How does this announcement tie into Intel's Santa Rosa platform announcement which requires nand flash on the motherboard? If we have a hybrid HDD does one still need nand flash on the motherboard? What if there a SSFD as the HD instead of magnetic HDD, does one still need nand flash on the motherboard?
From my point of view, motherboard flash better for booting and overall program speedup. The hybrid flash is best to replace (and increase) the existing DRAM buffer. Based on their requirements for June 2007, you'll need either a hybrid HDD or flash on the motherboard for laptops. The question of the SSFD is interesting. The current requirements is read strictly mean that a hybrid HDD is required if it's not on the motherboard, but I'm sure they'll make an exception for SSFD when the question is asked. Interestingly, I ran across the Storage-0009 section which appears to be required also, and the specification is for "At least 500MB available for ReadyBoost cache". From what I could gather, it seems to me this is a requirement for all systems, which is good news. Interestingly enough, this requirement may be met with an external flash device, so do manufacturers just have to throw in a cruzer with each system or am I reading it all wrong? In any case, if the minimum is 500MB, the average would be a little or somewhat higher than that. The early laptop designs may use the hybrid HDD just to decrease the needed changes on the motherboard. Desktops may just use internal (hidden) USB plug in devices. In time, both should be on the motherboard. I expect Intel to aggresively pursue this stategy (which I agree is superior). |
