[geeks] Flash drive questions

[Mike Meredith]

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 19:34:10 -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> Lionel Peterson wrote:
> > Anyone noticed the "feature" that lets you use a USB 2.0 thumbdrive
> 
> You know ... the more I think about it, the worse that idea sounds.

You must have thought about it more than me ... it sounds kind of neat
for mostly-read data (shared libraries?). Mind you it's probably
something that would only help much during booting or during periods of
excessive paging.

> > Also, anyone tinkered with the new "hybrid" notebook HDs that have a
> > significant FLASH memory component on board to reduce HD
> > access/improve speed/save power on laptops? Windows Vista supports
> > them, anyone know if they are implemented as buffers and invisible
> > to the O/S or are they actually considered a seperate drive and the
> > O/S manages it? 

Theregister has a few articles on those drives. From the description, it
sounds like the HD will work on anything; the Vista support is to reduce
the number of writes to the flash cache. Allegedly this increases
battery lifetime and reliability.

> Wheee!  What a concept:  Disk cache that WEARS OUT, right there on the
> motherboard!  Roll on the disposable laptop!

On the disk rather than the motherboard. But what's new ? Most laptops
have built-in obsolescence and might as well be disposable for most
people.