You can do it whenever you feel like it. They make IDE adapters for flash RAM cards (at least Compact Flash). Just buy a 4 GB CF card, buy the adapter, and install OS X on it. Of course, that'll probably set you back as much as the computer costs.
So, I'd say it comes down to cost per gigabyte. Also, the life cycle of the flash RAM. It is probably not something currently you would probably want to use for swap space or other things that might get written to frequently. Of course if regular RAM prices drop too, you could probably get rid of things like swap space and develop applications so that they only write to flash when necessary.
The price and life cycle are the killers right now. If they could develop a flash memory that doesn't degrade so fast, and is cheaper to produce, I'm sure laptop developers would be eager to switch.
You can do it whenever you feel like it. They make IDE adapters for flash RAM cards (at least Compact Flash). Just buy a 4 GB CF card, buy the adapter, and install OS X on it. Of course, that'll probably set you back as much as the computer costs.
So, I'd say it comes down to cost per gigabyte. Also, the life cycle of the flash RAM. It is probably not something currently you would probably want to use for swap space or other things that might get written to frequently. Of course if regular RAM prices drop too, you could probably get rid of things like swap space and develop applications so that they only write to flash when necessary.
Hmmmm has anyone ever tried this? Does OSX boot up in 5 seconds?
js: most flash cards aren't as fast as hard drives, so it'd be slower. I think what you are more thinking of is magnetic ram, which will be much better as a solid state storage tech for computers.
Aside from speed, the aforementioned degradation is also an issue. Flash cards are usually rated to 150,000 write cycles, which is fairly low if you consider how often Mac OS X's swap system writes to disk.
Aside from speed, the aforementioned degradation is also an issue. Flash cards are usually rated to 150,000 write cycles, which is fairly low if you consider how often Mac OS X's swap system writes to disk.
See! I learned something new! I didn't realize this was an issue with flash memory.
Comments
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columni...9-07-plr_x.htm
2010?
So, I'd say it comes down to cost per gigabyte. Also, the life cycle of the flash RAM. It is probably not something currently you would probably want to use for swap space or other things that might get written to frequently. Of course if regular RAM prices drop too, you could probably get rid of things like swap space and develop applications so that they only write to flash when necessary.
Originally posted by pmjoe
You can do it whenever you feel like it. They make IDE adapters for flash RAM cards (at least Compact Flash). Just buy a 4 GB CF card, buy the adapter, and install OS X on it. Of course, that'll probably set you back as much as the computer costs.
So, I'd say it comes down to cost per gigabyte. Also, the life cycle of the flash RAM. It is probably not something currently you would probably want to use for swap space or other things that might get written to frequently. Of course if regular RAM prices drop too, you could probably get rid of things like swap space and develop applications so that they only write to flash when necessary.
Hmmmm has anyone ever tried this? Does OSX boot up in 5 seconds?
Aside from speed, the aforementioned degradation is also an issue. Flash cards are usually rated to 150,000 write cycles, which is fairly low if you consider how often Mac OS X's swap system writes to disk.
Originally posted by ChevalierMalFet
Aside from speed, the aforementioned degradation is also an issue. Flash cards are usually rated to 150,000 write cycles, which is fairly low if you consider how often Mac OS X's swap system writes to disk.
See! I learned something new! I didn't realize this was an issue with flash memory.