R/Ws take place, especially on UNIX-based OSes. Anyone able to put 1 and 1 together also knows that running OS X on Flash will DESTROY it in a matter of a couple years.

Two things need to happen first:
1) The ZFS file-system must be used.
2) Flash capacity needs to increase.

#1 will append changes to a disk, not overwrite them, thus saving r/w cycles
#2 will be necessary as a condition of #1. HD space will fill quicker, making 30GB feel much smaller.

When both of these things happen, then we'll start seeing flash-only devices, but not before.

I repeat: NOT BEFORE.

-Clive

You do know Leopard will have ZFS don't you?

[aaarrrgggh]

I still don't get what incentive a manufacturer would have to go all-flash storage. It would seem more profitable to provide two drive bays in a 1.8" form factor and load one with a HDD and one with a flash drive, and either use ZFS to control the two, or get the OS or controller to manage them.

I don't need 160GB of drive space on my laptop, but I am currently using 140GB of it for various information. Relying on the network can really be a pain... mirroring it makes life much easier on the road. I hope solutions move us towards a more flexible architecture that can meet either mode of operation.

[lantzn]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Because 600 bucks is a lot, and I'd like to avoid getting the 6G iPod on top of the iPhone and carry two gadgets at the same time (like I have to do now)?

I can live with it going to 128GB; that is less of a qualitative leap, at least for me, than going from 8 to 30GB.

I've wondered why Apple doesn't make the design a bit modular on products that are not that terribly inexpensive -- if such a significant capacity upgrade is likely to happen in the matter of a few months to a year after a release, they should be able to charge me a little extra (say $100), take out the 8GB, and put in the 30GB.

I currently carry a 4GB mini along with my cell phone so the 8GB iPhone will be perfect for my needs.

What 15GB?!? That absurd!
Another major deterrent is Microsoft's Vista operating system, he said, which would require about half the 30GB of drive space for installation compared to the 2GB – 4GB required by Apple's Mac OS X.

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by DeaPeaJay

You do know Leopard will have ZFS don't you?

Support. It's not the base filesystem for OS X.

But with that in mind, the HDD Industry isn't sitting on their collective asses and waiting to lose their business. They are working on solutions to provide solid state disk drives that have the benefits of their current drives with the benefits of solid state circuitry, without the detriments that are reality in flash based solid state drives.

Intel will not surpass the Seagates and WD of the world.

[CosmoNut]

Originally Posted by aplnub

I think 5 million hours will do.

No. I want to use my computer far longer than 570 years.

[DeaPeaJay]

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

Support. It's not the base filesystem for OS X.

What's the difference?

I was under the impression that I could choose to format the disk as ZFS on installation.

[Token]

Mac OS X Boot is not possible on zfs formatted disks. Yet.

[gdconway]

the obvious problem with a flash-based subnotebook is the storage limitations. the other problem with the subnotebook itself is the inherent bulk associated with the optical drive. so... why not have a subnotebook with flash-based hard drive and an optional attachable hard drive/optical drive? b/c i could probably live without the extra hard drive and optical drive as i work mostly from a desktop, but i could see where people would want such options. essentially make the additional drives connect underneath the notebook. just a thought.

[backtomac]

I want to reiterate that I will not buy and will bitch constantly unless this notebook comes with crossfire sli GPU.

Nothing else will be adequate.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Token

Mac OS X Boot is not possible on zfs formatted disks. Yet.

Isn't ZFS booting going to be a standard feature of Leopard when it ships? I might be interested in Leopard if it is.

[andrewpmk]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

These claims are proof that Analysts have no idea what they are talking about.

I will only say this once:

FLASH MEMORY IS NOT YET SUITABLE TO RUN A FULL-FLEDGED OS!!!

Anyone informed about Flash memory also knows of its limited number of read/write cycles. Anyone informed about OSes know that there are tons and tons of R/Ws take place, especially on UNIX-based OSes. Anyone able to put 1 and 1 together also knows that running OS X on Flash will DESTROY it in a matter of a couple years.

Two things need to happen first:
1) The ZFS file-system must be used.
2) Flash capacity needs to increase.

#1 will append changes to a disk, not overwrite them, thus saving r/w cycles
#2 will be necessary as a condition of #1. HD space will fill quicker, making 30GB feel much smaller.

When both of these things happen, then we'll start seeing flash-only devices, but not before.

I repeat: NOT BEFORE.

-Clive

I believe that the reason that the limited read/write cycles of flash is a problem in computers is because of swapping and caching on the hard drive/flash. If you can greatly reduce or eliminate swapping by adding more RAM and by making caching on the hard drive/flash less aggressive, then the limited read/write cycles of flash will be much less of a problem

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by andrewpmk

I believe that the reason that the limited read/write cycles of flash is a problem in computers is because of swapping and caching on the hard drive/flash. If you can greatly reduce or eliminate swapping by adding more RAM and by making caching on the hard drive/flash less aggressive, then the limited read/write cycles of flash will be much less of a problem

So you're suggesting that minimum RAM requirements go from 512MB to 4 Gigs and then if we had 100 Gig Solid State Drives it would be capable of keeping the system from swapping?

You'd have to have 128 Gigs if not more of RAM to keep Graphic Artists, Render Farms, High end CAD, Film Production, High End Engineering Simulations, etc., satisfied.

Reality is simple: These solid state drives make sense for small form factor, low footprint embedded devices as well as handheld devices like iPods and iPhone.

It doesn't make sense for general computing. Until we start dealing with RAM in 3 dimensions cost effectively, organic computing, etc., the HDD isn't going anywhere other than to have its Mechatronics scale down to a point that makes it cost effective to use Solid state over platter based drives.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by andrewpmk

I believe that the reason that the limited read/write cycles of flash is a problem in computers is because of swapping and caching on the hard drive/flash. If you can greatly reduce or eliminate swapping by adding more RAM and by making caching on the hard drive/flash less aggressive, then the limited read/write cycles of flash will be much less of a problem

I think the most obvious is two part - that swapping be disabled and that software be limited to using only physical memory. I suspect that it's not an easy thing, software can get cranky if it doesn't get the memory that it wants, so the software needs to be tested to be sure it can handle that gracefully.

[Dean812]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

These claims are proof that Analysts have no idea what they are talking about.

I will only say this once:

FLASH MEMORY IS NOT YET SUITABLE TO RUN A FULL-FLEDGED OS!!!

Anyone informed about Flash memory also knows of its limited number of read/write cycles. Anyone informed about OSes know that there are tons and tons of R/Ws take place, especially on UNIX-based OSes. Anyone able to put 1 and 1 together also knows that running OS X on Flash will DESTROY it in a matter of a couple years.

Two things need to happen first:
1) The ZFS file-system must be used.
2) Flash capacity needs to increase.

#1 will append changes to a disk, not overwrite them, thus saving r/w cycles
#2 will be necessary as a condition of #1. HD space will fill quicker, making 30GB feel much smaller.

When both of these things happen, then we'll start seeing flash-only devices, but not before.

I repeat: NOT BEFORE.

-Clive

Rofl, do the use of caps somehow drive the point further for you? i myself, i skip over posts like urs. I bet if you just posted the info that people would listen to u more. Afterall, in rl when ur talking do u start screaming periodically? I bet not.

[DeaPeaJay]

You'd have to have 128 Gigs if not more of RAM to keep Graphic Artists, Render Farms, High end CAD, Film Production, High End Engineering Simulations, etc., satisfied.

I think most of you are forgetting who we're talking about. I highly doubt Apple will put the plain old Mac OS X on this tablet computer. We'll be dealing with the multi-touch screen technology, so it will have a similiar OS to the iPhone. I highly doubt anyone will be rendering movies with the thing or running 20 apps simultaneously like I am right now. All of that in itself will cut down on the read/write cycles. It's a portable computer and it will have light software and light hardware.

[Catman4d2]

FLASH!!! Doo Doo Doo Doo Dooooo ohhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhh....

Savior of the universe!!! "waaaher neeer Waaaaaher neeeeeeeaaar narh nah" FLASH!!! Doo Doo Doo Doo Doooo....

Could not resist

[EruIthildur]

Originally Posted by Dean812

Rofl, do the use of caps somehow drive the point further for you? i myself, i skip over posts like urs. I bet if you just posted the info that people would listen to u more. Afterall, in rl when ur talking do u start screaming periodically? I bet not.

Well, I usually skip over posts like yours too. :P
Why am I reading yours this time? Well, I decided to read the whole thread, boring and interesting.
You can always try to type things out all of the way with proper caps, it never hurts... I find a limited use of capitilization much more tasteful than almost no caps and a bunch of abbrieviations.

Gripes aside.

I will be interested in the flash technology when it will be able to do what most users need it to do on computers... Until then, keep it in small devices like the iPhone... But keep jacking up the memory... 8 GB isn't that big.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by Catman4d2

FLASH!!! Doo Doo Doo Doo Dooooo ohhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhh....

Savior of the universe!!! "waaaher neeer Waaaaaher neeeeeeeaaar narh nah" FLASH!!! Doo Doo Doo Doo Doooo....

"Vat do you mean, 'Flash Gordon approachink?' "

.

[shanmugam]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6504

after reading this any one will believe what BofA to say about Apple

[desarc]

8 gigs isn't really that much, but i'm not putting my entire music library [42 gigs] on the thing. i'll put a few hundred songs, a few movies and a few tv shows on the thing. just autofill when i get bored of what's on there.

i just WISH it was a standard usb plug to charge/sync. that should be LAW...

but for a subNotebook, i don't see a need for hard drive or optical drive. 16 gb would be enough, but 32 would be better, and give it 802.11n, make it a 10" multiTouch tablet with a slide out keyboard. maybe .5" thick?

nice! Wow wow wee waa. my major question is WHAT is the target audience? i'm not going to buy a subnotebook to sit on the couch and surf the web/email with. i've got a laptop for that.

[DiverDown]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

These claims are proof that Analysts have no idea what they are talking about.

I will only say this once:

FLASH MEMORY IS NOT YET SUITABLE TO RUN A FULL-FLEDGED OS!!!

Anyone informed about Flash memory also knows of its limited number of read/write cycles. Anyone informed about OSes know that there are tons and tons of R/Ws take place, especially on UNIX-based OSes. Anyone able to put 1 and 1 together also knows that running OS X on Flash will DESTROY it in a matter of a couple years.

Two things need to happen first:
1) The ZFS file-system must be used.
2) Flash capacity needs to increase.

#1 will append changes to a disk, not overwrite them, thus saving r/w cycles
#2 will be necessary as a condition of #1. HD space will fill quicker, making 30GB feel much smaller.

When both of these things happen, then we'll start seeing flash-only devices, but not before.

I repeat: NOT BEFORE.

-Clive

First off, I'm kind of happy that some of these analysts are taking more of a risk when making predictions. They usually end up stating the obvious and end up predicting what we already know. Unfortunately they are totally wrong on this one. I mean way off, I have no doubt at all that Apple will not release a notebook totally made of flash, nor do I believe they will release a flash video ipod, w/o releasing a 1.8 inch hardrive ipod, this is due to the obvious size limitations anytime this year (outside of the iphone). For the notebook even an extremely portable sub-notebook, would require at the bare minimum a 60 gigabyte hdd, which can be purchased in quantity for relatively cheap (even in the 1.8 inch size, and super cheap in the 2.5 inch hdd size). Either way 32 gb flash is way too expensive and way to small. With current operating system sizes (and I'm sure Leopard will be big at least 8 gb though you could remove the 1 gb of printer drivers and 500 mb of foreign languages but the average person is not going to do that). Why would anyone go back to the days where they have to worry about hard drive space. 2.5 inch hdd are still too small to keep a large music and video collection on, and it isn't until late this year and really for another 2 years that the 300 gb 2.5 inch hardrive becomes affordable (by affordable to the masses I mean at a price under 1$ a gigabyte). While the 100 gb 1.8 inch hdd is barely at mass market price levels. As for the iPod, I understand that it makes sense to release a flash based video ipod, but at the current size limitations for all flash, the size wouldn't be enough to store all of your music and much of your video, unless Apple creates the Widescreen video ipod as flash, and still continues to sell the 2.5inch hdd video ipod. But I doubt they would do that. I do believe that Apple and other vendors will release hybrid drives for laptops in the near future, since they are coming to market as we speak. It is just too obvious in this case that the drive sizes for flash drives are way too small.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by aplnub

In the other thread that AI posted today this was said.

I think 5 million hours will do.

Yeah, but is that 5 million hours MTBF based on failures due to defects in normal usage alone?

MTBF and how many R/W cycles the drive can handle are not exactly the same thing, depending how tricky they wish to get with the language (though I'd like to assume that they MEAN 5 million hours of normal R/Ws can be accomodated).



.

[Mr. Me]

Originally Posted by desarc

... i'm not going to buy a subnotebook to sit on the couch and surf the web/email with. i've got a laptop for that.

This is exactly wrong. Surfing the web and using email would be core applications of a subnotebook. One of the target audiences for such a computer would be travelers. The computer has to support PowerPoint--and thus the complete Microsoft Office suite. Travelers--whether for lunch at a coffee shop or for conferences across the country or overseas--access wireless (and wired) networks for email and to communicate with their offices and others. Fly on any airplane and look around. Almost everyone is watching DVDs on his/her laptop. If the computer doesn't have an optical drive, then it must be really easy to copy DVDs to its flash drive and with enough space to accomodate the contents of two or three DVDs--and soon, two or three Blu-ray discs. Neither Apple nor any other manufacturer would be so stupid as to produce a subnotebook which forced its buyers to use a second larger notebook while on travel. It will take some ingenuity to provide travelers with the functionality that they need in an economically viable package.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Mr. Me

This is exactly wrong. Surfing the web and using email would be core applications of a subnotebook. One of the target audiences for such a computer would be travelers. The computer has to support PowerPoint--and thus the complete Microsoft Office suite. Travelers--whether for lunch at a coffee shop or for conferences across the country or overseas--access wireless (and wired) networks for email and to communicate with their offices and others. Fly on any airplane and look around. Almost everyone is watching DVDs on his/her laptop.

It's not necessary to dump the optical drive, there are sub 3lb subnotes that have optical drives, and they can run all of those apps too.

[CI0002]

I quite agree with Mr. Me. I need a small sub-compact for travel in particular. I am often on ships or in hotel rooms and I need web and email of course but also ichat, video conferencing (when bandwidth is available), and applications for word processing, spreadsheets and blogging.
I will jump at buying a sub-compact, especially with solid state storage. I would prefer it in the MacBook for price reasons, but will take it wherever it is.

[vinea]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

These claims are proof that Analysts have no idea what they are talking about.

I will only say this once:

FLASH MEMORY IS NOT YET SUITABLE TO RUN A FULL-FLEDGED OS!!!

Given that full fledged OS's run from live CDs and USB keys I'd say this statement is provably false.

Anyone informed about Flash memory also knows of its limited number of read/write cycles. Anyone informed about OSes know that there are tons and tons of R/Ws take place, especially on UNIX-based OSes. Anyone able to put 1 and 1 together also knows that running OS X on Flash will DESTROY it in a matter of a couple years.

Samsung claims 1M hrs MTBF. SanDisk claims 2M hrs MTBF (Weibull method). You can take these with the same grains of salt that you take HDD MTBF numbers (which recently have been proven "optimistic"). Given that flash makers have better wear levelling algs and reserve extra memory cells for dead cells (just like in HDDs) I'd say that the quick death of modern flash is on par with the fears of quick burn-in on modern plasma displays.

Two things need to happen first:
1) The ZFS file-system must be used.
2) Flash capacity needs to increase.

#1 will append changes to a disk, not overwrite them, thus saving r/w cycles
#2 will be necessary as a condition of #1. HD space will fill quicker, making 30GB feel much smaller.

When both of these things happen, then we'll start seeing flash-only devices, but not before.

I repeat: NOT BEFORE.

-Clive

#1 is relatively straightforward given the 32GB SSDs look like...32GB disk drives. Any OS that supports ZFS on HDD will support ZFS on SSDs. Thus far this is Solaris but various BSD and Linuxes have ports in progress. The biggest feature folks are waiting for is booting from ZFS.

Somehow I'm thinking we might see that in Leopard.

#2 is both done and will never be done. 32GB is a usable size. HDDs will be bigger and cheaper for a long time to come.

And flash only devices exist already in the embedded world running full fledged OS's doing things computers do...like run databases. There was a discussion on how long it would take MySQL to destroy aa 64MB flash chip...I don't recall the answer but it was long enough that the folks decided it was good enough for their product.

When 32GBs gets below $300 (and available on the street) I'll likely buy some for the tablets I have. I think they only have 40GB as it is and given the wear and tear I don't expect those drives to last all that long anyway.

Vinea