Seriously thoughtful Computer savvy input

[Kumabjorn]

I consider myself a fairly knowledgable computer user, I knew how to write batch files in MS-DOS, so I'm the go-to-gal when my girlfriends have computer problems and they want to avoid the condescending looks and remarks of the men in their life. However, I have never worked in IT nor programmed, so I know my limitations.

I use a reasonably decent laptop an HP with 6 GB RAM and a 700 GB HDD. However, I have more than 550 GB available. This never happened before, I was always able to fill'er up. The main reason I don't is that I have an external 1 TB USB drive where I leave all my video files (and they range from a 150 MB to 2 GB in size).

This got me thinking. The biggest limitation on a modern computer has to be the HDD, it's mechanical, requires cooling, takes up space and is prone to breaking down after extended usage. Back when we used SCSI we also had something called RAID, a system of connected HDDs if we really needed huge amounts of storage.

Shouldn't it be possible to create something similar using SD cards (is that considered a solid state drive?)? Toss the HDD and connect several memory cards (I understand they don't need to be cards when used internally) so you have some 240 GB of storage, the rest you can put on an external HDD connected through USB.

I visualize a lighter, quiter, reliable computer experience, and I don't think it has to make the computer more expensive. Yes, you get less storage internally, but it seems to me you still get enough for your computing needs (maybe not your entertainment neeeds). What is a reasonable explanation for this not happening?

[Iznogood]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Back when we used SCSI we also had something called RAID, a system of connected HDDs if we really needed huge amounts of storage.

Raid still exists and are heavily used for large sata storage pools to avoid data loss in disc crash

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Shouldn't it be possible to create something similar using SD cards (is that considered a solid state drive?)? Toss the HDD and connect several memory cards (I understand they don't need to be cards when used internally) so you have some 240 GB of storage, the rest you can put on an external HDD connected through USB.

SD cards are extremely slow, so they're the last thing you want to have your OS on. SSDs are much more suitable. And SSDs are also making their way into laptops; faster, quieter, cooler, sudden movements of the laptop can no longer harm the moving parts of the disc etc. But many producers of laptops seems to think that a pc with 700GB will sound better in the ads than one with 240GB; SSDs are much more expensive.

Besides they can wear out. The technology behind nand flash sets a limit to how many writes you can perform on your drive. After about 30000 write cycles the disc is useless; if you have a 100GB disc, you can "only" write 3000TB to your drive before it is worn out. 3000 TB is a lot, but if you, like me, produces a lot of computergenerated files, analyzing the results in automated scripts, and deletes the files again, you could theoretically wear out an SSD. ( Yes I know, 3000 TB is almost 1TB each day for nine years, but still it's possible, though admittedly farfetched).

[Iznogood]

And I forgot one thing: if you are out traveling, it's very inconvenient to carry along an external disk; been there, done that. Even though external discs could be very small, they are still external.

[Kumabjorn]

My 1TB is smaller than a pack of smokes, well, thinner at least.

[Iznogood]

It's still external, and yet another gizmo to carry on a travel.

It must have been very expensive if it's so small? The magnetic medium in most discs are about ten cm. in diameter, pluss the heads and motor and such - my external discs are all very big, but they're also cheap

[Kumabjorn]

I bought mine in Japan. It cost about 600 NOK. It is slightly wider than a pack of Prince but only half the thickness, it weighs less than my cell phone. As I said, it is strictly for entertainment, not important data, so on a business trip I can forego it if i don't want to carry it along, or I could move a few movies over to my 128 GB USB stick (same price as the HDD, go figure!)

[cromag]

I know of at least one netbook that allows the user to substitute an SD card for a hard drive. And it's pretty easy to substitute some CompactFlash cards for small hard drives.

My netbook uses a hard drive but has a built-in SD card slot. It's convenient for reading photos from my camera and transferring ebooks to my reader (which also uses SD cards), but I can, and do, carry a couple SD cards with me to use as external back-up storage.


One more difference between a proper SSD and a flash card is that the SSD has a controller that distributes usage. The memory locations within a flash chip have a finite life based on the number of writes and erasures they go through. An SSD distributes this usage uniformly. Another reason why SSDs are used to contain the Operating System and main programs, but a conventional drive is a better choice for data that needs to be fetched, rewritten, and erased.

[wodin]

How do you spell "cloud"? I have a TB drive that sits on my home LAN and functions as a NAS for anything within my home network, but also connects to the internet and is available for storage and retrieval anywhere that I can get an internet connection.


I’ll grant that fast Ethernet is much slower than direct connection to my PC, and an internet connection is orders of magnitude slower yet, but the kinds of stuff I sick in my cloud don’t require fast.

[Kumabjorn]

Exactly, it is developments like this that I don't really se reflected in the way computers are constructed. They are still in the mode of "faster and more", I'd like to see "less but smarter". Then again, maybe it is only I.