Why So Sad Hybird? (Part 2 of 2)

Last time I had discussed flash drives and hybrid drives with flash memory and how they could really improve response time for our bots because flash drives would be much faster than platter-driven drives.  I had also mentioned that such drives have really not taken the market by storm.  This was not because of cost nor performance but of an underlying flaw: Flash memory has a life cycle of 10,000 writes.

What does that mean?  You can only write to a flash memory stick about 10,000 times before it simply will not write anymore.  Now, 10,000 writes is absolutely fine for that USB drive in your pocket attached to your keychain.  But for desktop computers, this is simply not enough. While servers would love the performance boost of using Flash memory, they are also not durable enough for such wear.

Then I came across this little article…
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/memory/flash-memory-survives-100-million-cycles

So some researchers found a way to get around that nasty 10,000 write limit.  If this indeed is true, and there is no real reason why this is not true, then it should not be too long before flash drives in more reasonable capacities are created and at a price point which is attractive for the performance boost.  I suspect that these new drives could hit the market within a year or so.

For us bot owners, what does this mean?  If you are running a part-time bot or bots on older hardware, this will not mean much of anything beyond some advertising you will see when you shop online, watch television or visit your local bog box store.  But for those who run bot chains, or aspiring bot chain owners, having a dedicated machine makes sense.  When the time comes to contemplate purchasing new hardware, take a look at these new rugged SSD drives and see if the increased cost and increased cost is worth the financial risk and performance gain.