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     Post subject:New Idea
    PostPosted:Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:12 pm 
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    Joined:Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:28 am
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    So why dont we have a few hard drives in this game. They could be cheaper than the flash chips we use now but may fail. Like maybe half price or use less slots for more memory.


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    PostPosted:Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:51 am 
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    Joined:Sun Oct 30, 2005 3:40 pm
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    harddrives will be totaly gone in the future. maybe not in 2010. but they will. the problem with harddrives is:
    they burn out quickly
    they have problems with magnets
    they need a little bit of power to keep the info on it
    they rotate, so you can't shake them, and a signle piece of dust can make large scratches on it.
    and this list goes on and on

    so flash memory is better in many ways. and you should know a new type of memory is being developed. things with light. they will be harddisks and ram combined

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    PostPosted:Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:57 am 
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    Joined:Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:27 pm
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    Flash drives won't replace hard drives until the cost per GB as well as the speed in saving data are faster.
    Currently you can get about 1200 megabytes per $USD on a hard drive, while only about 4 megabytes per $USD with flash memory. Research in hard drives is working on making the data stored in 3d instead of just 2d (similar to dual layer DVDs). Once they get that done reliabily you will see a huge jump in the size of hard drives.
    Hard drives are about 50 times faster than flash memory in transferring data.
    Hard drives also do not need any power to keep info on them, I don't know where you came up with that one. Once written, the data stays written.
    The biggest limitation of flash memory is that it only has a life time of about 10,000 writes. Laptop manufacturers are working on using flash memory to supplement (not replace) hard drives in order to extend the run time when operating off of battery, but the large number of writes due to paging ram would just eat up the lifespan of flash drives.
    Every thing else you say: magnet problems, shock and dust sensitivity are all correct and are major selling points of flash memory.


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    PostPosted:Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:06 am 
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    Joined:Sun Oct 30, 2005 3:40 pm
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    i didn't say it is going to be quickly replaced, you should think about 20-50 years.

    and the harddisk power thing. they don't directly need power. but they need it for keeping the magnetising (srry for spelling) level up. if a harddisk haven't been powered up for some time (this depends very much on your type. i had a harddisk(yes a very old one) that would lose all his data in 10hours without a battery. newer types still have this problem, but it will take much longer. mostly longer then the expected life duration of it. and this is all as far i know)

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    PostPosted:Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:15 am 
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    Joined:Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:27 pm
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    I challenge you to find anything on the web, such as a technology white paper, that indicates this memory loss problem you are talking about. It sounds to me like you might have confused a bad CMOS battery with this hard drive issue.


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    PostPosted:Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:52 pm 
     

    Joined:Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:08 am
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    Location:Slovenia
    :lollerskates:
    no seriously, nowadays' HDDs don't go in tilt if left without power for long times... And for dust to be able to damage itit should get inside the drive, thing unthinkable to me since disks are securely and hermetically sealed... the only possibility I see for dust being able to get inside is if someone opened he disk, but that wouldn't be the disks fault :P


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    PostPosted:Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:38 pm 
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    Joined:Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:27 pm
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    HDDs never at any point in time needed to have continuous power to maintain data. They are essentially just like a cassette tape. Little magnetic particles are rotated one way or another to make the bit on or off. It is a property of the material, not an electrical charge.


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    PostPosted:Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:03 am 
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    Joined:Sun Oct 30, 2005 3:40 pm
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    :S i was wrong (in fact, my dad is). and, i learned something new, i'm happy about that :P

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    PostPosted:Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:19 pm 
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    Joined:Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:32 am
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    You made me laugh. Out loud, actually. For that I thank you.

    But seriously, hard drives are like large floppy drives. You can remove a hard drive from the computer and the data will survive for thousands of years if you put it in a clean room. However, hard drive interface technology will (I hope) have progressed so far that the hard drive will be unusable, unless you have a 1000 year old computer.

    In fact, if you look at the rate of technology progression in your own lifetime, it's astonishing. When I was young, computers weren't that commonplace in a house. A commercial 1GHz processor didn't exist until I was about 8. I've been alive for 18 years and have seen the average RAM in a system go from 32MB to 512MB. My dad has seen the progression from when memory was measured in kilobytes to present day multi-gigabyte RAM systems. When he was younger, a 3D accelarator card was something that just simply didn't exist. 16 bit is now completely obselete, we're moving toward 64 bit systems.
    If in 10 years we've gone from 1GHz (single core 16 bit) to 4GHz (dual core 64 bit), imagine another 10 years from now!
    It only takes one of those leaps in technology (like transistors, microprocessors, etc) for us to have a whole new set of tools to increase the performance and power of our technology.

    I don't know why I just went off on that tangent, but it was interesting :D

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    PostPosted:Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:23 pm 
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    Joined:Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:27 pm
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    Quote:
    :S i was wrong (in fact, my dad is). and, i learned something new, i'm happy about that :P
    That's funny. Tell your dad not to mess with nerds next time.


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    PostPosted:Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:36 am 
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    Joined:Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:32 am
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    We (well, I at least) prefer the term "socially challenged".

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