Off-Topic > Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge
25 dollar computer coming
caminati:
--- Quote from: danielibarnes on June 03, 2011, 02:30:49 PM ---The HyperOS HyperDrive5 (64GB max: $450) and ACARD ANS-9010 (64GB max: $400) are two examples that come to mind. I expect you could use eSATA or put them in a USB-SATA drive case.
--- End quote ---
I guess those are the closest implementations, gosh they're big!
Maybe serializing the interface they could get smaller: those units just pack some standard ddr (or the like) modules into some adaptor, if I get them right.
@Curaga: interesting, I had no competence to evaluate that point.
I understand that usb is one of the communication protocols relying the less on hardware and the most on software, is that arguable?
I know of a bunch of overlapping standards for data over a net: AoE, iSCSI, FCoE.
Sadly they all pass through an interface other than usb.
The wonderful page (in which I feel close in spirit with TC principles in many ways):
http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/
promotes the first as the least harmful option =)
caminati:
--- Quote from: curaga on June 03, 2011, 02:45:31 PM ---Microdrives are CF sized, are they small enough?
--- End quote ---
Nice! But you are trying to break a stolid bias of mine against magnetic media: no way =)
gerald_clark:
Not to mention that they are quite fragile.
caminati:
--- Quote from: gerald_clark on June 03, 2011, 02:53:51 PM ---Not to mention that they are quite fragile.
--- End quote ---
Yes, and more noisy, and sucking more power: I'd say it's all due to the fact that they try to realize via the macroscopic, that is mechanically (Winchesters were born decades ago) what can be done microscopically.
This brings all kinds of complications, which they managed to tame surprisingly good.
But I find sort of wasted all this mastery in facing what could just have been avoided =)
caminati:
--- Quote from: caminati on June 03, 2011, 01:12:00 PM ---
This Raspberry in particular made me ponder about how nice it would be if even ram could be extensible via USB: one poorman's way would be creating linux swap file/partition on a usb flash drive, but then there are at least two issues: speed and write cycles wear.
--- End quote ---
Ok, I didn't know that many people already built less-poorman ways of exploiting more and more available flash memories. Two of the most interesting are Microsuck's Windows 7 Readyboost and DragonFly's swapcache. Here are some information links about them and some quotes relevant for the two issues cited above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost
--- Quote ---
Since flash drives wear out after a finite (though very large) number of writes, ReadyBoost could eventually wear out the drive it uses—though this may take a long time, depending on various factors. According to Microsoft, the drive should be able to operate for at least ten years.[1] As capacities rise and cost per megabyte drops, USB drives are increasingly suitable for ReadyBoost.
--- End quote ---
and
http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man/?command=swapcache§ion=ANY
--- Quote --- The algorithms the SSD implements in its firmware are probably the most important part of the device and a major differentiator between e.g. SATA and USB-based SSDs. SATA form factor drives will universally be far superior to USB storage sticks. SSDs can also have wildly different wearout rates and wildly different performance curves over time. For example the performance of a SSD which does not implement write-decombining can seriously degrade over time as its lookup tables become severely fragmented.
--- End quote ---
The bottom line could be that the very rough idea is to take advantage of the technical properties of solid state memory (low seek time, hence better for small scattered cache operations than magnetic media) rather than dumbly place a generic swap file on the device.
Also, usb is slower than regular sata SSDs, which doesn't mean, given the laughable current prices of usb pen drives, that the first option cannot help.
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