Samsung said it will introduce a 4GB solid state drive which will act as a high speed NAND flash cache for machines running Microsoft Vista. The device is compatible with Windows Ready Boost which, Samsung said, is a feature of the OS that uses flash memory to improve the speed of systems.

Flash marketing director Don Barnetson said that caching HDD data using its drive and Vista will make working with a PC "lightning fast". A bold claim, considering the speed of lightning.

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News source: The Inq



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(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by Tz on 26 Jul 2006 - 11:54
Quote -
A bold claim, considering the speed of lightning.

And the bulkiness of Vista
Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by vetneufuse on 23 Feb 2008 - 20:14
(Tz said @ #1)
A bold claim, considering the speed of lightning.

And the bulkiness of Vista


Vista is not bulky, everything people are seeing is side effects of caching to start with... it uses too much memory... 90% of that memory usage is a cache that is released as needed... vista uses the disk too much... disable indexing? or just let the darn thing index... vista uses too many processes... so what? you have tons of memory to start with... and a couple of the processes you can disable if you dont want DWM...
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by Hastin on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:00
ReadyBoost does work well, even on the Beta builds. However, will ReadyBoost kill USB drives?
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by Shof on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:19
i want one
(5 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by Netrack on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:24
So let me get this straight, you plug this into a usb drive and it acts as RAM per say?
Quote this comment #4.1 Posted by MioTheGreat on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:52
More like swap that the system needs to be able to pick at random spots really quickly.
Quote this comment #4.2 Posted by markjensen on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:13
Quote - Netrack said @ #4
So let me get this straight, you plug this into a usb drive and it acts as RAM per say?
I still think that an extra stick of RAM would be far more beneficial to users than slower flash memory.

But that's just my crazy opinion.
Quote this comment #4.3 Posted by Smigit on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:29
certainly, although if you have a spare 1G stick lieing around then its a cheap free solution for when you temporary need the memory. I dont see people actually buying memory sticks to act as ram...youd really hope not.
Quote this comment #4.4 Posted by coolkat007 on 26 Jul 2006 - 14:41
an extra stick of ram may not be useful all the time but a USB stick could be much more usefull and installing a RAM needs ssytem reboot. USB stick provides instant boost in vista!!

USB stick is always a best choice
Quote this comment #4.5 Posted by McG on 26 Jul 2006 - 15:29
Quote - coolkat007 said @ #4.4
an extra stick of ram may not be useful all the time but a USB stick could be much more usefull and installing a RAM needs ssytem reboot. USB stick provides instant boost in vista!!

USB stick is always a best choice

Wait...are you serious? I can't tell.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by .weir on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:41
I'm pretty sure it will be a SATA or PCI/PCI-e device, kind of like the Gigabyte i-Ram. It wouldn't be news if it was just a USB device.
Quote this comment #5.1 Posted by Athernar on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:55
the desciption of ReadyBoost taken from the wikipedia article:

"ReadyBoost, makes PCs running Windows Vista more responsive by using flash memory on a USB drive (USB 2.0 only), SD Card, Compact Flash, or other form of flash memory, in order to boost system performance. When such a device is plugged in, the Windows Autoplay dialog offers an additional option to use it to speed up the system; an additional "Memory" tab is added to the drive's properties dialog where the amount of space to be used can be configured."

So no, just think of this as a pimped-up USB stick, the NVRAM/Hybrid Drives come later.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by Colin-uk on 26 Jul 2006 - 12:45
Might be good for putting your page file on.... i wonder if you put the whole OS on it, if you slimmed it down a little... hmmm :p
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by -Dave- on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:19
isnt Flash memory alot slower than HDD. my HDD write speed sustained is 75MB and most will be at least 40
last time i checked USB flash sticks were about 15 ish?
(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #8 Posted by Evolution on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:27
It's not about all about write speeds, it has more to do with access times. And ReadyBoost is a technology that allows Flash devices to act as caches for SuperFetch. ReadyBoost was meant to be an option for those who cannot afford extra memory or simply don't have the room.
Quote this comment #8.1 Posted by -Dave- on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:56
Quote - Evolution said @ #8
It's not about all about write speeds, it has more to do with access times. And ReadyBoost is a technology that allows Flash devices to act as caches for SuperFetch. ReadyBoost was meant to be an option for those who cannot afford extra memory or simply don't have the room.


yeh mine have average 6.9ms seek time
Quote this comment #8.2 Posted by Bosaka on 26 Jul 2006 - 14:30
My SCSI array has less than 5ns access would using a usb stick be faster? lol
Quote this comment #8.3 Posted by oatmeals on 26 Jul 2006 - 19:56
Quote - Bosaka said @ #8.2
My SCSI array has less than 5ns access would using a usb stick be faster? lol


You mean 5ms.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #9 Posted by Croquant on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:34
This thing uses PATA not SATA? What the hell was Samsung thinking when that decision was made?
Yes, it's PATA... RTFA.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #10 Posted by Quick Reply on 26 Jul 2006 - 13:43
"Lightning Fast" is not a bold of a claim because Lightning travels as fast as Electricity (Because it is electricity), and computers run as fast as electricity too (Because they use electricity to work). You see what I'm trying to say.
Quote this comment #10.1 Posted by ahhell on 26 Jul 2006 - 14:04
Wow. I didn't know Einstein was still alive.

(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #11 Posted by Red Dragon on 26 Jul 2006 - 14:16
Lightining doesn't travel over wires as fast as it does in the air. Wires, no matter how advanced, have resistance. Otherwise they wouldn't spend billions investing in things like SOI and stuff...

Quote this comment #11.1 Posted by markjensen on 26 Jul 2006 - 14:51
Air has resistance, too!

/me runs from off-topic thread.
Quote this comment #11.2 Posted by RAINMAN on 26 Jul 2006 - 23:47
And Air has more resistance then wire... hense why lightning travels to a metal pole to get to the ground faster taking the "path of least resistance".
Quote this comment #11.3 Posted by Athernar on 27 Jul 2006 - 10:50
any form of matter has resistance, its just the effect of the particles of matter (Hadrons) being acted upon by charged particles such as electrons (or any Leptons)
(4 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #12 Posted by peacemf on 26 Jul 2006 - 15:09
what happens if you plug the drive out?
(assuming that its like a usb flash drive)
Quote this comment #12.1 Posted by McG on 26 Jul 2006 - 15:31
Quote this comment #12.2 Posted by Croquant on 26 Jul 2006 - 18:47
Yeah, except it's a PATA drive, not USB. RTFA.

Or didn't you see the picture that shows the little PATA pins sticking out of it?
Quote this comment #12.3 Posted by berlamont on 26 Jul 2006 - 19:33
Quote - McG said @ #12.1


I normally wouldn't reply just to say something was funny, but that was frickin perfect! hahahah
Quote this comment #12.4 Posted by ikyouCrow on 27 Jul 2006 - 00:20
Quote - McG said @ #12.1


awww!!!!

my sister just said my gall bladder just flew out my nose while i was laughing!!
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #13 Posted by Jugalator on 26 Jul 2006 - 16:04
Kind of scary if you need a 4 GB USB memory for Vista to run "lightning fast". :p

I mean, at least on XP, going above say 1.5-2 GB RAM doesn't make that much of a difference unless in very particular circumstances like working with huge Photoshop images, major 3D rendering work, etc. I *hope* this is only real useful in special cases.
Quote this comment #13.1 Posted by PCyr on 26 Jul 2006 - 19:13
You aren't running just Vista on the computer now are you? Or do you stare at your desktop all day?
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #14 Posted by thefunkymunky on 26 Jul 2006 - 17:03
So hang on has it really come to this. An OS that is so inefficient at operating smoothly and quickly that it needs a 4GB flash drive to use as cache. Why don't M$ just make a decent speedy OS in the first place.
Quote this comment #14.1 Posted by PCyr on 26 Jul 2006 - 19:14
Memory isn't just used by the OS.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #15 Posted by werdwerdus on 30 Jul 2006 - 02:45
RTFA
Quote -
What Ready Boost purports to do is to populate the flash drive with data by readying favourite apps and data in the background. A traditional HDD is limited to serving 100 to 200 requests a second, but Samsung claims its thing will manage to service 5,000 requests a second. It can be connected to a mobo using the ATA port and "Ready Boost" compresses all data. Samsung gave no indication of what the drive will cost.
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