>>>>Hi All,
>>>>
>>>>I'm looking at this USB flash memory card (apparently the thinnest in the world). On their spec sheet they state a read speed of 8MB/s over USB 2. How would that compare with an average PC drive these days?
>>>>
>>>>http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=2644&CatID=8080&sCatID=80804&ssCatID=80804
>>>
>>>Serial ATA II (3.0Gbps)
>>
>>Nah - the underlying speed of the drive is much lower than that: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VirtualMachinesAndExternalHardDriveThroughput.aspx
>>
>>Typical 7200 rpm drives can't sustain more than 65MB/sec (optimum), no matter the speed of the external interface. But that's still a lot faster than typical flash drives.
>>
>>The high numbers you see for SATAII (and other interfaces, for that matter) are maximum theoretical burst rates to or from the drive's internal buffer. The other day I bought some Seagate 320GB SATAII hard drives, which have a 16MB buffer (which is 128 million bits). So, under absolute optimum conditions that drive can sustain 3.0Gbps (3,000 megabits per second) transfer rates for a maximum of
>>
>>128 / 3000 = 0.043 seconds
>
>Yes, it's good that you cleared that up.
>But I remember talk of Vista being 'smart enough' to use USB sticks as "extra RAM", though I guess there'd be qualifiers on that. But it did lead me to conclude (in my own little head) that either USB sticks are fast enough for that or there will be some new ones soon that will be.
>
>Seen anything about that?

Hmm, not specifically, at least not using generic flash RAM in that fashion - although it's not unreasonable to assume someone might find a way to do it.

There has been talk about so-called "hybrid" hard drives e.g.
http://news.com.com/Samsung+hybrid+hard+drive+works+while+it+sleeps/2100-1041_3-5683836.html