It's no secret that SSDs suffer from performance penalties when it comes to small random writes. Even though more modern SSD try to solve some of these issues hardware-wise, software can also play a major role. Instead of resorting to things like delaying all writes until shutdown and storing them in RAM, SanDisk claims it has a better option. At WinHEC yesterday, the company introduced its Extreme FFS, which it claims will improve write performance on SSDs by a factor of 100.
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Member since:2005-07-13
sooo when you want to access your files on your linux computer from a windows box you have to install the driver to read ext3 (or whatever file system it may be)?
thats the deal with new technology, why people complain about it i dont know. you have to install a PDF reader when u have windows, same with java. people are just used to them being there these days. back in my day, if you wanted ot do something, you installed something to do it with. kids these days are spoiled. haha
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-03-26
The point is it shouldn't have to be like this any more.
It's all very good and well saying "people used to cope in my day", but the fact of the matter is people aren't using 286s and Windows 3.x any more. People expect their modern, bulky, multi-functional OS be all inclusive. They expect part of the hefty 1GB install (or whatever size Windows demands these days) to contain all the tools required to read all the mediums they use from day to day.
To take your argument further: in my day people coped without GUIs, HDDs, CDs and the internet - however I wouldn't expect anyone go back to the desktop BASIC days, nor would I say anyone complaining about a lack of internet or frustrated with their slow / uninturative GUI was "spoilt".
Oh, and your PDF analagy isn't wholely accurate either as you're effectively comparing a floppy disk (removable storage) to a word document (document format).
Edited 2008-11-07 09:47 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-07-12
I dont know the exact limit of fat32. (ive only used a 400gb disk with fat so far) But ther filesize limit of 4gb is a showstopper non the less, so they need something new and as NTFS isnt as free as fat is so i guess its up to the hardware guys to make something new, probably with a fat32 comp-layer or so. Im sure those guys just make it wirk, just like they have come through for us before.
Member since:2005-07-06
iirc, the issue is that ones one go beyond a specific size, the cluster size has to grow.
that means that if a file is below the size of the cluster, it will still take up the whole cluster, even if most of it is empty space.
still, it may be that im jumping the gun, as reading the right hand table here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table
fat32 should be able to address drives all the way to 2TB.
Edited 2008-11-07 14:13 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
No. The device will just look like a hard disk. Just an array of sectors, on which you write whatever file system you like.
The device will map your logical sector numbers to physical flash pages, using what is essentially a dynamic map.
Having not read the details of ExtremeFFS (it is probably patented) I theorize it operates by collecting together temporally close sector writes in a cache, and writing them all in one go to a fresh page. The garbage collection looks for stale or partially stale pages, queues any live data for writing in the next write batch, then cleans the (now) stale page ready for use in the free list.
Of course, this may all be wide of the mark, in which case sorry for the noise, but a SSD that required drivers over and above the link layer (SATA) would have a very limited market and just wouldn't make sense.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-07-06
either users have to install a driver everywhere they go, or these devices pretends to be fat formated.
as this is not developed my microsoft, it will not be natively supported by microsoft (see things like rw optical media formated to act as "floppies", no native support by the big gorilla of the market).
like it or not, fat has become the lingua franka of removable storage media. but as its showing its age (even the fat32 version is closing on retirement in computing lifetime), microsoft have rolled out exfat in a hope to corner the market. and they probably will, sadly...