New Device May Revolutionise Computer Memory, Allow Instant

[News Portal]

We all love games, but what good are games without a bit of grunt. In a report published on PhysOrg it appears researchers from North Carolina Statue University are claiming to have developed a device that combines the functions of both volatile and nonvolatile devices into one "unified" device used in the main memory. Such a device should allow computers to start faster and make "server farms" more energy efficient.

Read full article by Matt Williams

[Mr Messy]

Thats all good except that it would make it easier to steal information by swaping out RAM

[awaisroxs]

I understand "allow Instant boot" after that i do not understand it. but it sounds cool.

[Cyrinno]

Could definately improve the reliability of server farms, with less working parts the longer the lifespan of eqiupment. Cost is still the major issue, with solid state drives even not being taken up majorly in home PC's mostly because of space issues.

We'll see how this goes. Instant start up of windows on my computer isn't a major issue either. Once a day it takes 2 minutes. So they can save me from that? I dunno if I'd pay hundreds of dollars to save myself 2 minutes.

[TRB]

thats not the point.
all tech is expensive initially.
go look at the cost of old HDDS per MB or GB or old ram .etc. when it first came out, then compare it to 5 years later.

[TheScientist]

university just for statues huh? must be a really action packed campus!

[Cyrinno]

I wouldn't say all New Technology is expensive. Bluerays are quite cheap and very new.

Solid State drives at their current space values offer hardly any benefits beyond your main operating system on them because the size of them are so small. yet everything that is being made is getting bigger. I'm not sure if solid states will catch up for a while.

Either that. or keeping files will soon become meaningless, and streaming will be the future anyway and you'll just need a solid state to start your pc.

[Tera]

I wouldn't say all New Technology is expensive. Bluerays are quite cheap and very new.

Blueray as a media was quite cheap, players however were still uber expensive. That's the major reason the PS3 sold so well..

[SomeXspeC]

I wouldn't say all New Technology is expensive. Bluerays are quite cheap and very new.

Blueray as a media was quite cheap, players however were still uber expensive. That's the major reason the PS3 sold so well..

Exactly.

Cost is still the major issue, with solid state drives even not being taken up majorly in home PC's mostly because of space issues.

Space does contribute to the decision however I would happily load my PC up with a few 240gb SSD's if the weren't selling for $600 per or even a couple of 480gb's from OCZ, but hey $1499 doesn't grow on tree's lol.

Anyway back on topic, if these do prove to be a security risk then there is no point throwing them on a server farm. Far too many sensitive details.

[blannor]

Im not quite sure how its a security risk. What kind of server farm lets anyone without clearance anywhere near the hardware? This might introduce another vulnerability to the physical system but honestly physical systems are horribly insecure anyway (hence why we keep them in locked rooms and not out in the open). Or am i missing something?

[TRB]

space isn't a problem for SSD.
its the cost per GB that currently is a problem.
you can buy 500GB SSDs which is plenty of room.
I know someone running 2 500 GB SSDs in raid 0.
out of my price bracket atm though.

Bluerays are quite cheap and very new.

consumer blu-ray has been available since 2003, that isn't "quit new", unless you've been living under a rock.
PC RW drives available since 2006.

[Bronze_D]

Im not quite sure how its a security risk. What kind of server farm lets anyone without clearance anywhere near the hardware? This might introduce another vulnerability to the physical system but honestly physical systems are horribly insecure anyway (hence why we keep them in locked rooms and not out in the open). Or am i missing something?

and one would think that if an unauthorized personnel could actually access the physical hardware of the server and dismantle it to take it's RAM out then they have a much bigger problem than just data theft.

i don't see how this would present a sensible security risk either.

[widden]

Im not quite sure how its a security risk. What kind of server farm lets anyone without clearance anywhere near the hardware? This might introduce another vulnerability to the physical system but honestly physical systems are horribly insecure anyway (hence why we keep them in locked rooms and not out in the open). Or am i missing something?

and one would think that if an unauthorized personnel could actually access the physical hardware of the server and dismantle it to take it's RAM out then they have a much bigger problem than just data theft.

i don't see how this would present a sensible security risk either.

I think if it's just RAM, then it does. Protecting a file against write is much easier than protecting a program in RAM. And you may never notice the change either. But I'm sure they'll figure it out.

[Otto-matic]

Security risk from these is irrelevant considering if they could take RAM out, they could easily take HDDs out too.

Same as always, boot and nuke before sale. If you're really paranoid, run a drill through it.

[Wolfie_]

What hasn't been explained (presumably gets covered in the later tech paper), how do they handle memory update timing? Basically, if writing to both the volatile and non-volatile memory in parallel ("one for speed and one to keep"), would seem they'd have to slow the memory access speed to that of the nv-ram's read/write speed to ensure data integrity, so if power were suddenly lost both memories would be in-sync. Otherwise, it's reliant on some form of caching system with a small backup battery to keep the memory running long enough to commit all pending RAM updates first.

As already noted, if this is all in aid of faster system boot ups, probably a few years too late. Heck, my linux server takes longer to run through it's POST & BIOS startup routines than the O/S takes to initiate.