Comments on: Flash hard drives: four quick thoughts

By: bluespapa

bluespapa — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 14:20:14 +0000

I’ve had flash drives that have lasted years, although not with the kind of usage that an hdd has gotten in my computer. But the lack of moving parts leads me to believe, I hope not erroneously, that they should last longer than the drives that have friction and inertia working against them. I’ve certainly have had more hard drives go out (several) than ram chips (none). If the tolerances are well above the juice that moves the data (those ohms or watts or volts or whatever they are), I’d think they’d last until the techno-relic who bought it is in the nursing home. But I’ll also admit I have a 128 mb flash drive kicking around here too small for my needs, and until recently an 8-track tape player I could have gotten a fortune for it on ebay if I’d had a little more patience.

Right now I need more than 32gb, and I can’t quite afford double the $600 if they released a 64 for double the price, but it’s pretty darn close, and I’d pay the $600 in a minute for a 60 or 80. Don’t tell my wife, of course. She’s starting to catch on that my mobile tech (so much more respectable than saying “gadget”) somehow stops working or meets with an accident when the next REAL toy, er, tool, comes out.

But no moving parts? More battery life? Faster performance? I’m beggin’ ya, OEMs, jump on! Guys, can you say fewer warranty repairs?

By: Bill Pytlovany

Bill Pytlovany — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:00:56 +0000

Anyone have data on the lifespan of data on a Flash Disk?

Sounds like these could eventually be a great backup devices if the lifespan of the data can be guaranteed.

Bill

By: Scotty

Scotty — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:07:04 +0000

Its about time!

With 4GB USB keys selling for roughly $70 that $600 price point is price competitive. I’d buy one just to have a large durable bucket to haul data around in.

By: Andy Broyles

Andy Broyles — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:59:32 +0000

Assuming that the manufacturers start using these drives, the price will not ADD $600 (that is the anticipated consumer price of the drive), but probably closer to $400 net change on the device.

Regardless, this is excellent news, SSDs are more reliable, less power hungry, and at least an order of magnitude faster, and no spin up lag.

Yah!!!