All current flash devices have a built in wear leveling algorithm that ensures (within limits) that the whole device, on a block by block basis, sees even erase cycles (the damaging part). In addition to that, a flash drive will fail more gracefully than a hard disk would under most conditions. All in all a flash drive will wear out after the PC went through a refresh cycle (4 year cycles) anyway so it doesn't matter all that much.
The limits to the wear leveling are that the flash device will not move data in order to wear level, thus if you have a flash drive with all but one block full of data and you then constantly update a single file on that disk, it will alternate between the block it was on and the unused block while all the other blocks are untouched. In the real world this would be less of an issue because windows bombs when it's disk is that full anyway.
Some of the benefits are that the OS can be stored on blocks given hardware level protection against erasure, making it more difficult to get a virus that damages the host OS. Defrag is completely unnecessary, and access times should be awesome. I already run a tablet PC off only Flash memory, and while it is somewhat limited with current capacity drives, a 32gig drive would be awesome. -nB
As to the hard drive / laptop question: yes. The screen and HDD are the two most failure prone parts of aq common notebook. Since most users really don't need all that much disk space (at least in a normal corporate build) a 32 gig drive would do nicely (or a 64 gig as you are not space constrained in a notebook like you are in a PDA). You would effectively half the number of failure prone devices, not quite doubling the lifespan of your average notebook in the field. -nB
"None of you are posting this from the Astrodome. And I dont think many people who have access to PCs at this point are getting to the FEMA website from anything other than a public terminal (library, internet cafe, etc)"
Or the 1500 notebooks donated by Intel, Dell, and Leveno. (Still a non-issue as they are windows machines, just nit picking) -nB
<quote>And he went on:
And don't get me wrong - I follow slashdot too, exactly because it's fun
to see people argue. I'm not complaining
He is so right. </quote>
<self fulfilling prophecy>
You sack of shite, how dare you say that I argue too much, it's just because
you're jealous of me isn't it?
That and you want to be a better at "in Soviet Korea grammar nazis fun make of
you with Beowulf clusters" jokes than me too eh?
</self fulfilling prophecy>
<note to mods>
Be gentile. . . . please
</note to mods>
You could plug this into your notebook and run millions of codes in a brute force attempt, or you could put a sniffer on the USB wires and simply re-play the code for next time.
So rather than having to hotwire, this should make it easier (at some levels) to steal a car. -nB
Fine and dandy, your contract price just trippled.
I do photo work on the side and all my contracts have a standard disclaimer that you are paying for the sitting fee and a proof book only. If you want the rights to the photos I will pull out a seperate, more expensive contract, which will include costs not in the first one. -nB
All ethernet comms is balenced (differential). There are two ways to remove the common mode signal from a differential pair: 1) an opAmp 2) a balun transformer.
The reason why manufacturers use number 1 is because it is cheaper, tunable, and weighs less. -nB
I have only one question for you: Free Speech, how far will you go? http://farmersreallysucks.com/ Will you tell their lawyers to take a flying leap? My current host does. -nB
"Once my storage is in the TB range my DVD collection is going on my PC and getting piped around the house like my music."
I'm already ndoing this, using xboxes and XBMC as a front end and a punny linksys NSLU2 as a media server. It can serve up to 4 video streams at the same time (any file, any offset) without problems. Files are encoded in MP4. Saves me from re-buying overpriced Disney DVDs when my daughter gets hold of them. -nB
I've had great luck with pagesgarden.com as a host. I have a gripe site there: http://farmersreallysucks.com/ and when the lawyers came knocking the ISP said take it up with the domain admin, we ain't touching it because it doesn't violate our terms of service (no porn, spam, hate, all reasonable and basic). -nB
"Upgraded from 128 MB HDD to 1.3GB, spent all summer cutting grass for that sucker and less than a week after installing I started hearing this god-awful screeching, only to have it fail totally in a few minutes"
somehow I doubt that as all drives > 1g and many > 200 meg did not support the park command because they auto parked at powerdown. They would accept the park command and silently ignore it. -nB
"If the market as a whole actually used this 'vote with the wallet' clout, the state of affairs would be different, because only vendors providing good support would survive in the marketplace. Sadly, that's not the case. The market is driven by 'the cheapest price' and you get what you pay for."
[nitpick]not always is it clear whom will have better support till it's too late[/nitpick] -nB
"start cutting costs, hire independants, and cut the ticket prices in half. "
To some extent that is what was done on LoTR. Turned out to be a smash hit, mostly because no one actor was the (primadonna) centerpiece (IMHO). Too bad they didn't take your ticket price idea though:( -nB
Slashdot Mirror
All current flash devices have a built in wear leveling algorithm that ensures (within limits) that the whole device, on a block by block basis, sees even erase cycles (the damaging part). In addition to that, a flash drive will fail more gracefully than a hard disk would under most conditions. All in all a flash drive will wear out after the PC went through a refresh cycle (4 year cycles) anyway so it doesn't matter all that much.
The limits to the wear leveling are that the flash device will not move data in order to wear level, thus if you have a flash drive with all but one block full of data and you then constantly update a single file on that disk, it will alternate between the block it was on and the unused block while all the other blocks are untouched. In the real world this would be less of an issue because windows bombs when it's disk is that full anyway.
Some of the benefits are that the OS can be stored on blocks given hardware level protection against erasure, making it more difficult to get a virus that damages the host OS. Defrag is completely unnecessary, and access times should be awesome. I already run a tablet PC off only Flash memory, and while it is somewhat limited with current capacity drives, a 32gig drive would be awesome.
-nB
I'd mod you up multiple times if I could.
As to the hard drive / laptop question: yes.
The screen and HDD are the two most failure prone parts of aq common notebook. Since most users really don't need all that much disk space (at least in a normal corporate build) a 32 gig drive would do nicely (or a 64 gig as you are not space constrained in a notebook like you are in a PDA). You would effectively half the number of failure prone devices, not quite doubling the lifespan of your average notebook in the field.
-nB
yes, thaaank u 4 the speeling correction :P
-nB
Ad Nausium.
-nB
"None of you are posting this from the Astrodome. And I dont think many people who have access to PCs at this point are getting to the FEMA website from anything other than a public terminal (library, internet cafe, etc)"
Or the 1500 notebooks donated by Intel, Dell, and Leveno. (Still a non-issue as they are windows machines, just nit picking)
-nB
I like this phrase: Fibers Optical cable
/.?
Seriously, how did this make
-nB
"Would you say the same thing if San Francisco, CA had been ravaged by a earthquake."
Yes god willing. . . and LA too.
(from someone in central CA).
Yes I know it's trollish, but I am answering a question truthfully.
-nB
What kills me are games you can not play locally (i.e. some Xbox games have system link disabled, but allow live).
Blizzard games that will not allow more than one instance from a single IP (starcraft).
-nB
<quote>And he went on:
And don't get me wrong - I follow slashdot too, exactly because it's fun
to see people argue. I'm not complaining
He is so right. </quote>
<self fulfilling prophecy>
You sack of shite, how dare you say that I argue too much, it's just because you're jealous of me isn't it?
That and you want to be a better at "in Soviet Korea grammar nazis fun make of you with Beowulf clusters" jokes than me too eh?
</self fulfilling prophecy>
<note to mods>
Be gentile. . . . please
</note to mods>
um... bbcode issues aside,
You could plug this into your notebook and run millions of codes in a brute force attempt, or you could put a sniffer on the USB wires and simply re-play the code for next time.
So rather than having to hotwire, this should make it easier (at some levels) to steal a car.
-nB
Fine and dandy, your contract price just trippled.
I do photo work on the side and all my contracts have a standard disclaimer that you are paying for the sitting fee and a proof book only. If you want the rights to the photos I will pull out a seperate, more expensive contract, which will include costs not in the first one.
-nB
All ethernet comms is balenced (differential).
There are two ways to remove the common mode signal from a differential pair:
1) an opAmp
2) a balun transformer.
The reason why manufacturers use number 1 is because it is cheaper, tunable, and weighs less.
-nB
I have only one question for you:
Free Speech, how far will you go?
http://farmersreallysucks.com/
Will you tell their lawyers to take a flying leap?
My current host does.
-nB
"But I don't know much. Plus I wanted to have first post at least once in my life. ;)" :heh:
"Once my storage is in the TB range my DVD collection is going on my PC and getting piped around the house like my music."
I'm already ndoing this, using xboxes and XBMC as a front end and a punny linksys NSLU2 as a media server. It can serve up to 4 video streams at the same time (any file, any offset) without problems.
Files are encoded in MP4. Saves me from re-buying overpriced Disney DVDs when my daughter gets hold of them.
-nB
I stand corrected on that one :o
-nB
"Intel doesn't have a mature line of AMD64/EM64T products just yet."
I call BS.
There is Xeon, and Itanium.
-nB
I've had great luck with pagesgarden.com as a host. I have a gripe site there:
http://farmersreallysucks.com/
and when the lawyers came knocking the ISP said take it up with the domain admin, we ain't touching it because it doesn't violate our terms of service (no porn, spam, hate, all reasonable and basic).
-nB
"Upgraded from 128 MB HDD to 1.3GB, spent all summer cutting grass for that sucker and less than a week after installing I started hearing this god-awful screeching, only to have it fail totally in a few minutes"
somehow I doubt that as all drives > 1g and many > 200 meg did not support the park command because they auto parked at powerdown. They would accept the park command and silently ignore it.
-nB
Park the disk heads and repeatedly seek the disk heads.
-nB
That's not too bad an idea actually. . .
on the subject of the display,
Anybody have an estimated/actual price?
-nB
Like this:
P--C
d--S
S--S
S--S
S--S
where P== pilot
C==co-pilot
d==door
S==passenger seat
-nB
"If the market as a whole actually used this 'vote with the wallet' clout, the state of affairs would be different, because only vendors providing good support would survive in the marketplace. Sadly, that's not the case. The market is driven by 'the cheapest price' and you get what you pay for."
[nitpick]not always is it clear whom will have better support till it's too late[/nitpick]
-nB
"There is this volumetric processor that we call the vertebrate brain.."
:P
Which is relatively low heat density, and is impractable from a packaging standpoint. It needs way too much support harware
-nB
"start cutting costs, hire independants, and cut the ticket prices in half. "
:(
To some extent that is what was done on LoTR. Turned out to be a smash hit, mostly because no one actor was the (primadonna) centerpiece (IMHO). Too bad they didn't take your ticket price idea though
-nB