25 Sep
2008
25 Sep
'08
4:06 p.m.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 03:46:03PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 25 Sep 2008 at 17:31, Jim Leonard wrote:
The advantage of flash is _not_ the power consumption, but something
completely different: latency. Even the fastest SCSI drives have 2 ms
average latency (according to the datasheets). With flash, that latency
goes _waaaayyyy_ down. Which makes it _very_ interesting for high volume
OLTP and other latency bound I/O.
All of this is mitigated by using IBM Microdrives
instead of solid-state CF.
Back to a old query--will a Microdrive stand up to months of
continuous 24x7 use? My impression was that they were useful only as
intermittent-use devices.
It seems that if flash was ready for primetime, the server farm
operators would jump at the chance to employ them, given that power
consumption is a *big* expense for them (both for system power and
the HVAC that's needed). But they're not jumping, are they?
One word: money.
Flash is still a lot more pricey for the same capacity than spindles.
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison