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Flash Memory And Its future

Posted by timothy on from the let-the-insecurities-out dept.

NETHED writes "C|NET News is running an article about Flash Memory's future. Here is a How Stuff Works link about Flash memory. An interesting read especially considering how small these things are currently. Does the slashdot crowd have a new size benchmark for small sizes?"

5 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. What about NAND flash?? by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The flash mentioned here is NOR flash. The rising star in Flash is NAND flash which is cheaper (30c per MB), more dense (256MB in a single chip) and is faster for file system usage than NOR flash. NAND is used in SmartMedia etc storage devices and is supported in Linux by journaling file systems (JFFS2 and YAFFS).

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  2. Some interesting additions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well the article does seem to be slighly out of date since CF is now available in 4 GIG sizes.

    Pretty amazing, and when i think about it probably the best contender to actually replacing the floppy standard.

    Hard to belive that a few years ago the huge and easily destructible jaz disks were the alternative at 1 gig and slooooow speeds.

    What the article didn't mention is the write times which are also improving, but cost slighly more. And lastly the newbigg cards require devices (ie cameras) that support a 32 bit file system, most consumer digi cams can't write on those cards (2 gig and up although one of lareger ones is still 16 bit)

    Maciek
    I don't spell check and i can't type

  3. Why not small hard-drives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why not use a small 20GB 1.8" hard-drive like the iPod does? I have a 3 Megapixel digital camera that uses a 64 MegaByte flash memory card. I'd much rather have a 20GB hard-drive in the the thing even if it did add 2 oz. of weight. Not an option for cell phones though obviously.

  4. Flash mem. is handy by failedlogic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I happen to find Flash Memory handy to make backups - am I the only one here? They're better than floppies, CD-RWs, CD-Rs and zip disks. They're quick, convienient, reliable, and reuseable.

    I write a lot of documents and I find using a flash key chain drive practical. I pop the drive in at school and upload the documents via USB to the keychain drive. I do the same at home to have mulitple backups. I'm paranoid - but - I also haven't lost anything.

    I don't know about failure rates on these things but I have enough backups not to worry.

  5. Partial solution - devices that copy memory cards by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are already a couple of devices around right now that can read most memory card formats (like SD and CF) and copy them to a small HD.

    I think a really great product would be at attachment for the iPod to transfer CF card contents onto the iPod - or better yet, let me hook up a camera with a firewire connection and transfer pictures over to the iPod HD just like iPhoto on a Mac would.

    Even though the iPod life is not great, it would be fine for several dumps of a 512mb CF card...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley