Following item on PCWorld.com:

    WinHEC: Samsung to Show "Flash" Laptop Hard Drives
     
    Prototype Hybrid Hard Drive promises lower power consumption, fewer
    hard drive malfunctions.

    Joris Evers, IDG News Service
    Monday, April 25, 2005

    SEATTLE--Samsung expects to show a prototype hard drive at WinHEC
    this week that includes flash memory. The design holds the promise
    of lower power usage and less hard drive trouble for laptop users.

    The Hybrid Hard Drive, developed by Samsung and Microsoft, is meant
    for mobile PCs running Longhorn, the next version of the Windows
    operating system. By writing data to the flash memory, there is no
    need to spin up the hard drive, saving power and sparing the disk,
    says Ivan Greenberg, Samsung's director of strategic marketing.

    This leads to a reduction in power consumption of 10 percent and can
    also help prevent problems that occur when the drive is moved while
    in use, Greenberg says.

    "The failing item in a returned notebook is typically the hard
    drive. If we keep that drive spun down, we believe that will have a
    huge impact," Greenberg says.

    WinHEC is Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference
    in Seattle.

    All Laptop Data in Main Memory?

    When the flash memory is full, the hard drive is spun up, and the
    data is written to disk. The prototype contains 128MB of flash
    memory, Greenberg says. Longhorn will also minimize reading from the
    hard drive by storing more data, including application data, in main
    memory, he says.

    With its 64-bit technology, Longhorn can support up to 128GB of main
    memory. A user could keep all of a PC's data in the main memory,
    Microsoft Windows chief Jim Allchin said in a recent interview.
    "Let's suppose you had 10GB of primary memory--probably everything
    that you do could fit in memory," Allchin said.

    Commercial versions of the drive are planned for release in late
    2006, the same time as Longhorn, with the first samples due in
    mid-2006, Greenberg says.

    The hybrid drives may cost more than regular hard drives, but
    Samsung believes that increase will be mitigated by the lower
    maintenance costs and power savings.

Seems like a good idea, wonder why it took Longhorn to make it a reality?

-- 
Regards,
Mike

Failed the exam for
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MCSE - Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert
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