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Apple and LG plan Flash Laptops

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the what-are-you-wearing-under-there dept.

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."

3 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. drives are like hybrid cars by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Insightful
    NO, they're NOT "like hybrid cars". Stop it with the inane car analogies.

    The word "hybrid" has a meaning outside automobiles. Originally it was a biological term.

  2. Question by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does the flash inside these things die after however-many thousands of writes?

    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)?

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  3. Re:OK Sure by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There has been so much speculation, but where's the proof? It'll have to run a slim OS like the iPhone to work well on flash due to the high rate of paging MacOS does.


    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.