Future of Computing Storage

[MrPurple]

I was running around the net, and i rembered reading something a while back about physical RAM drives. Actual HDD utilizing RAM for storage with a Lithium ION battery as a back up, and a secondary HDD to store the data when the system is off. This was a couple of years ago and much has changed.

This brings me to the topic at hand.
I am starting to see that the future of computer storage is going to the way of silicon instead of glass or cermaic platters. This idea becomes more plasuable when I rembered that I read somewhere that new non Volitile RAM is being developed.
Having a physical RAM drive would also remove the need for system RAM since evrything can be stored on the drive, and the drive itself is insanly fast.

What do you think guys. Being able to turn on the system and have your OS fully loaded in seconds. Having your favorite games and apps load instanly.

What do you guys think?

[The Terk]

having that capability will increase productivity anywhere so much, despite the massive costs of such systems!!!! it would probably hit the commercial market first, and once they get it up to speed and really worked out we will start seeing such drives. but dont expect this all to happen in a few years, its goin to take a while for that upgrade. also, i saw somewhere that they are able to imbed circuits into glass, kinda like computers from minority report... technology is going to be increasing extremely fast in the coming decades

[MrPurple]

RAM Drives already exist, with the max capacity being at 4 gig. The card, if memory serves me, has a small battery on it for back up, and requiers a physical HDD to store the data on it when you shut the system down.

Honestly I do not think that these systems will be that ex*****ve.
I mean at first they will since there will be a low demand, and it will be a novelty. Sort of like when the first HDD whent mainstream.
Once the demand picks up, and becomes standarized price will drop significantly.

Come to think about it, this would save alot of space on the mobo making mini systems even better, and it would be great for laptops. Since there are no more mechanical parts to move, except the fans, more battery life.

[gerald_weigel]

I deal with a few engineers at Seagate, both here in Minneapolis and in Pensylvania, and one of them told me something about them working on a hard drive similar to what you're talking about. This was last year sometime, not sure when. He explained it as being very similar to the little memory cards you use in digital cameras etc. Which would be awesome.

[RedFury]

Flash memory...I've read about this...actually an article about the insanely expensive ovens they need as part of the manufacturing processes.

The claim: 100 times faster than todays fastest ram, and your computer will work like your toaster...you just turn it on and it works...no load times, no configurations to change, no more reboots to load new drivers...not to mention a slew of other applications plus no moving parts! which means one less source of heat and noise.

I'd love if I could turn my computer on like my television.

10 years from now we'll be boasting about our systems and laughing about how long it took to load WinXP off our 7200rpm SATA drives and how many times we had to reboot the dang things when we changed a setting. Ahh, fond memories.

[John Prophet]

Considering the electrical nature of most comp parts...the mechanical nature of hard drives sort of stands out doesnt it....I am sure there are other technologies that will develop...who knows, maybe even chemical (chemical reaction) in nature.

JP

[VHockey86]

I think storage will drift more towards Carbon Nanocone technology rather than a silicon based RAM type memory. Much much smaller, and a heck of alot faster than silicon systems

[The Terk]

Originally posted by VHockey86
I think storage will drift more towards Carbon Nanocone technology rather than a silicon based RAM type memory. Much much smaller, and a heck of alot faster than silicon systems

... ya, what he said! lol

[MrPurple]

I wish I had the article which talked about new RAM which actually embeded 1 and 0 into the silicon (if that was the stuff it was made off) and could rewrtie the info many times over, sort of like Flash ROM, but alot faster and more stable. This would also mean that the memory would not need any power to sustain the information. I believe it was in one IEEE Spectrum.

[VHockey86]

Actualy I think what you're refering to is what I mentioned, the carbon nanotube technology. Basicaly its a bunch of hollow carbon based cylindars, approximately a few nano-meters in diameter that can be electronically arranged and moved around on an electrically charged silicon layer. When the computer scans the surface of the memory, the presence of a tube constitutes a 1, whereas no tube would be a 0. I remember reading an article about them in the Economist, however u need "premium access" to view it online, was a very good article.

The tubes hypothetically require no power to keep their current data, however so far (or at least the time time I read about em), the longest they could go was a couple of weeks b4 the data was set back (with no charge applied)

http://www.economist.com/displaystor...21%20%21%24%0A