SanDisk Vaulter Disk: flash-based accelerator to enhance PC performance

Gizmag.com ^ | 11/14/07 | Gizmag.com

[Reaganesque]

All I can say is...IT'S ABOUT D**N TIME!!! My computer reset because of a Microsoft software update and took nearly 30-40 minutes to reboot including the time it took to reboot from the crash the first reboot generated. Anything that improves that kind of performance is more than welcome in my home!!

[CarrotAndStick]

Hitachi or Seagate had introduced hard-drives that combine flash memory to boost performance, a few days ago. Works similarly, I would guess, except that the whole thing is in one package.

[TommyDale]

So how fast can a system reboot using this technology? Instantly?

[ShadowAce]

[null and void]

MACs boot and shut down quickly and gracefully...

[vikingd00d]

>> All I can say is...IT’S ABOUT D**N TIME!!! My computer reset because of a Microsoft software update and took nearly 30-40 minutes to reboot including the time it took to reboot from the crash the first reboot generated. Anything that improves that kind of performance is more than welcome in my home!!

Got Linux?

[randog]

So how fast can a system reboot using this technology? Instantly?

Randog's Rule: Any advances made in computer hardware are immediately neutralized by advances in computer software.

[SouthernBoyupNorth]

Microsoft.... what do you expect?

[null and void]

Windows, it’s what you get when you pay programmers based solely on how many lines of code they write...

[PapaBear3625]

One thing I really miss from my old mainframe days, is that the mainframe disk drives had this little pushbutton that you could press, that would disable writing to the device. Since it was a hardware switch, there was no way for software to write to the disk if you didn't want to

What I would like would be a way to put an OS on a bootable drive, and then be able to flip a switch and render the drive unmodifiable by viruses, trojans, and assorted malware. You can't currently do this with Windows because it needs to be able to update its registry, so Windows would need to be modified to be able to segregate writeable parts from parts that you want read-only

[ShadowAce]

You can't currently do this with Windows ...

But you can do it with Linux.

[Reaganesque]

Carrot: Thanks! I’ll have to check that out.

Tommy: A full flash drive would come up instantly. The article didn’t really mention just how fast this particular drive works that I saw. But, anything is an improvement from my perspective.

[Reaganesque]

I have some business specific software on my computer, would I still be able to use it under Linux?

[JerseyHighlander]

Using PCI-E slots actually has some advantages regarding datarate and number of pipelines available to move the dita directly to the cpu controller.

[ShadowAce]

I depends on the software. If it is truly Windows-centric, and most of what you do is not, then Linux may be an answer for you, with certain programs that allow you to run Windows software in Linux.

Quicken and QuickBooks are still not available as native Linux apps yet, but they can be run under Linux.

[nostrum09]

I wonder how much this will cost. Right now you can get an internal IDE 16GB SSD for about $220. Of course, I think IDE is slower than PCIe, so I imagine Sandisk’s solution will be faster.

When I’m able to save up enough, I’d like to get a SSD drive for the OS and major applications, with SATA drives for music and other files.

[TommyDale]

I once had a Panasonic laptop that had a flash drive, and a floppy. It was great for DOS!

[reagan_fanatic]

Don’t most motherboards have only one PCI-E slot? If so, and your graphics card is PCI-E, you might have a problem.

[Crazieman]

Assuming its similar to a RAMDRIVE (which are small - 4GB)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5558788401045620301&q=ramdrive+boot&total=1&start=0&num=50&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

[ex-snook]

Good idea.