'Hybrid' HDD Technology To Allow Data Access Without Booting

jfruhlinger writes "You've got a file on your laptop that you need to access — but you don't want to wait for your laptop to boot up to get at it. New technology from the company Silicon Storage Technology will make the contents of a hard drive accessible via a computer's USB port even when the computer is powered down. 'FlashMate combines hardware, firmware and software in a system application subsystem that manages a notebook computer's hard drive. It is based on SST's expertise in NAND flash controllers and memory subsystem design with Insyde Software's expertise in PC BIOS, system software and power management. FlashMate can work in conjunction with features such as Windows Vista ReadyDrive and serve as nonvolatile cache for the hard disk drive, thus enabling a standard hard disk drive to function as a hybrid drive.'"

Comments

Hey, what a great idea!

[Megane]

Too bad that Apple has supported HD access without booting for years. Firewire target mode, and SCSI target mode before that.

Re:Hey, what a great idea!

[peragrin]

Why it's cool that's easy

my powerbook died. the graphics chip stopped working, so the display was all screwed up. I bought a new Mac Mini, plugged in my firewire cable into both computers. I booted the bad powerbook into target disk mode, and turned on the mac mini for the first time.

As OS X initaized it gave me the option of importing settings and applications from another computer. It mounted my poor powerbook as a fire wire drive, copied everything over including passwords and user settings. two hours(20 gigs of stuff to copy) I had a nearly identical system up and running. I had to change things like the computers network name, change the resolution, but I was up and running fully. No reinstalling software for a day. it just worked.

I took the powerbook back to apple for repairs. when i got it back I repeated the process in reverse restoring the powerbook to what I had before in just a couple of hours, not days of reinstalling software like windows requires.

Yes I said days as windows software installs don't like being transfered in such ways.

Wow.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

You've got a file on your laptop that you need to access -- but you don't want to wait for your laptop to boot up to get at it. Damn... and I thought I was fucking lazy.

alright!

[snark23]

Now I don't even have to boot to steal sensitive information. This will save so much time!

Macs

[MBCook]

That's odd, all the Macs I've owned in the last 7+ years have done that though FireWire Disk Mode. Boot, hold a key down, in 5 seconds or so you have a oversized, way overpowered, external FireWire disk. It's about time the rest of the computer world started getting this ability.

Of course, since I just put my computers to sleep I don't have to worry about boot time.

It's a useful ability though. I've used it a few times on my Macs. Plus, it makes getting a new Mac and transferring things over (using the installer's transfer wizard) trivial.