Flash Drive Computers?

C

Crimsonnaire

Member
Would it be possible for a computer to run on a flash drive instead of a hard drive? What I mean is having an operating system and all programs loaded on a flash memory equipment. Or do hard drives still surpass flash drives in some manner?

I'm just curious because flash memory seems to be the future of computer technology, with many MP3 players converting to this.
 
They already do this except it's not exactly a flash drive and it's insanely expensive. It's called a Solid State Drive. You can Google it or Wikipedia it for YouTube it if you want more info. Basically it's a hard drive that doesn't move (solid state) and is run using flash memory. It's good because it can access data instantly and because it doesn't have moving parts, meaning a much lower risk of breaking. The disadvantage is it is around $700 for a 64GB SSD.
 
Ohhh true. You could have your OS loaded on your main HDD and all of your programs on the external (or vice versa) therefore allowing the computer to load from two HDD's at once. This would be a lot faster than having to load everyone from a single hard drive but I believe there is a RAID setup that does this same thing between 2 internal hard drives.
 
Still wondering, it is possible to boot from USB devices just like you would from a cd or a floppy? Will a USB drive appear in the BIOS settings at the boot order?
 
Or do hard drives still surpass flash drives in some manner?
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Most current hard-drives still perform better at... what was it called again? ...well I'm talking about the opposite of Random Seek. SDDs/Flash Drives beat HDDs at Random Seek but HDDs perform better at... consecutive reads or something like that I believe it was called.

Still wondering, it is possible to boot from USB devices just like you would from a cd or a floppy? Will a USB drive appear in the BIOS settings at the boot order?
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Yes, though some really old computer BIOSes may not support booting off USB devices, pretty much any computer from year 2002 and after should be able of doing it though.
 
I'm not sure but an external hard drive may prove to be better. Flash memory is faster than hard disk memory but I'm not sure what the impact would be on a USB vs. FireWire connection. External hard drives usually utilize FireWire cables. Plus it's much cheaper per GB.
 
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