I once speculated to a friend about 15 years ago that eventually solid state storage space would be so fast that it could serve as active memory. I can’t wait to tell him.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I would appreciate confirmation that chip manufacturers understand humans do not typically require this

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      When I die and my laptop gets put into a box and shoved in a dusty corner forgotten for generations I want my descendant to be able to open it in the year 3000 and see all the tabs I had open when I died.

    • Poob@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly the time you can put your laptop to sleep is the least interesting part, but it’s hard the explain the other benefits to regular users

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I kind of assumed there must be some other motive at play here, sounds like it was something a tech writer was just fumbling.

    • irdc@derp.foo
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Such retention times are often probabilistic (ie. some percentage of bits have retained their proper value) and an “up to” value, which is negatively influenced by such things as the storage temperature and background radiation.

      In practice, it might be that the only useful retention time is only a small digit number of years.

    • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Speak for yourself, fellow human. When I go into deep sleep mode, sometimes I forget to set auto wake routine and wake up years later.

  • Antimutt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    It would have to be always active, checking for radiation induced flips, not just powered off.

    • lte678@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      It should be fine for normal use cases when used with error correcting codes without any active scrubbing.

      According error rates for ECC RAM (which should be at least by an order of magnitude comparable) of 1 bit error per gigabyte of RAM per 1.8 hours1, we would assume ~5000 errors in a year. The average likelyhood of hitting an already affected byte is approx. (5000/2)/1e9=2e-6. So that probability * 5000 errors is about a 1.2 percent chance that two errors occur in one byte after a year. It grows exponentially once you start going a past a year. But in total, I would say that standard error correcting codes should be sufficient to catch all errors, even if in hibernation for a whole year.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory

    • ghostBones@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I took this article specifically to mean, and that it was referring to, a new form of non-volatile solid state storage. Active memory is by definition, volatile. This article seems to be talking about non volatile RAM, fast enough to function as active RAM. This alone would redefine what a reboot is.

  • transistor@lemdro.id
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I didn’t know there is a flash memory summit. I didn’t know they hand out awards at that summit.

  • nomecks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    The article fails to mention the scale it can be produced at. How big and how expensive is a gig of this stuff?