The one big difference between spinning disk and Flash-based systems is spinning disk controller designers never worried about wearing disk out, so there is inefficiencies in how the applications are written.
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Sun is first releasing a new version of its Solaris operating system designed to integrate flash and traditional disk-drive storage, and in the next six months it plans to sell its own flash storage drives aimed at businesses.
Flash-based solid state disk (SSD) everywhere and anywhere defers or eliminates the need for additional high performance disk purchases to drive performance.
Plus, users don't have to worry about toting around a floppy disk or flash drive--all they have to do is log on to pick up working on projects where they left off.
Models configured with an ultra-fast SSD flash drive give you ultra-speed access to files around ten times faster than a standard hard disk drive.
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Getting to that stage might mean combining self-assembly methods with lithography, or doing away with the head that reads the data-packed disk and instead creating a self-assembling solid-state system on the model of Flash memory storage used today.
"Solid state" storage systems, like flash memory, offer some clear advantages over the spinning-disk drives of the past.
Simplified, higher density and more reliable servers make the hyperscale all-flash datacenter more efficient than datacenters based on solid state disk and hard disk systems.
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As we approach the general availability of ultrabooks with the Windows 8 operating system it looks like the largest sales for ultra-thin computers will include a hard disk drive as well as flash memory.
While flash memory in a separate smaller capacity SSD module is playing a role in these new ultra-thin computers the introduction of hybrid hard disk drives with a flash cache inside the hard drive may plan a significant role as well.
Only thing is, data stored on that relatively slow disk drive (instead of flash memory) resulted in "sluggish" screen-to-screen transitions.
Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba are shipping hybrid HDDs targeted for the ultra-thin mobile computer market with up to 8 GB of flash memory and 1 TB hard disk storage.
The biggest threat to the spinning disk is the flash memory, which has many advantages over the spinning disk but is ten times the price on a per-megabyte basis.
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