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The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

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Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#21

Post by bbulkow »

mtanski wrote: post #6

Some people like to claim that old storage technologies go away. But in reality old storage technologies live on along side of new... all that happens is that we end up having more tiers to deal with. Drum magnetic memory has been replace but we still have spinning rust, tape, optical, DRAM, SRAM, SSD...

There are only 3 forms of bit storage, historically.

1) Poking holes in things ( tape, DVD, etc ) 2) Magnets ( core memory, drum memory, tape, disks ) 3) Circuits ( DRAM, NAND, etc )

Examples of all three of these still exist.

What's interesting about XPoint is it is literally a fourth form that has never been commercially available: melting a substance and cooling it quickly or slowly, forming either a crystal or amorphic solid, which then has different properties. We don't know what the substance is, but it's cool that we now have this 4th thing.

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#22

Post by klodolph »

adrianN wrote: post #19
mtanski wrote: post #6

Some people like to claim that old storage technologies go away. But in reality old storage technologies live on along side of new... all that happens is that we end up having more tiers to deal with. Drum magnetic memory has been replace but we still have spinning rust, tape, optical, DRAM, SRAM, SSD...

Floppies are pretty much dead unless you use industrial computers that can't be upgraded.

Floppies are a type of spinning rust.

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#23

Post by klodolph »

bbulkow wrote: post #21
mtanski wrote: post #6

Some people like to claim that old storage technologies go away. But in reality old storage technologies live on along side of new... all that happens is that we end up having more tiers to deal with. Drum magnetic memory has been replace but we still have spinning rust, tape, optical, DRAM, SRAM, SSD...

There are only 3 forms of bit storage, historically. 1) Poking holes in things ( tape, DVD, etc ) 2) Magnets ( core memory, drum memory, tape, disks ) 3) Circuits ( DRAM, NAND, etc ) Examples of all three of these still exist. What's interesting about XPoint is it is literally a fourth form that has never been commercially available: melting a substance and cooling it quickly or slowly, forming either a crystal or am…

There are only 3 forms that really survive to this day. There are a couple of notable obsolete ones:

4) Delay lines. I would definitely not categorize these as circuits. The bits are stored as pressure waves in motion.

5) Electrostatic charge. Talking about the Williams tube. The bits are stored as residual charge on a phosphor surface.

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#25

Post by mtanski »

agumonkey wrote: post #18
mtanski wrote: post #6

Some people like to claim that old storage technologies go away. But in reality old storage technologies live on along side of new... all that happens is that we end up having more tiers to deal with. Drum magnetic memory has been replace but we still have spinning rust, tape, optical, DRAM, SRAM, SSD...

My floppies would like to have a word with you.

It lives on in the save icon. But in all seriousness you're right, floppy as a medium for data storage is dead.

Unless you're the US gov. According to Wikipedia: "In May 2016 the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that covered the need to upgrade or replace legacy computer systems within Federal Agencies. According to this document, old IBM Series/1 minicomputers running on 8-inch floppy disks are still used to coordinate "the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces..." The government plans to update some of the technology by the end of the 2017 fiscal year." [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Use_in_the_early_2...

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#26

Post by agumonkey »

mtanski wrote: post #25
agumonkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My floppies would like to have a word with you.

It lives on in the save icon. But in all seriousness you're right, floppy as a medium for data storage is dead. Unless you're the US gov. According to Wikipedia: "In May 2016 the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that covered the need to upgrade or replace legacy computer systems within Federal Agencies. According to this document, old IBM Series/1 minicomputers running on 8-inch floppy…

Optical discs are relegated to back shelves too. Hard to beat cheap rewritable nand flash.

ps: I'd be curious about a tiny, 2017 laptop friendly optical disc storage. Say a 2.5" RW BD layer in cartridge. A modern mini disc.

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#28

Post by abtinf »

bbulkow wrote: post #21
mtanski wrote: post #6

Some people like to claim that old storage technologies go away. But in reality old storage technologies live on along side of new... all that happens is that we end up having more tiers to deal with. Drum magnetic memory has been replace but we still have spinning rust, tape, optical, DRAM, SRAM, SSD...

There are only 3 forms of bit storage, historically. 1) Poking holes in things ( tape, DVD, etc ) 2) Magnets ( core memory, drum memory, tape, disks ) 3) Circuits ( DRAM, NAND, etc ) Examples of all three of these still exist. What's interesting about XPoint is it is literally a fourth form that has never been commercially available: melting a substance and cooling it quickly or slowly, forming either a crystal or am…

> melting a substance and cooling it quickly or slowly, forming either a crystal or amorphic solid, which then has different properties

This is exactly how rewritable optical media works.

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#29

Post by kabdib »

klodolph wrote: post #23
bbulkow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 forms of bit storage, historically. 1) Poking holes in things ( tape, DVD, etc ) 2) Magnets ( core memory, drum memory, tape, disks ) 3) Circuits ( DRAM, NAND, etc ) Examples of all three of these still exist. What's interesting about XPoint is it is literally a fourth form that has never been commercially available: melting a substance and cooling it quickly or slowly, forming either a crystal or am…

There are only 3 forms that really survive to this day. There are a couple of notable obsolete ones: 4) Delay lines. I would definitely not categorize these as circuits. The bits are stored as pressure waves in motion. 5) Electrostatic charge. Talking about the Williams tube. The bits are stored as residual charge on a phosphor surface.

... and magnetic bubble memory, which is a very odd hybrid somewhere between tape and delay lines.

Also, phase-change optical (as in rewritable CDs/DVDs).

Also also, printing stuff out at high bit-density with good ECC, and scanning it back in again.

Also also also, chemically encoded bits (as in the DNA-based storage that was demonstrated recently).

There are more, not in common use or very scalable (e.g., mechanical switches).

Re: The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance

#30

Post by klodolph »

kabdib wrote: post #29
klodolph wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 forms that really survive to this day. There are a couple of notable obsolete ones: 4) Delay lines. I would definitely not categorize these as circuits. The bits are stored as pressure waves in motion. 5) Electrostatic charge. Talking about the Williams tube. The bits are stored as residual charge on a phosphor surface.

... and magnetic bubble memory, which is a very odd hybrid somewhere between tape and delay lines. Also, phase-change optical (as in rewritable CDs/DVDs). Also also, printing stuff out at high bit-density with good ECC, and scanning it back in again. Also also also, chemically encoded bits (as in the DNA-based storage that was demonstrated recently). There are more, not in common use or very scalable (e.g., mechanica…

I think it's a bit conspicuous how you mention good ECC for printing stuff out, since good ECC is a staple of many forms of storage (especially hard drives, optical drives, tape) and we don't mention e.g. "storing bits on spinning rust with good ECC and reading it back in again".

I think the problem with paper is thot it's not really part of the computer any more. You need a human to take the paper out of the printer, store it, and put it back in the scanner. At least with tape and optical, we have robots to do that for us.

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