Author Topic: Ipod Hard Disc On Zaurus  (Read 19042 times)

Remedy

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Ipod Hard Disc On Zaurus
« Reply #15 on: September 21, 2005, 11:45:22 pm »
Would it not be a bit more efficent to use Flash based memory for storage than the mechanical Hard drive itself?  As in, the iPod Nano? 2,4 & 8GB of flash seem a bit better on power consumption than the Mechanical based drives. Latency as well. Not to mention size of the overall device can be toned down. Although, Cost per unit may increase. It's not like that would be a problem anyway since Sharp is already charging an ARM and a leg for product with very little hardware features or storage than similar products (Archos) of the hand top market.

Just my opinion.
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Smuffle

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« Reply #16 on: September 22, 2005, 04:35:24 am »
Quote
Would it not be a bit more efficent to use Flash based memory for storage than the mechanical Hard drive itself?  As in, the iPod Nano? 2,4 & 8GB of flash seem a bit better on power consumption than the Mechanical based drives. Latency as well. Not to mention size of the overall device can be toned down. Although, Cost per unit may increase. It's not like that would be a problem anyway since Sharp is already charging an ARM and a leg for product with very little hardware features or storage than similar products (Archos) of the hand top market.

Just my opinion.
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Yep, you're probably right but I've got a pooped iPod sitting next to me with no purpose in life.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Also, Imagine 15Gb on a Zaurus.

*dribbles*

BarryW

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Ipod Hard Disc On Zaurus
« Reply #17 on: September 22, 2005, 12:33:36 pm »
Quote
Would it not be a bit more efficent to use Flash based memory for storage than the mechanical Hard drive itself?  As in, the iPod Nano? 2,4 & 8GB of flash seem a bit better on power consumption than the Mechanical based drives. Latency as well. Not to mention size of the overall device can be toned down. Although, Cost per unit may increase. It's not like that would be a problem anyway since Sharp is already charging an ARM and a leg for product with very little hardware features or storage than similar products (Archos) of the hand top market.

Just my opinion.
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The nano's have a very nonstandard conector for the flash module.  The nice thing about the microdrives is you can put a swap partition on it and not worry too much about wearing it out.  Putting swap on flash isnt a very nice thing to do to the card.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2005, 12:33:51 pm by BarryW »
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Da_Blitz

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« Reply #18 on: September 23, 2005, 06:45:43 am »
The swap partion is the one reason i wont abandon microdrives, at leat until they put some decent memorey on PDA's (looks like 128MB is starting to become standard)

you could however make a CF card out of RAM  but it wouldnt have any where near the speed of native ram, hmm perhaps this is somthing i should add to the hacks page, how to use your old SDRAM sticks with your c3000?

ether way the next big thing for flash seems to be putting FLASH SDRAM and SRAM in the same package but phisycally stacked on top of each other, you can get an xscale chip like that with 32MB of RAM and FLASH on chip
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speculatrix

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« Reply #19 on: September 30, 2005, 05:32:32 pm »
since there are pcmcia sram modules, e.g. from pretec:
http://www.pretec.com/product/SSD/Industrial/sram.htm

then surely there must be a CF equivalent - unfortunately, they're not exactly high capacity - only a few megabytes!


there are also linear flash devices in pcmcia format:
http://www.psism.com/linearflash.htm
i.e. there are not block devices like CF cards and thus could augment the Z's internal flash. again, they're not cheap!
« Last Edit: September 30, 2005, 05:42:32 pm by speculatrix »
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Da_Blitz

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Ipod Hard Disc On Zaurus
« Reply #20 on: October 06, 2005, 12:31:25 am »
The SRAM is limited to 16MB a sec and would kill your mem bandwidth as they are on the same bus

one thing i find funny is that the nano uses the same chips as the C*K series and they are pin compatible  (the chip packages that is) but you are right for somthing that seeks alot and does lots of random read and writes the flash beats the hard drive hands down however for streaming the hard drive beets it quite easily (im refering to a 3.5" Hard drive here not a microdrive which gets its arse kicked in both catagories)

i did come across an article on intels website on how to wire up an ATA disk directly to the xscale throgh the CF connector but it would be alot easier to use a USB to ATA converter or simmilar
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daemon1

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« Reply #21 on: December 18, 2007, 11:07:05 am »
I tried this with a 40gb ipod gen 4 drive...

https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?act=fi...&pid=164945

didn't work... my z now has a bit a of gap on the side... but it was the only way to be sure... in the name of science!
« Last Edit: December 18, 2007, 11:07:32 am by daemon1 »
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