On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Richard Elling wrote:
It's a mistake to think that flash looks similar to RAM. It doesn't in lots
of ways -- actually it looks more similar to a hard disk in many
respects;-)
I already knew (and agree with) everything that Andrew Gabriel said,
except for the implication that tomorrow's software can not accomplish
much of what firmware does today. Using an existing disk drive
interface is expedient and gets products to market quickly, but it is
time to start thinking of a new interface which is better for
solid-state storage. Solid-state storage typically has dramatically
lower latencies so the stacks optimized for pokey disk drives are not
a good match.
I was being careful when I said "nonvolatile memory." There are more
choices than flash. Or, if you want to become a zillionaire, invent the
perfect non-volatile memory :-)
Perhaps based on the 4th semiconductor type, the memristor. The
semiconductor they forgot to tell you about in school. See
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor";.
According to the article at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may08/6207,
"A memory based on memristors could be 1000 times faster than magnetic
disks and use much less power".
True out of the box thinking.
Flash devices have been in use since the '80s, yet only now are we
starting to use them for mass storage in general purpose computers.
Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
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