I don't think RAM will ever be redundant, because it allows for instant erasure and reset, completely independent from the amount of data it holds. Even the fastest harddisk needs time to delete files and if there is a write error, possible corruption and subsequent incapacitation of the system is permanent. With RAM, nothing is. Flick the switch and the evil spirits are gone.
And who needs instant erasure and reset? Normally on a computer data is only deleted when overwritten with new data anyway. Whether an error occurs in the RAM just before it is written to disc, while or after it is written to disc is irrelevant. An error in RAM can easily be as permanent as an error on disc.
Flicking the switch is actually the most frequent reason for data corruption. Do not flick the switch, it will make all the evil spirits come.
I don't think you really understood what I was trying to say. Some data in RAM is only loaded from HDD but not written back, ie. files critical for OS operation. If that data corrupts and the system crashes, the volatile nature of RAM comes in very handy. If the working memory was permanent and part of the HDD as a dedicated partition, it could be reset by default at every start but that would most definitely slow down the boot-up sequence, even if only indices are deleted. Besides, if the partition itself corrupted in the above process, boot-up may become impossible. The BIOS would have to be enhanced in many ways to handle all those situations. As for your other points:
>And who needs instant erasure and reset?
See above. As for large amounts of data trash, well, super computers for instance. There are computational processes that produce immense amounts of intermediate data and the ability to erase it in a glimpse after the process has ended can be extremely valuable if time and/or money play a role (which they usually do with large-scale systems).
>Flicking the switch is actually the most frequent reason for data corruption. Do not flick the switch, it will make all the evil spirits come.
In normal operation, yes. When a crash occurs, however, the CPU is halted and no disk operation can take place.
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I don't think RAM will ever be redundant, because it allows for instant erasure and reset, completely independent from the amount of data it holds. Even the fastest harddisk needs time to delete files and if there is a write error, possible corruption and subsequent incapacitation of the system is permanent. With RAM, nothing is. Flick the switch and the evil spirits are gone.
(Too slow, never mind)
And who needs instant erasure and reset? Normally on a computer data is only deleted when overwritten with new data anyway.
Whether an error occurs in the RAM just before it is written to disc, while or after it is written to disc is irrelevant. An error in RAM can easily be as permanent as an error on disc.
Flicking the switch is actually the most frequent reason for data corruption. Do not flick the switch, it will make all the evil spirits come.
I don't think you really understood what I was trying to say. Some data in RAM is only loaded from HDD but not written back, ie. files critical for OS operation. If that data corrupts and the system crashes, the volatile nature of RAM comes in very handy. If the working memory was permanent and part of the HDD as a dedicated partition, it could be reset by default at every start but that would most definitely slow down the boot-up sequence, even if only indices are deleted. Besides, if the partition itself corrupted in the above process, boot-up may become impossible. The BIOS would have to be enhanced in many ways to handle all those situations. As for your other points:
>And who needs instant erasure and reset?
See above. As for large amounts of data trash, well, super computers for instance. There are computational processes that produce immense amounts of intermediate data and the ability to erase it in a glimpse after the process has ended can be extremely valuable if time and/or money play a role (which they usually do with large-scale systems).
>Flicking the switch is actually the most frequent reason for data corruption. Do not flick the switch, it will make all the evil spirits come.
In normal operation, yes. When a crash occurs, however, the CPU is halted and no disk operation can take place.