Fast access: This prototype hard drive made using phase-change memory chips can read some data faster than a commercial flash hard disk. Credit: UCSD
Posted on 06/13/2011 8:26:42 AM PDT by Red Badger
A prototype disk drive based on phase-change memory can outperform an off-the-shelf flash hard disk .
A new type of data storage technology, called phase-change memory, has proven capable of writing some types of data faster than conventional flash based storage. The tests used a hard drive based on prototype phase-change memory chips.
Disks based on solid-state, flash memory chips are increasingly used in computers and servers because they perform faster than conventional magnetic hard drives. The performance of the experimental phase-change disk drive, created by researchers at University of California San Diego, suggests that it won't be long before that technology is able to give computing devices another speed boost.
The prototype created by the researchers is the first to publically benchmark the performance of a phase-change memory chips working in a disk drive. Several semiconductor companies are working on phase-change chips, but they have not released information about storage devices built with them.
"Phase-change chips are not quite ready for prime time, but if the technology continues to develop, this is what [solid state drives] will look like in the next few years," says Steve Swanson, who built the prototype, known as Onyx, with colleagues. It had a data capacity of eight gigabytes and went head-to-head with what Swanson calls a "high-end" 80 GB flash drive made for use in servers.
When it came to writing small chunks of data on the order of kilobytes in size, Onyx was between 70 percent and 120 percent faster than the commercial drive. At the same time, the prototype placed significantly less computational load on the processor of the computer using it. It was also much faster at reading data than the flash drive when accessing blocks of data of any size. The kind of large volume, small read and write patterns that Onyx excelled at are a hallmark of the type of calculations involved in analyzing social networks like those of Twitter, says Swanson. However, Onyx was much slower at writing larger chunks of data than its commercially established competitor.
Fast access: This prototype hard drive made using phase-change memory chips can read some data faster than a commercial flash hard disk. Credit: UCSD
Ping!............
Years from now I can see myself telling my son (7 months old), “Son, there was a time when information was stored on spinning magnetic platters. An arm used to swing over the platter to read the encoded data. Like a record player.”
What’s a record player dad?
Soon the HDD will join its brethren in the annals of history.........3 1/2” floppy, 5 1/4” floppy, 8” floppy, reel to reel tape, 8 tracks and casettes................
Cost: You don't want to know!!!
5.12 TB?
That’s a lotta pr0n!.............
Well, that depends on whether you're a politician with a lot of Facebook friends.....
The kind of large volume, small read and write patterns that Onyx excelled at are a hallmark of the type of calculations involved in analyzing social networks like those of Twitter, says Swanson.
My kids were about 12 when they saw their first record and record player. I gave them an LP and pointed to the player and told them to get music out of it. Hilarity ensued.
Ah, memories... The "disk drive" in my first Apple ][+ was a Radio Shack portable audio cassette player. That didn't last long before it was replaced by 5-1/4" 13-sector floppy drive (because my wife didn't like the way I talked to the tape drive...) '-)
As described, it sounds like this should serve best as a high speed “virtual memory” cache...
About ten years ago, I was sorting though boxes of 45 rpm single-plays that I still had (and have). My then fifteen year old daughter walked in and asked “What are those, Dad?”
Forty-Fives, I told her - there’s music on them. She was quite impressed with the technology.
I felt old...
I can't justify the expense to stay up with the most recent technology, but always enjoy reading about what's being developed.
Ah for the days of a CDC 300 MB Disk Drive “Head Crash”. Yes, I’d love 8 hours overtime boss!
Ah for the days of a CDC 300 MB Disk Drive “Head Crash”. Yes, I’d love 8 hours overtime boss!
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