The computer industry is beginning to buzz about replacing hard drive storage with flash memory, so you might be wondering just what that means. There are many differences between flash memory and hard drives, all of which have an effect on performance, storage capacity, and cost. Here is your crash course in flash memory vs. hard drives.
What is a Hard Drive?
A hard drive is a device that provides long term data storage in a computer system. When the power goes off, a hard drive retains it’s data. Hard drives use magnetic disks to store their data; multiple disks spin at a high rate of speed, and are read from and written to by a system of read/write heads. Think of a record player with a few records stacked on top of each other, each read by it’s own needle.
What is Flash Memory?
Flash memory is another type of hardware that provides long term data storage in a computer system. Instead of spinning disks and moving arms, flash memory is simply a computer chip. You have probably already used flash memory to store your files — digital cameras, USB thumb drives, PDAs, and cell phones all employ flash memory in order to store data.
What’s the Difference?
Computer scientists are looking into replacing hard drives with flash memory because of a few different advantages offered by flash. Since flash memory does not feature moving parts, it eliminates the time that a hard drive requires to move it’s read/write heads into the correct position and spin it’s disks to the proper sectors. This makes flash memory faster and more energy-efficient.
There are still a few hurdles that flash faces before it can replace traditional hard drives. For one, flash memory is more expensive than a hard drive. When it comes down to it, cost is one of the main deciding factors in what consumers are willing to embrace.
Source: “Flash memory as a replacement for hard drives“, Wikipedia.
