[RayChuang88]

Sadly, these will be made obsolete because the Intel/Micron 3D XPoint technology could make it possible to combine RAM and non-volatile storage on the same chip—it could completely revolutionize computer design itself.

[edh]

“make it possible to combine RAM and non-volatile storage on the same chip—it could completely revolutionize computer design itself.”:

I could see this technology being a game changer in the data center. You can access DRAM/SRAM a heck of a lot faster than flash memory @ the cell level.

However, RAM is pretty abundant on the desktop these days ... while there would be a substantial performance increase, I don’t think users at home would benefit from that technology in the near term. However, down the road in the “distant” future (i.e. 3 - 5 years :-) ), I’m sure things like gaming rigs, home video editors, and the like will load up their workstations with those hybrid RAM/flash disks :-).

It’s been incredible watching the “home” data storage industry evolve from frigging cassettes to SSDs. I hope I’m around another 40+ years to see what’s next :-). Crystal based storage is something I’ve been hoping to see come around (basically use lasers to shift atomic structures in crystals to represent 1s and 0s ... while the idea has been tested in labs all over the world, it suffers from slow access times due to laser positioning ... however, there are ways around that :-) ... the late 70s Superman movie *proves* it can work ... and replicate itself too :-P :-) ).

[tophat9000]

Sadly, these will be made obsolete because the Intel/Micron 3D XPoint technology could make it possible to combine RAM and non-volatile storage on the same chip—it could completely revolutionize computer design itself.

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Not really...back in the old day went Ram was non volatile (core memory.. torrids) you still had external storage... it’s an issue of cost... you don’t need the expense of having ssystem ram also your storage...

The reality is the tech used as SSD’s could act as system Ram..but the fastest will be the most costly the will be the system Ram and use sparingly.. and the next speed and cost level down will be your larger storage

That cost speed balancing act will always favor having two.. fastest costliest system ram and and less costly more plentiful storage space