Doug White wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in
m:


Terry wrote:

On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


The prices are starting to drop:

30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...em-details.asp
?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228

4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...em-details.asp
?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301

What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive
at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that
advantage in practice?


They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking
about
small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA
interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive
on something with no USB port?

I would never use flash based memory devices for primary storage. They
are fine for moving files around on USB thumb drives, but they are
inherently unreliable. Flash drives wear out, and have internal
algorithms to spread the wear around. I know a number of folks who've
had thumb drives die on them.


Thumb drives suffer mechanical stress, ESD and connector wear. Since
you can't see the PC board, they aren't that careful with the reflow
soldering. The ones I've opened were trash when they were shipped.
They used lead free solder and either too low of a reflow temperature,
of the flux was no good. Some of them are so bad that you can pop the
chip off the board with a fingernail. Of course, the OEM consider them
as expendable media. They keep doubling the capacity, and want you to
throw away what you're using to buy a new one.

I realize that they have been improving,
but until I see some serious unbiased tests on long term reliability, I'm
sticking with spinning things. I think conventional hard drives are also
less likely to get flipped bits from cosmic rays, although with adequate
encoding, that _shouldn't_ be a problem.


NASA has no problem with them in orbit. If you don't want to use
them, then you better stock up now. IDE/PATA drives are a rapidly dying
breed of data storage devices.


There is more analog, low level electronics in a spinning drive. The
spinning drive's PC board is larger, which makes for a larger topic for
stray particles. Use whatever you want. I want three of the SS drives
to put in an old Dell Poweredge 4350 server.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.