Hello David,
SSD is a large flash memory piece particularly optimized for
durability (wear-levelling) and otherwise appear as HDD. It retains
information after the power is turned off.
RAM is faster but does not retain information after the power is off.
Wikipedia is quite explicit in describing an SSD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
The technology you are thinking about has been around for some time
and is called ReadyBoost:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost
Also see here:
http://www.sandisk.com/Readyboost
You can buy a ReadyBoost 8GB module for ~$17 from e.g. www.newegg.com
(not affiliated, related, or implied....)
Hope this helps.
Sergiy Radyakin
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 6:36 PM, David Airey <[email protected]> wrote:
> What's the difference between a solid state hard drive and RAM? Is the
> access of a solid state hard drive a lot slower than RAM? Could Stata use a
> SSD for very large data sets, "cheaply"?
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
