Re: Why do computers still have disk drives?

On 10/6/06, Greg Wenzloff <GWenzloff@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It's Friday -- often a quieter day in the office.

I was wondering why don't new computers like the i5 just have solid
state memory and forget about disk drives.   Think about it.   You can
get a 2GB thumb drive for $75 or less.    Why can't the manufacturers
just load about 200 GB of this solid state memory into the machine?
Think of the speed improvement.

The primary issue is cost.  I recently heard a short talk by a senior
scientist from IBM's storage division.  The cost differences between solid
state, disk and tape have remained roughly the same proportionally, and look
to remain the same proportionally for the foreseeable future.  Essentially,
the technology that makes memory denser, cheaper and faster is usually
adapted (or matched by another advance) fairly quickly for disk and then for
tape.  Couple that with the growth in raw space requirements, and it is
reasonable to conclude that disk and tape aren't going to disappear any time
soon.