Intel's Robson tech speeds laptop startup and saves juice
posted Oct 18th 2005 8:00AM
Intel is showing off some prototype Centrino systems that rock the instant startup due to integrated NAND flash memory chips. The cache technology, titled Robson, uses a high speed version of the flash memory that all the kids are putting in their digital cameras these days, so the tech is proven and the cost shouldn't be astronomical. Intel's system puts common files like system data and applications onto the flash memory, speeding up their access and reducing battery consumption. Nobody's signed on yet, Intel is just showing off the capability, but they say it's ready to be implemented so we're just waiting on some manufacturers to throw it into their systems. And the sooner the better; we've been waiting around for insta-boot for like 5 million billion years.
Really startup time is the only actual "time" I notice a computer using anymore, ever since the 2.0Ghz plateau has been reached. The rest is just gravy... Or maybe I should start using a different application then just firefox and winamp :)
Doesn't NAND (and other flash memory) have a finite read/write limit? Sure its in the millions, but it seems that number could be reached fairly quickly when used in this scenario.
Anyone know how they worked around this?
When the possibilities of flash memory were first presented to me, back in the days of Win95 and Mac System 7, I was thinking that any insta-boot idea was worthless in lieu of an OS that could stay up for a few hours.
Handhelds seem to deal alright in continuing from the system state on power-down. Are we to the point where desktop systems are stable enough?
Well finally hope around the corner, mostly after 1 year a laptop takes ages to boot :(
or, in bill gates double-speak, the read-write thing is not really a limitation, it actually ENABLES upgrades.
Vaguely modern NAND memory has read/write cycles in the region of hundreds of thousands. I don't know what that equates to under normal or heavy usage, or what normal or heavy usage are, but it can't be too much worse than a HD can it?
"we’ve been waiting around for insta-boot for like 5 million billion years."
I couldn't agree more.