Hypothetical: Flash Drive in MB?

[iToaster]

All this waiting for an ultra-portable gave me an idea. it seems that a large factor in the ultra-portable laptop is the flash drive, so my question is, can you put a flash drive in a Mac (MB) and have it work? (essentially making it one step closer to an ultra-portable)
P.S. I wouldn't actually do this.

 

[66217]

If what you are asking is if it is possible to boot from an external hard drive, yes, it is possible.

But I don't get why not just put a small flash drive inside of the ultra-protable?

 

[iToaster]

If what you are asking is if it is possible to boot from an external hard drive, yes, it is possible.

But I don't get why not just put a small flash drive inside of the ultra-protable?

I know my Mac can boot from an external HD, but I was going more along the lines of if a Flash Drive (like the HD shaped ones that go inside) will work in a Mac instead of the spinny ones. Essentially rip the HD out of the MB and put a Flash (uh) HD in its place and have it work. I won't actually do this because of capacity reasons if it is possible to do it, but as well, what effect would it have on the Mac itself (yes, I know it will be faster)?

 

[66217]

Basically the benefits of a flash drive would be that they are faster and are not damaged if moved violently. The latter not being very helpful in a laptop, since there are a bunch of other parts that can get damaged if you move violently your laptop.

I think in a near future (2-3 years) we would say goodbye to the actual HD and start using Flash Drives. Right now they are too expensive.

 

[MRU]

Is it possible to boot from one of those express card / flash memory HDDs ?
I know they are overpriced at the moment, but it would be a nice option in the future for current MBP users if they wanted to get the benefits of flash based storage.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Basically the benefits of a flash drive would be that they are faster...

What makes you say that? Currently, the write speed to Flash memory is generally appallingly slow compared to hard drives.

We may see improvements in the future but high-speed prototypes at last year were at a whopping 4mb.

For instance, http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32801


I also have to link here what CanadaRAM has to say about the idea... and it's not good.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/3629394/
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/3537248/

 

[CalBoy]

Basically the benefits of a flash drive would be that they are faster and are not damaged if moved violently. The latter not being very helpful in a laptop, since there are a bunch of other parts that can get damaged if you move violently your laptop.

I think in a near future (2-3 years) we would say goodbye to the actual HD and start using Flash Drives. Right now they are too expensive.

How is it not helpful? It's one less thing that can go wrong, always a good thing.

Yes, 2-3 years sounds right. By then, flash will be everywhere.

 

[66217]

What makes you say that? Currently, the write speed to Flash memory is generally appallingly slow compared to hard drives.

I was under the impression that Flash Drives are faster when booting and in normal day-to-day use.

How is it not helpful? It's one less thing that can go wrong, always a good thing.

It is not as helpful as in an iPod, but basically yes, it is one less thing that can go wrong.

 

[LeviG]

you can replace the hard drive with a 2.5" ssd drive if you wanted, they work in the same way.

Capacity is less, read/write is usually a little slower at the moment due to interface technology being used (most I've seen so far are pata) but the random access time is instant compared with the time of a hard drive.