Apple and LG plan Flash Laptops 197
Lucas123 writes "An article in Computerworld
states that Apple and LG each plan to launch new laptops — one that's supposed to ship this month — with hybrid disk drives. The new drives are like hybrid cars in that the NAND flash memory works in conjunction with the spinning disk, kicking in data that can be cached like portions of the operating system, which can make for much faster boot up and resume times."
drives are like hybrid cars (Score:5, Insightful)
The word "hybrid" has a meaning outside automobiles. Originally it was a biological term.
fucking analogy (Score:2, Insightful)
Question (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds to me like the life expentancy of one of these would be greatly diminished over a conventional HDD.
Has flash technology advanced to the point that the limited write cycle thing isn't an issue, or do they just expect you to replace it every few months to a year (depending on how much you use it)?
Re:OK Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't comment on OSX's paging, other than it needs a bit of refining as it tends to be over agressive.
However, I think Apple's initial plans are to use the Flash on these drives as more of a Read area for portions of OSX that are accessed at startup or frequently.
As for the lifespan of Flash, if the device or OS is smart enough to not use the same bits over and over and distributes the writes intelligently(Since areas of Flash are fairly equal in speed), then the lower end bits won't get any more use than the top end of the cache, and in theory the flash should last as long as the HD platters. There are also techniques to extend Flash usage by what bits are used and when, so the limited writes are extended beyond just linear write lifespans of the Flash.
Remember the HD Mfrs are not stupid about caching or Flash limits, so this is stuff that people a lot smarter than the average SlashDot reader has already considered and worked around.
Re:drives are like hybrid cars (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you like it if car people make idiotic computer analogies all the time?
"Well, I increased the CFMs of my carburetor, which is like doubling your ram. And then I added a second fuel tank, which is like adding another hard disk."
But seriously the reason that people like me resist it so strongly is that most of them are just fucking stupid. This one is less stupid than most but it's still not a very good fit. In fact, it's not all that analogous which is why I resist the analogy. But I didn't rail against it for the reason that you state; this is probably one of the best car analogies that's been used on slashdot recently :)
Mac ROM returneth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:drives are like hybrid cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rumors, Analysts, and Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mac ROM returneth? (Score:4, Insightful)
So - 'no'.