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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
... 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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
Comments
Nothing else will be adequate.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Savior of the universe!!! "waaaher neeer Waaaaaher neeeeeeeaaar narh nah" FLASH!!! Doo Doo Doo Doo Doooo....
Could not resist
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.
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?' "
.
after reading this any one will believe what BofA to say about Apple
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.
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.
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).
.
... 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.
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.
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.
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