1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:02,920 Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 2 00:00:03,160 --> 00:00:08,880 Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 3 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:17,560 Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, 4 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:20,440 Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 5 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:23,439 Speaker 1: and I am an editor how stuff works dot com. 6 00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:27,280 Speaker 1: The guy sitting across from me, he is Jonathan STRICKLANDUS 7 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:30,520 Speaker 1: senior writer at how stuff works dot com. Hey there, 8 00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:34,560 Speaker 1: So today we wanted to talk a little bit about 9 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:40,000 Speaker 1: solid state drives and what makes them work and how 10 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:44,160 Speaker 1: they are different from the traditional forms of storage media 11 00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:47,480 Speaker 1: that we are used to in the world of computers. Now, 12 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:49,479 Speaker 1: some of you out there may be used to solid 13 00:00:49,479 --> 00:00:51,480 Speaker 1: state drives, and so you're thinking how our solid state 14 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:53,640 Speaker 1: drives different from other solid state drives. That's not what 15 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:55,920 Speaker 1: I mean. I mean those of us who have used 16 00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:01,320 Speaker 1: hard disks that use magnetic storage in some form, and uh, 17 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:05,320 Speaker 1: there are a lot of differences, mainly mechanical physical differences, 18 00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:08,080 Speaker 1: because when you're talking about a hard disk, I guess 19 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:12,080 Speaker 1: a traditional hard hard disk drive, you're talking about a 20 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:16,920 Speaker 1: device that has moving parts and um it has platters 21 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:21,040 Speaker 1: that are that have information stored on the magnetically use 22 00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:25,120 Speaker 1: magnetic fields to change uh, informations into zeros and ones, 23 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:28,520 Speaker 1: those bits that we use to create the data that 24 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:33,520 Speaker 1: computers can understand. And you have a physical device that 25 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:36,280 Speaker 1: reads that information off of the platters the players have 26 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,960 Speaker 1: to spin for this to happen. Uh. Turns out those 27 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,440 Speaker 1: devices they take up, they take a lot of time 28 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:47,840 Speaker 1: to pull that information up. Relatively speaking. When I say 29 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:51,840 Speaker 1: a lot of time, we're talking milliseconds. But still, yeah, 30 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:56,160 Speaker 1: there are when you think about getting information into and 31 00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:00,760 Speaker 1: out of uh your computers, basically what you're doing right now. 32 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:04,760 Speaker 1: There there are several different ways it does that. There's uh, 33 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:10,600 Speaker 1: some information that is available for you know, ready retrieval. Um. 34 00:02:10,639 --> 00:02:13,000 Speaker 1: You know, in the cash that's built in you have 35 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:16,120 Speaker 1: level one level two cash. You may not have necessarily 36 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:19,360 Speaker 1: known what that was. I didn't uh you know, and 37 00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:22,760 Speaker 1: it's sort of uh, it's sort of intuitive when you 38 00:02:22,760 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: think about it. It keeps it this information in this 39 00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:30,200 Speaker 1: cash on hand, so stuff that you're doing right now 40 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:33,720 Speaker 1: is kept right there close by in a very fast 41 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:38,080 Speaker 1: um uh in a very fast retrieval system so that 42 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:41,280 Speaker 1: I can pull it back at at at a nanoseconds. Notice, 43 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:44,000 Speaker 1: right in fact, if we if we go. It's easy 44 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:47,040 Speaker 1: to imagine this if we think of the CPU first. 45 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:49,600 Speaker 1: Just look at the central processing US of your computer 46 00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:51,760 Speaker 1: and think of that as this is the place where 47 00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:56,760 Speaker 1: operations are executed upon data. Right. Yeah, it pulls data in, 48 00:02:57,040 --> 00:02:59,440 Speaker 1: it executes an operation on it, it gets a result. 49 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:03,520 Speaker 1: That's the purpose of the CPU. Now, CPU has something 50 00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:07,919 Speaker 1: called registers. Registers are where the CPU can hold data. 51 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:12,400 Speaker 1: But registers hold a very small amount of data comparatively speaking, 52 00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:16,720 Speaker 1: usually just a few hundred bytes. You can build larger registers, 53 00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:19,400 Speaker 1: and you can build more registers for your CPU, but 54 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:22,240 Speaker 1: that tends to be pretty expensive. Now, the benefit of 55 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:25,760 Speaker 1: having information and registers on the CPU is that you 56 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:29,600 Speaker 1: have next to no time at all between when you 57 00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:32,480 Speaker 1: pull the information and when you can execute an operation 58 00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:36,400 Speaker 1: upon that information. So that means that we say that 59 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:41,880 Speaker 1: the latency for the information within a CPUs registers is zero. 60 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,400 Speaker 1: Latency is that time between when you retrieve information and 61 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:47,560 Speaker 1: when you can or when you send a request for 62 00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: information and when you actually retrieve it. Yes, so there's 63 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:55,000 Speaker 1: no latency when you're talking about a the CPUs registers. However, 64 00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,840 Speaker 1: only a few hundred bytes are exist within those registers. 65 00:03:58,840 --> 00:04:01,240 Speaker 1: It's not a lot of data. Now you were talking 66 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:03,640 Speaker 1: about the cash is the level one cash is kind 67 00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:07,320 Speaker 1: of the information that the CPU uses frequently. It's going 68 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,560 Speaker 1: to in whatever application you have to be in at 69 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:12,120 Speaker 1: that time, right, So this is information that the CPU 70 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:14,640 Speaker 1: is having to go to again and again, and it 71 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:17,360 Speaker 1: needs it to be as close as possible so that 72 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:21,039 Speaker 1: it keeps that latency down because of course, if you 73 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:23,440 Speaker 1: have to go further out for your information, it's going 74 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:25,680 Speaker 1: to take longer for it to get back. So at 75 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:30,279 Speaker 1: level one cash, you're talking about around bytes of data 76 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:36,839 Speaker 1: per CPU core if you're running an ivy Bridge processor 77 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:40,600 Speaker 1: and I seven core ivy Bridge processor from Mentel, so 78 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:46,480 Speaker 1: that's thirty bytes per uh core and as far as 79 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:50,120 Speaker 1: that level one cash goes and that takes a nanosecond 80 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:53,720 Speaker 1: to pull that data up, So that's one billionth of 81 00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:57,520 Speaker 1: a second. Yep, and uh you know, just on the 82 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:00,839 Speaker 1: just to comment on the ivy Bridge note, the cash 83 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:04,960 Speaker 1: is themselves, um you know they exist on all these 84 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:09,880 Speaker 1: different processors. That's just that figure just specific to the 85 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:13,120 Speaker 1: ivy Bridge, but other processors do have this as well. Yes, 86 00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:15,520 Speaker 1: just in case there was any confusion, and and then 87 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:17,800 Speaker 1: you could have a level to cash, which is slightly 88 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:19,760 Speaker 1: further out, you know, think of think of it like 89 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:23,320 Speaker 1: concentric circles, right, So the level two cash is a 90 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:26,560 Speaker 1: concentric circle further out from the CPU. It can hold 91 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:28,839 Speaker 1: a little more data. It's a little slower to pull 92 00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:31,599 Speaker 1: that information up, it's a few nano seconds. Then it 93 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:34,479 Speaker 1: may even have a level three cash. Not all CPUs do, 94 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:38,359 Speaker 1: but many do. And then that is even larger and 95 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:42,159 Speaker 1: holds even more data and takes even longer again in 96 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:45,200 Speaker 1: relative terms, to get that data to the CPU. And 97 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:50,039 Speaker 1: beyond that, that's when you go to your computer's actual memory, 98 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:52,400 Speaker 1: because all the stuff we've been talking about right now 99 00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:56,800 Speaker 1: is all located on the CPU die itself. So it's 100 00:05:56,839 --> 00:06:00,440 Speaker 1: all part of that that chip. Yeah, it's not you know, 101 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:03,400 Speaker 1: it's not separate. It's on another element that's on the motherboard. 102 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:05,719 Speaker 1: This is all part of the CPU. Yeah. If you 103 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:07,599 Speaker 1: if you pull your hard drive out of the computer 104 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:10,840 Speaker 1: toss it on the floor, don't don't do that. Um. 105 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:13,960 Speaker 1: And uh, and you you pull the RAM chips out 106 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:15,800 Speaker 1: of your computer and toss them on the floor, don't 107 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,919 Speaker 1: do that either. Um. Then I'm glad you did that 108 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:21,599 Speaker 1: because I was thinking it it was just funny that 109 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:25,880 Speaker 1: you said it. Um, then the uh, the registry and 110 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:29,280 Speaker 1: the cashes will still be there on the computer and 111 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:31,280 Speaker 1: I won't be able to do a whole lot with them. 112 00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:35,600 Speaker 1: But still, um, so you know that, just to illustrate that. 113 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:38,839 Speaker 1: So yes, the next part we'll we'll pick this stuff 114 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,000 Speaker 1: gently back up off the floor and put it inside 115 00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:45,360 Speaker 1: the RAM is essentially the next ring out if you will, 116 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:47,920 Speaker 1: from the cashes. However, many that you happen to have 117 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:51,080 Speaker 1: on your CPU, right, and these these memory chips have 118 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:55,840 Speaker 1: been optimized so that the latency is really really low. However, 119 00:06:56,600 --> 00:07:00,960 Speaker 1: they are not located on the CPU. No, they are 120 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:05,960 Speaker 1: connected by circuits by by pathways to the CPU. Well, 121 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:08,719 Speaker 1: because they are not located on the CPU, and because 122 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,760 Speaker 1: that information does have to actually travel a physical distance, 123 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:16,480 Speaker 1: that increases the latency time. So when your CPU has 124 00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:19,800 Speaker 1: to pull information out and that information is not in 125 00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:22,320 Speaker 1: the cash for the CPU, it has to but it 126 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,360 Speaker 1: resides within the memory of your computer, then it has 127 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,640 Speaker 1: to travel this pathway and for the the request and retrieval, 128 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,560 Speaker 1: that can take between forty and eighty nanoseconds. So we're 129 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:36,840 Speaker 1: still talking a fraction of a second. Yeah, I mean 130 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,560 Speaker 1: this is These are are times that you or I 131 00:07:39,640 --> 00:07:41,960 Speaker 1: will not even be able to notice. Yeah, we can't. 132 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:47,119 Speaker 1: We we have no ability to to register that using 133 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:52,200 Speaker 1: our senses. We would have to use incredibly sensitive measurement 134 00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:55,040 Speaker 1: devices in order to be able to tell the difference 135 00:07:55,040 --> 00:07:59,040 Speaker 1: between forty and eighty nanoseconds. To us, there's no meaningful 136 00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:03,280 Speaker 1: difference at But the uh. But the thing about RAM 137 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 1: is when you shut off the computer, all that information 138 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:12,400 Speaker 1: that's in RAM disappears. Yeah, it's it's held there by 139 00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:16,200 Speaker 1: the electrical charge UM, which is relative to the computer. 140 00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:19,440 Speaker 1: Now you're hard drive with the information stored we're talking 141 00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:23,760 Speaker 1: traditional with the information stored manet magnetically on those platters. UM, 142 00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:25,640 Speaker 1: it's able to save that stuff so that when you 143 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:28,160 Speaker 1: turn the computer back on, you can read the hard 144 00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:30,800 Speaker 1: drive and get it back. UM. The thing is that 145 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:36,800 Speaker 1: hard drives have different rotating speeds UM. Typical to see 146 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:42,160 Speaker 1: a laptop with a rpm uh drive or or even 147 00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:46,320 Speaker 1: revolutions per minute just in case you aren't familiar with 148 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:48,720 Speaker 1: the term UM, and you're more likely to see fat 149 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:52,920 Speaker 1: those and faster in desktop computers. UM. And the faster 150 00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:56,960 Speaker 1: these rotate in general, that means the faster the information 151 00:08:57,000 --> 00:08:59,800 Speaker 1: can be pulled from the hard drive and sent to 152 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:04,720 Speaker 1: memory and then onto your CPU. UM. So if you 153 00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:07,320 Speaker 1: if you took your hard drive, the thing is that 154 00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:11,920 Speaker 1: these systems are are delicate their their machine to very 155 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:16,000 Speaker 1: precise tolerances. That the head um that reads the disk, 156 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:18,440 Speaker 1: it looks like it looks like a record player for 157 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:20,800 Speaker 1: those of us who remember that, but the the head 158 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:24,000 Speaker 1: doesn't actually touch the disc. If it does, that's what 159 00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:26,960 Speaker 1: they call a bad thing. Yeah, it looks like it's 160 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:29,640 Speaker 1: in contact because it's so close to the platter, but 161 00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:34,240 Speaker 1: in actuality there is like a millimeter's difference between where 162 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:37,600 Speaker 1: it is or even less. It's amazing. And that's the thing. 163 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:40,320 Speaker 1: If you did take your if you did take your 164 00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:42,000 Speaker 1: hard drive and throw it on the floor, it is 165 00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:47,199 Speaker 1: very possible that the head crashed into the platters, which 166 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:51,240 Speaker 1: is very bad. Right. If you ever hear a clicking 167 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:53,640 Speaker 1: noise from your hard drive, that usually means that the 168 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:56,160 Speaker 1: platters are out of alignment, or that the head is 169 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,840 Speaker 1: actually coming into contact, something is hitting against something else 170 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:03,319 Speaker 1: with then that physical mechanical device, and that means that 171 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,800 Speaker 1: it is breaking down. That that also means you should 172 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:09,680 Speaker 1: take that hard drive as soon as you can to 173 00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:13,680 Speaker 1: a professional who can pull the data off of the 174 00:10:13,720 --> 00:10:16,439 Speaker 1: hard drive, because the hard drive itself may or may 175 00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:19,320 Speaker 1: not be uh you may or may not be able 176 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:21,600 Speaker 1: to repair it. So you definitely want to be able 177 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,600 Speaker 1: to retrieve the information. And the reason why we're even 178 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:28,240 Speaker 1: talking about this physical device is because you may have guessed, 179 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:31,440 Speaker 1: because you've got this mechanical element, it's going to take 180 00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:35,120 Speaker 1: a lot longer to retrieve that information. Comparatively speaking, we're 181 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:38,880 Speaker 1: talking about milliseconds now as opposed to nanoseconds, and in 182 00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:42,199 Speaker 1: the world of computers, that's a long time. You know, 183 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:45,160 Speaker 1: you're talking about these other fractions of a second, billions 184 00:10:45,160 --> 00:10:47,600 Speaker 1: of a second and then several or you know, you 185 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:51,000 Speaker 1: go to a couple orders of magnitude up you realize 186 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:52,880 Speaker 1: this is this is a lot longer, and it's going 187 00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:56,319 Speaker 1: to mean that in general, the operations that you start 188 00:10:56,400 --> 00:10:58,720 Speaker 1: to use on your computer are going to take more 189 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,199 Speaker 1: and more time. Well, there are only so many ways 190 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:05,280 Speaker 1: we can limit how much time it takes to retrieve 191 00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:09,400 Speaker 1: information from a hard drive. Some of that includes creating 192 00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:14,400 Speaker 1: better interfaces, which is when we went from the two 193 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:18,080 Speaker 1: SATA interfaces s A T A interfaces. Uh, that was 194 00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:20,200 Speaker 1: actually a big improvement. It meant that we could move 195 00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:24,880 Speaker 1: data much more quickly from the hard drive into RAM. 196 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:29,319 Speaker 1: But there's only so so much faster you can go 197 00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:34,400 Speaker 1: without really turning up that RPM speed to ludicrous amounts. 198 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:36,120 Speaker 1: And of course the faster it goes, the more likely 199 00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:39,480 Speaker 1: you have mechanical problems down the line. I mean we're 200 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:42,760 Speaker 1: and tear and things of that nature. So, um, you 201 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:46,440 Speaker 1: have the incredibly reliable hard drive. I mean we've been 202 00:11:46,520 --> 00:11:49,400 Speaker 1: using these things for years and years now. Um, they've 203 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,800 Speaker 1: gone up to very large sizes. Uh. And and they're 204 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:56,160 Speaker 1: they're fairly cheap compared to the way they were just 205 00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,920 Speaker 1: a few years ago. But they have they have their 206 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:02,520 Speaker 1: own problems. I mean they're they're delicate. You can't necessarily 207 00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:05,520 Speaker 1: take them everywhere, um, you know, and expect them to 208 00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:10,680 Speaker 1: operate uh flawlessly. Um and uh you know, as you 209 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:15,280 Speaker 1: pointed out, they're they're only so fast. So uh. Flash 210 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:19,439 Speaker 1: memory in general is is, you know, an alternative, a 211 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:23,239 Speaker 1: very pleasant alternative. It works in our in our smartphones 212 00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:26,920 Speaker 1: and our music players. Um, it works in in memory sticks, 213 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:29,960 Speaker 1: I mean thumb drives. You know, kids of all ages 214 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:32,000 Speaker 1: now take them to school with them because you know, 215 00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:35,800 Speaker 1: that you can keep. Um I remember one gigabyte hard 216 00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:39,040 Speaker 1: drives that were huge, and now you can keep sixteen 217 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:41,720 Speaker 1: gigs on a tiny thumb drive that cost you know, 218 00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:45,160 Speaker 1: a very tiny fraction of the price. Spies. Spies use 219 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:50,840 Speaker 1: them to UH to put malware onto secure systems. Because 220 00:12:50,880 --> 00:12:54,760 Speaker 1: both both stucks net and Flame appear to have been 221 00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:59,880 Speaker 1: injected into target computers using UH and an off site 222 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:03,360 Speaker 1: sort of storage device. So some sort of well offsite 223 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:06,360 Speaker 1: from the computer system UH so something like a thumb drive. 224 00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:09,320 Speaker 1: So you can imagine there's a guy who might have 225 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:13,960 Speaker 1: paid a little visit to an Iranian UH uranium enrichment 226 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:16,640 Speaker 1: plant and happen to have this thumb drive, plug it 227 00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:19,080 Speaker 1: into a computer system and infected it that way. That's 228 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:23,200 Speaker 1: just one potential way that scenario could have unfolded. But yeah, 229 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:28,040 Speaker 1: I mean, these things have have become ubiquitous in all 230 00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:32,920 Speaker 1: areas of computing, so why not make a hard drive 231 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:37,040 Speaker 1: out of the same sort of approach, Because it means 232 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:39,880 Speaker 1: that you're using instead of a mechanical system, you're using 233 00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:44,480 Speaker 1: an integrated circuit in order to store information. You no 234 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:48,760 Speaker 1: longer have to worry about spinning platters or reading heads 235 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:52,360 Speaker 1: or anything like that you can really decrease the amount 236 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:56,120 Speaker 1: of time that that latency time, so that when you 237 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:59,920 Speaker 1: are pulling information from the hard drive, it's much close 238 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:02,160 Speaker 1: sirt to the speeds that you would see on the 239 00:14:02,200 --> 00:14:05,720 Speaker 1: CPU die itself, or at least in the computer's memory 240 00:14:06,200 --> 00:14:09,160 Speaker 1: as opposed to on a traditional hard drive. And before 241 00:14:09,160 --> 00:14:10,960 Speaker 1: we get too far into this, I do want to 242 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,520 Speaker 1: say something about what some of the sources of information 243 00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:17,360 Speaker 1: we pulled from. We do have a great article on 244 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,840 Speaker 1: how stuff works about how flash drives work, and a 245 00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:24,320 Speaker 1: lot of the information applies to solid state drives. Yeah 246 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:27,480 Speaker 1: they're they're not exactly the same, but yeah, they're they're 247 00:14:27,520 --> 00:14:30,880 Speaker 1: kind of principles, are there. Yeah, they're close cousins, because 248 00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:33,640 Speaker 1: a lot of the things that go into what make 249 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:37,360 Speaker 1: flash drives work apply to solid state drives. But an 250 00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:42,040 Speaker 1: excellent resource on the web is an Ours Technica series, 251 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:44,560 Speaker 1: one of which one of the articles in that series 252 00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:48,560 Speaker 1: is called solid State Revolution in Depth on how s 253 00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:52,360 Speaker 1: s d s Really work by Lee Hutchinson. And I 254 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:55,600 Speaker 1: can't say enough good things about this article. It really 255 00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:59,640 Speaker 1: is a comprehensive approach to how solid state drives work. 256 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:04,080 Speaker 1: End there's a little, uh, little latitude in the article, 257 00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:06,880 Speaker 1: so it makes it it's not it's not dry reading. No, well, 258 00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:10,480 Speaker 1: our our technical is like that. UM. It's also just 259 00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:13,800 Speaker 1: just as a note, it's also very technical in spots too, 260 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:17,120 Speaker 1: So if you know, it's it's a they that site. 261 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:20,600 Speaker 1: It takes a little bit different approach to technology than 262 00:15:20,680 --> 00:15:23,080 Speaker 1: than we do in a good way. It's at a 263 00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:26,280 Speaker 1: different level. So it's it's it's definitely more serious if 264 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:29,640 Speaker 1: you if you're already familiar. Yeah, if you're already familiar 265 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:33,600 Speaker 1: with UM, with computer architecture and data and that sort 266 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:37,400 Speaker 1: of thing. Uh, it's an excellent resource. Otherwise, it may 267 00:15:37,480 --> 00:15:41,240 Speaker 1: it may feel a little advanced for someone who is 268 00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:45,960 Speaker 1: just curious about this but doesn't have any real background. However, 269 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:50,680 Speaker 1: it's well worthy read. So getting back to solid state drives, So, 270 00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:55,040 Speaker 1: the idea of creating a solid state drive, uh was 271 00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:59,680 Speaker 1: really really attractive because of that decreased latency. UM. There 272 00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:03,000 Speaker 1: were some challenges, of course, because solid state drives they 273 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:09,240 Speaker 1: do not store information magnetically the way traditional hard drives do. No. Now, 274 00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,800 Speaker 1: actually it sort of reminds me of electronic ink in 275 00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:16,640 Speaker 1: a way. Interesting. Well, if you know something about electronic ink, 276 00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:21,080 Speaker 1: you know that the capsules white or black generally are 277 00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:25,840 Speaker 1: stored in between a sandwich of h material that holds 278 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,160 Speaker 1: a positive or negative charge, and that's how it reads 279 00:16:29,160 --> 00:16:32,120 Speaker 1: a page. But once the page is there, it stays there. 280 00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:35,280 Speaker 1: I see. So you're thinking of that as for it. 281 00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:38,200 Speaker 1: Let's just say, for example, that the black parts of 282 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:41,360 Speaker 1: the screen are ones and the white parts are zeros, 283 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:45,200 Speaker 1: and they retain that even when the power is off, 284 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:48,280 Speaker 1: so they're non volatile. Right. That means that when you 285 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:52,720 Speaker 1: remove the power source from this system, it keeps that information. Now, 286 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:54,920 Speaker 1: that of course is extremely important when it comes to 287 00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:58,800 Speaker 1: computers because, like Chris was saying, RAM is volatile memory. 288 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:04,000 Speaker 1: If you lose that power, then that information goes away. 289 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:06,720 Speaker 1: There's no longer a charge to maintain the information that 290 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,720 Speaker 1: stored in your computer's memory. You don't want that to 291 00:17:09,760 --> 00:17:11,680 Speaker 1: happen to your hard drive because that means that every 292 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:14,119 Speaker 1: time you would turn off your computer or lose power, 293 00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:16,800 Speaker 1: you would lose all the data stored there. You have 294 00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:21,360 Speaker 1: to have non volatile memory to keep storage a possibility. 295 00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:25,360 Speaker 1: Well nice, yeah, because I mean the old, the old, old, 296 00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:28,080 Speaker 1: old computers that that Chris and I worked on didn't 297 00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:31,879 Speaker 1: have hard drives. You had to store things on magnetic discs. 298 00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:34,520 Speaker 1: H If you turned your computer on, it just went 299 00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:37,439 Speaker 1: to its initial state. The only thing that was stored 300 00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:39,840 Speaker 1: on there was the operating system because it was written 301 00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:42,520 Speaker 1: in read only memory, which was non volatile, but it 302 00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:47,400 Speaker 1: was also unchangeable. You couldn't write to it. So that 303 00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:49,680 Speaker 1: meant that, you know, if you want to write a program, 304 00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:51,520 Speaker 1: you had to store it on a disk, because if 305 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:53,280 Speaker 1: you tried to write it just on your computer, you 306 00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:54,639 Speaker 1: didn't have a disk in there, and you turned the 307 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:57,040 Speaker 1: computer off, all your work has gone. This is also 308 00:17:57,160 --> 00:17:59,320 Speaker 1: why if you've ever worked on a computer, and you've 309 00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:03,480 Speaker 1: ever heard anyone say save your work, often that's why 310 00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:05,840 Speaker 1: when you save your work, it's being saved to your 311 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,560 Speaker 1: hard drive, not to your computer's memory. So if you're 312 00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:10,520 Speaker 1: working on something and you haven't saved it in a while, 313 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:13,840 Speaker 1: it may only exist in your computer's memory. If power 314 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:16,199 Speaker 1: goes out, you may lose all that work. As I 315 00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:19,760 Speaker 1: have done on multiple occasions. I was actually in my 316 00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:25,400 Speaker 1: college's computer lab during a storm and the screams out. 317 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:29,240 Speaker 1: There's nothing like working in any sort of computer environment 318 00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:31,560 Speaker 1: when the power goes out and then you hear there's 319 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:35,359 Speaker 1: there's usually about a second and a half delay between 320 00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:39,440 Speaker 1: the power going out and every single person making essentially 321 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:45,160 Speaker 1: the same noise, which sounds like this. Ah, I leaned 322 00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,000 Speaker 1: back as I did that, so there was a little 323 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,080 Speaker 1: Doppler effect. But anyway, so yeah, this, this sort of 324 00:18:51,080 --> 00:18:55,240 Speaker 1: of non volatile memory means that that information is going 325 00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:57,600 Speaker 1: to stay there even when you turn the power off. 326 00:18:57,600 --> 00:18:59,920 Speaker 1: This is the exact same sort of stuff we find 327 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:04,680 Speaker 1: in our MP three players and other mobile devices that 328 00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:07,560 Speaker 1: because again, if we didn't have that, then every time 329 00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,120 Speaker 1: you turned off your MP three player you would lose 330 00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:12,320 Speaker 1: your entire library of songs. You have to reload it 331 00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:14,639 Speaker 1: the next time you turn it on, right, right, Well, 332 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:19,399 Speaker 1: there is um to to complete my analogy. Yes, along 333 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:26,280 Speaker 1: with the electronic ink thing, the flash memory also uses cells. Um. 334 00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:30,439 Speaker 1: It stores information in in cells, and that cell is 335 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:33,119 Speaker 1: either a one or a zero. Right to think of 336 00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:36,119 Speaker 1: the cells like a sheet of grid paper. Yes, and 337 00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:40,520 Speaker 1: you've got rows and you've got columns. Right, So the 338 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:43,959 Speaker 1: rows of cells. If you took one row of cells, 339 00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:47,240 Speaker 1: we would call that in in solid state drive terminology, 340 00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:50,520 Speaker 1: that would be a page. So one row of the 341 00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:52,880 Speaker 1: cells would be a page, and then you would have 342 00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:56,200 Speaker 1: several rows of cells and several columns of cells that 343 00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,840 Speaker 1: would form what is called a block. And this is 344 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,880 Speaker 1: really important because it comes down to the way information 345 00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:07,080 Speaker 1: is written and erased. In solid state drives. It turns 346 00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:12,800 Speaker 1: out that you cannot individually change the cells within that 347 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:15,000 Speaker 1: grid paper. For example, if you if you had a 348 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:16,800 Speaker 1: sheet of grid paper in front of you, you could 349 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:19,480 Speaker 1: write a one or a zero and every single grid 350 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:21,639 Speaker 1: and if you wanted to, if you're writing in pencil, 351 00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:25,880 Speaker 1: you could erase a single cell and change that one 352 00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:28,760 Speaker 1: to a zero or zero to a one. You cannot 353 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:31,680 Speaker 1: do that with a solid state drive. We'll get into 354 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:33,399 Speaker 1: that in a little bit, but that's an important thing 355 00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,919 Speaker 1: to think about from the start. Well, if you know 356 00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:41,120 Speaker 1: something about hard drives, the the magnetic platter hard drives 357 00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:44,560 Speaker 1: um when you when your computer, and that pretty much 358 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:48,280 Speaker 1: goes for all modern operating systems. Let's say you have 359 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:52,439 Speaker 1: a document and you realize that, well, you worked on 360 00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:55,560 Speaker 1: it three years ago, You've turned it in. You know, 361 00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:57,159 Speaker 1: I don't need to save it for anything, So I'm 362 00:20:57,200 --> 00:20:59,520 Speaker 1: going to delete it, and I'm gonna tell my computer 363 00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:03,280 Speaker 1: delete all that. First of all, the computer doesn't delete 364 00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:05,320 Speaker 1: it deleted if you just tell it to, you know, 365 00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:07,240 Speaker 1: throw it in the trash can, empty the trash can 366 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:09,800 Speaker 1: or recycle bin or whatever. It's actually still there on 367 00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:13,360 Speaker 1: your hard drive, but it's been marked for deletion. So basically, 368 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:16,680 Speaker 1: when uh something else, Hey, I've created a new document 369 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:20,000 Speaker 1: and the computer goes, where can I say, ah, this 370 00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:24,919 Speaker 1: is marked for deletion. I'll write over that old one. Um. 371 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,680 Speaker 1: That's one thing to note is that it can do that. 372 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:31,320 Speaker 1: That's the way that that computers work with magnetic platter 373 00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,680 Speaker 1: hard drives. Now it also can do something else. Let's 374 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:37,560 Speaker 1: say you have five different documents and you've deleted these 375 00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:42,480 Speaker 1: five documents. Well, those gaps are different sizes, but you're 376 00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,000 Speaker 1: storing a brand new file and it's larger than all 377 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,159 Speaker 1: five of those. It can fill in sections, sort of 378 00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:50,919 Speaker 1: like packets when you send when you break up an 379 00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:52,720 Speaker 1: email file into a bunch of packets and they go 380 00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: and they reassemble themselves on the other side on somebody 381 00:21:55,880 --> 00:22:00,119 Speaker 1: else's computer. These different gaps can be used to or 382 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:04,000 Speaker 1: parts of this file, which the computer will then reassemble 383 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:06,600 Speaker 1: as you need it. Um, that's when you need to 384 00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:10,119 Speaker 1: fragment your hard drive. You know, they have uh sections 385 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,679 Speaker 1: and they're all scattered out. You've got applications, and then 386 00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:15,560 Speaker 1: they're all in different places, in different sectors on different 387 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:19,720 Speaker 1: platters um, and they say, okay, I'm going to reorganize everything. 388 00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:24,080 Speaker 1: And so the computer basically uses storage empty storage to 389 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:27,919 Speaker 1: reshuffle everything and put it back into sectors where all 390 00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,760 Speaker 1: the parts of the filer together. And that makes a 391 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,200 Speaker 1: computer run a little bit faster when it's accessing those 392 00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:34,919 Speaker 1: files because they're on one place and they don't have 393 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:39,040 Speaker 1: to reassemble them. Now, you can't do that with uh, 394 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,840 Speaker 1: solid state drives yea. In fact, when it gets down 395 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:44,640 Speaker 1: to a racing data off a solid state drive, it's 396 00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:49,120 Speaker 1: pretty pretty complex. But before we get into that, let's 397 00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:50,840 Speaker 1: talk a little bit, a little a little bit more 398 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:54,080 Speaker 1: about the way information is stored within these cells, so 399 00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:56,000 Speaker 1: these grids on your grid paper. Yeah, I just thought 400 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,760 Speaker 1: it would be interesting to compare that to a platter 401 00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,680 Speaker 1: drive entirely. Yeah, And it is important to make the 402 00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:04,600 Speaker 1: comparisons between the two because there are advantages and disadvantages 403 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,760 Speaker 1: to both. That whole erasing thing or overwriting. You can't 404 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,080 Speaker 1: overwrite in an SSD, you can't erase stuff, but it 405 00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:17,080 Speaker 1: takes a lot of effort actually um. But anyway, so 406 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:23,399 Speaker 1: in order to make the the cell have a value 407 00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:27,639 Speaker 1: in it, you have to apply a voltage to that cell. Yes, 408 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:32,800 Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't read that article without thinking of 409 00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,919 Speaker 1: a C D C, the band with the dirty deeds. 410 00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:41,720 Speaker 1: That they're cheap voltage. It uses high voltage. Actually that's important. Yes, yeah, 411 00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:45,879 Speaker 1: in fact they're well uses both high and low voltage. 412 00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,119 Speaker 1: There are two different ways of wiring these transistors together. 413 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:54,000 Speaker 1: That's what each of the cells actually represents. UM. There 414 00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:58,159 Speaker 1: is the nor approach, which is a little simpler but 415 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:03,000 Speaker 1: less useful. Really, it's typical of flash drives, however, these 416 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,840 Speaker 1: smaller drives. So think of think of those those rows 417 00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:13,320 Speaker 1: there and the uh the columns as having a a 418 00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,280 Speaker 1: a circuit line going through each one. A right, So 419 00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:21,320 Speaker 1: there are rows of circuits and columns of circuits, uh connections, 420 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:23,960 Speaker 1: really electronic connections, I should say, not just circuits, but 421 00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:29,080 Speaker 1: electronic connections. So the rows would be word lines, the 422 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,520 Speaker 1: columns would be bit lines. So you would have this 423 00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:35,240 Speaker 1: grid of word lines and bit lines sort of it 424 00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,719 Speaker 1: would look kind of like a city block, like if 425 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:39,959 Speaker 1: you were looking for a city landscape, if you were 426 00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,120 Speaker 1: looking at it from the air. So you have these 427 00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:47,399 Speaker 1: these streets that are criss crossing um and you would 428 00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:53,000 Speaker 1: kind of tell each cell what its contents were based 429 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,960 Speaker 1: upon applying voltages across these lines. I'm not gonna get 430 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,080 Speaker 1: too far into this because it really gets kind of 431 00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:04,400 Speaker 1: complex and also involves a concept called quantum tunneling, which 432 00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,159 Speaker 1: we have talked about here on tech stuff before, but 433 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:11,520 Speaker 1: it makes my brain hurt because it's Quantum tunneling is 434 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,240 Speaker 1: one of those things that is crazy to me. Tunneling 435 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,240 Speaker 1: is this concept that and it's it's a real thing, 436 00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,080 Speaker 1: otherwise our electronics wouldn't work. Tunneling is this concept where 437 00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,280 Speaker 1: you have a barrier, let's say, and you've got an 438 00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,360 Speaker 1: electron that part of me an electron that's on one 439 00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:33,000 Speaker 1: side of that barrier. With the right kind of energy, 440 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,719 Speaker 1: that electron can pass from one side of the barrier 441 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:37,320 Speaker 1: to the other side of the barrier as if it 442 00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:41,399 Speaker 1: has tunneled through without actually physically tunneling through. And this 443 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:43,879 Speaker 1: all has to do with the potential for the electron 444 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:47,640 Speaker 1: to be in one position versus another. Uh, there's sort 445 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:48,919 Speaker 1: of you can think of it as a there's a 446 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:53,399 Speaker 1: radius around an electron that represents all the different locations 447 00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,639 Speaker 1: that electron could be in. UH. If that electrons at 448 00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,760 Speaker 1: the proper energy state, and there is barrier next to 449 00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,680 Speaker 1: the electron, that radius might extend beyond the other side 450 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,080 Speaker 1: of that barrier. That means that there's the potential for 451 00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,840 Speaker 1: that electron to be on the other side of that barrier, 452 00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,240 Speaker 1: which means if there is a potential for it, sometimes 453 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:16,760 Speaker 1: the electron is on the other side of that barrier, 454 00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,440 Speaker 1: as if the barrier weren't there. This drives me insane. 455 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:24,560 Speaker 1: It's like saying, if I'm if I'm running fast enough, 456 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:25,919 Speaker 1: there's a chance I'm going to be on the other 457 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,520 Speaker 1: side of the wall, not on this side of the wall. 458 00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:29,000 Speaker 1: But every time I try that, I end up with 459 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:36,400 Speaker 1: the bloody knows I'm not quantum enough, is what it's. Yeah, anyway, 460 00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,240 Speaker 1: so that that applies both to the NOR and the 461 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,000 Speaker 1: nand but the NOR version is the simplest one. You've 462 00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,119 Speaker 1: got the bit lines and the word lines in this 463 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,240 Speaker 1: sort of criss cross pattern, and then and one. The 464 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,879 Speaker 1: bitlines are actually kind of um daisy chained in a 465 00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:55,280 Speaker 1: way from one cell down to the next, And this 466 00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,720 Speaker 1: becomes important when you were actually reading from the memory 467 00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,280 Speaker 1: in order to determine what bit is in each cell 468 00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,520 Speaker 1: UH And the way that works is that you apply 469 00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:11,560 Speaker 1: a weak voltage across these lines to try and determine 470 00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,440 Speaker 1: if a full circuit is being made, and if there 471 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:19,320 Speaker 1: you get two different outcomes depending on if there's a 472 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:24,520 Speaker 1: one or a zero. Right, So if you get one outcome, 473 00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,080 Speaker 1: for example, if the circuit is made, you know that 474 00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,639 Speaker 1: the value is uh. You know what the value is 475 00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,159 Speaker 1: inside that cell because it can only be that value, 476 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:34,960 Speaker 1: and if the circuit is not made, then you know 477 00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,479 Speaker 1: it's the opposite value, right, And so you're you're thinking, well, 478 00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:41,359 Speaker 1: if the charge goes through, it means this. If the 479 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,520 Speaker 1: charge doesn't go through, it means that you collect that 480 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:48,200 Speaker 1: with all of these cells, and that's what builds up data. Remember, 481 00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,600 Speaker 1: each of these cells represents one bit, so a zero 482 00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,920 Speaker 1: or a one, unless that's a well, I guess I 483 00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,480 Speaker 1: should say that that would be an s l C, 484 00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,720 Speaker 1: a single level cell which can represent either a zero 485 00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,160 Speaker 1: or a one. You could also have a multi level cell, 486 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,879 Speaker 1: and in fact, most ssd s are multi level cells. Now, 487 00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,360 Speaker 1: these can contain uh two or more bits. Usually it's 488 00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:12,719 Speaker 1: two bits or three bits, which means that if it's 489 00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,040 Speaker 1: a two bit system, there are four potential values that 490 00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:20,280 Speaker 1: you could find within that cell. It would either be zero, zero, zero, one, 491 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:25,159 Speaker 1: one zero, or one one. But with a multi level cell, UH, 492 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:27,680 Speaker 1: it's a little more complicated as well, because you know, 493 00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:29,600 Speaker 1: like I said, you could use the weak voltage to 494 00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,320 Speaker 1: determine whether or not the content of a single layer 495 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,960 Speaker 1: cell is a zero or a one. With multi level 496 00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:40,600 Speaker 1: level cell, because there are four potential UH outcomes, you 497 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,600 Speaker 1: have to use different voltages and essentially you work from 498 00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,440 Speaker 1: the weakest and you work your way up and as 499 00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:47,840 Speaker 1: soon as that circuit is complete, then you know what 500 00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:53,480 Speaker 1: the value of that cell is. Did I just Chris's 501 00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:55,880 Speaker 1: brains are actually leaking out of his ears right now. 502 00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:59,800 Speaker 1: I just find the whole thing revolting. Yeah, I thought 503 00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:03,160 Speaker 1: you get a charge out of it. So anyway, Yeah, 504 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,719 Speaker 1: it all has to do with these voltages and UH 505 00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:11,040 Speaker 1: and that that's all the reading information to write to 506 00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:16,360 Speaker 1: UH to It is UM even more complex actually. Well. 507 00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,040 Speaker 1: One of the things to note though is that making 508 00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:26,000 Speaker 1: these changes UH the voltage changes can be dangerous UM 509 00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,560 Speaker 1: using the high voltage to to do these changes, which 510 00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,360 Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why it is so difficult 511 00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:38,440 Speaker 1: to uh to erase and rewrite on this flash memory 512 00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,720 Speaker 1: that that's used in SSCs. That's one of the reasons. 513 00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:44,160 Speaker 1: The other reason is that when you are writing information 514 00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,880 Speaker 1: to a an SSD, you have to write it in 515 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,520 Speaker 1: in pages so roads. So think of think of this 516 00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,840 Speaker 1: grid paper again. You can only write to a single 517 00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,800 Speaker 1: row at a time, all right, when you're erasing, you 518 00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,960 Speaker 1: have to erase these in blocks of pages. You can't 519 00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,320 Speaker 1: erase one row, you can't erase one page. You have 520 00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,680 Speaker 1: to erase a block of pages, which tends to be 521 00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,760 Speaker 1: about a D twenty eight rows total, which equals about 522 00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:17,560 Speaker 1: five twelve kilobytes. Uh. There's actually some extra information there too, 523 00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:21,120 Speaker 1: because there are a few, uh few cells that are 524 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,920 Speaker 1: dedicated to things like error correction and other information. So 525 00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,160 Speaker 1: there's technically a little more than that. But the data 526 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:32,040 Speaker 1: that you're actually writing to the SSD or erasing from 527 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,680 Speaker 1: the SSD is either in four or eight kilobyte pages. Again, 528 00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:40,240 Speaker 1: that depends upon the format of the solid state drive. 529 00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,000 Speaker 1: And uh, when you're racing's aud twenty eight pages, so 530 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:49,560 Speaker 1: five twelve kilobites so or for the four kilobyte pages anyway, 531 00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:54,360 Speaker 1: so you've got you can write in a page, you 532 00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:58,080 Speaker 1: erase in a block. This is why it's really hard 533 00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:01,600 Speaker 1: to you can't. This is why you can overwrite information 534 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,280 Speaker 1: because your file that you know that this has nothing 535 00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:07,960 Speaker 1: to do with file size. This is just the individual 536 00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:13,400 Speaker 1: bits that are found within those cells. Right. So a 537 00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,440 Speaker 1: block might contain the end of one file in the 538 00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:21,040 Speaker 1: beginning of another file. So you can't erase an entire block, uh, 539 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,200 Speaker 1: just because you erased one particular file, because you if 540 00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,040 Speaker 1: you did that, then you would lose the beginning of 541 00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:31,320 Speaker 1: a of an unrelated file that you did not delete, right. 542 00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:35,440 Speaker 1: And and it treats old files that have been marked 543 00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:40,160 Speaker 1: for deletion as information that should be saved. It doesn't 544 00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:43,480 Speaker 1: make Uh. There's on every drive there is a controller 545 00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,000 Speaker 1: that provides instruction for the drive, and it doesn't know 546 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:52,200 Speaker 1: the difference between the file that I just uh quote 547 00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:57,000 Speaker 1: unquote on my computer deleted and the computer marks for delete. Oh, 548 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,280 Speaker 1: it's okay to overwrite this sector of the drive, um 549 00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,360 Speaker 1: versus a file that I want to keep. So it 550 00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,280 Speaker 1: treats anything that's written in there as well. I better 551 00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,239 Speaker 1: save this. Yeah, And just so that you guys can 552 00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: kind of envision what is going on here, So let's 553 00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:16,959 Speaker 1: go back to that grid paper example. Let's say you've 554 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,440 Speaker 1: got a sheet of grid paper. If this were like 555 00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,760 Speaker 1: a solid state drive, every single one of those cells, 556 00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,120 Speaker 1: if this was a brand new sheet, nothing had been 557 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,320 Speaker 1: saved to the sheet yet, actually every single one of 558 00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,120 Speaker 1: those cells would have a one in them. And when 559 00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,920 Speaker 1: you were writing information, what you do is you apply 560 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,360 Speaker 1: a certain voltage and you would switch that one to 561 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:41,000 Speaker 1: a zero. Switch. Switching the one to a zero is 562 00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,280 Speaker 1: not such a big deal. Switching the zero back to 563 00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:48,360 Speaker 1: one is a huge deal. And here's here's why you 564 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:53,800 Speaker 1: cannot overwrite specific parts of this this page. You have 565 00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:57,040 Speaker 1: to use enough voltage to switch that back to a 566 00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,920 Speaker 1: one that if you were to try and target a 567 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:05,760 Speaker 1: single cell, that energy could overflow into neighboring cells, which 568 00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,760 Speaker 1: would make those flip. And if you're making all of 569 00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,400 Speaker 1: those flip, that means you've just corrupted the data, right 570 00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,560 Speaker 1: because not all those not all of those zeros need 571 00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:20,160 Speaker 1: to be turned back into ones. Effective students going yeah, 572 00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,720 Speaker 1: so that's so, that's why you can't target a specific cell. 573 00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,200 Speaker 1: You have to do it in these blocks. And uh, 574 00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,960 Speaker 1: the way, the way a solid state drive actually does 575 00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,880 Speaker 1: this handles this because eventually you will have to have 576 00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,440 Speaker 1: that information race or else you'll run out of space. 577 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:40,320 Speaker 1: You're a space just even every time you save a 578 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,320 Speaker 1: new version of that document, if it's a document that 579 00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:45,120 Speaker 1: you're working on, as opposed to like we'll use that 580 00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,000 Speaker 1: as an example, UM as a type of file you're 581 00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,160 Speaker 1: you're creating. Let's say that you've created a document. Every 582 00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,080 Speaker 1: time you save a new version of it, it's writing 583 00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:58,320 Speaker 1: that information to more pages on your solid state drive. Well, 584 00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,360 Speaker 1: if you never array, if if it never had the 585 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,280 Speaker 1: opportunity to erase the information on that drive, you would 586 00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:08,239 Speaker 1: run out of space eventually. Yes, So the way it 587 00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,239 Speaker 1: tries to handle this is that eventually there's a there's 588 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,640 Speaker 1: got to be a connection between the operating system and 589 00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,840 Speaker 1: the solid state drive that lets the solid state drive. No, 590 00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:25,960 Speaker 1: this particular information that is stored within your pages is stale. 591 00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:31,080 Speaker 1: This information does not really UM this this isn't pertinent anymore. 592 00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:35,120 Speaker 1: You can get rid of this. What will happen is rubbish. Yeah, 593 00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,360 Speaker 1: and there's this is called garbage collection. Actually, what happens 594 00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,719 Speaker 1: is the solid state drive will take a block that 595 00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:47,880 Speaker 1: contains the pages that have stale information, and we'll copy 596 00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:52,840 Speaker 1: that entire block and save it again within the drive. 597 00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:56,960 Speaker 1: So now you're saying, wait a minute. Now you've just uh, well, 598 00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,600 Speaker 1: technically it only copy the stuff that is um that 599 00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,200 Speaker 1: is not stale. So you've got a block of of pages. 600 00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:06,320 Speaker 1: Some of those pages are stale, some of the pages 601 00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,919 Speaker 1: aren't stale. The solid state drive will copy the stuff 602 00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,600 Speaker 1: that's not stale and paste into a new block and 603 00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,520 Speaker 1: a new series of pages. So you've just doubled all 604 00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,120 Speaker 1: the non stale content that is on your solid state drive. 605 00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,000 Speaker 1: And I hear you screaming, but you said this is 606 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,960 Speaker 1: to conserve space. How can you conserve space by copying 607 00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,720 Speaker 1: and pasting? Here's how. After that information has been copied 608 00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,560 Speaker 1: and pasted into the new section of the solid state drive, 609 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,040 Speaker 1: the old block that has both the stale and not 610 00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,200 Speaker 1: stale information in it can be erased. You can apply 611 00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,279 Speaker 1: that high voltage, flip those zeros back to ones, and 612 00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,360 Speaker 1: you can do it safely because you've already duplicated the 613 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,839 Speaker 1: non stale data into new pages. The stale data does 614 00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,320 Speaker 1: not get duplicated, so it gets erased, which means that 615 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,640 Speaker 1: that block is now available to write to again. There's 616 00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,239 Speaker 1: another downside here, which is that every single time you're 617 00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:06,760 Speaker 1: writing to those cells, you're actually breaking down the system 618 00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,600 Speaker 1: a little bit. There's only so many times you can 619 00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,440 Speaker 1: do this and the cells will remain viable. Eventually, the 620 00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:16,360 Speaker 1: cells will no longer be able to hold a charge 621 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:18,680 Speaker 1: because they've been broken down too many times with this 622 00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,840 Speaker 1: voltage being applied to them. Um SSD vendors have gone 623 00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,560 Speaker 1: to some effort to prevent that from being an issue, 624 00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,720 Speaker 1: at least for a while. Um In a lot of cases, 625 00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,640 Speaker 1: there will be uhm extra space on the drive of 626 00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,319 Speaker 1: which you are unaware. Right. You might have a say, 627 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,080 Speaker 1: let's say that you get I don't know, a sixty 628 00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:46,920 Speaker 1: gigabit gigabyte rather um hard drive space and there's actually 629 00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,359 Speaker 1: sixty eight gigabytes in there. You just don't know about 630 00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:53,200 Speaker 1: this other eight because they've been included to take into 631 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:58,000 Speaker 1: account this issue. So that one uh this whole garbage 632 00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:02,040 Speaker 1: collection process has some space to work in and you 633 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:04,440 Speaker 1: won't end up filling up your hard drive before it 634 00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:09,719 Speaker 1: can take advantage of that and to as cells die 635 00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,800 Speaker 1: and are unusable, it can open up new pages of 636 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:17,319 Speaker 1: cells that have not been written to an X number 637 00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,359 Speaker 1: of times, and we're talking thousands of times here. It's 638 00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:21,640 Speaker 1: not like, you know, it's not like you're gonna fill 639 00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:23,799 Speaker 1: up your hard drive and three days later it's gonna 640 00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,040 Speaker 1: be useless. But well, it shouldn't be. No, it shouldn't be. 641 00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:29,719 Speaker 1: But but you know, your mileage may vary depending upon 642 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:36,000 Speaker 1: manufacturer and model. But the ideally it would take thousands 643 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:40,080 Speaker 1: and thousands and thousands of times before it would become obsolete, 644 00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,480 Speaker 1: before it would not work anymore. And the thing is 645 00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,160 Speaker 1: that most of us use our computers frequently enough where 646 00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:49,480 Speaker 1: eventually that could happen. I mean, if you upgrade on 647 00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,560 Speaker 1: a regular basis, you may never notice this problem. But 648 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:55,279 Speaker 1: if you don't, you might notice that your computer takes 649 00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,000 Speaker 1: longer to pull information from the hard drive that it 650 00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,720 Speaker 1: used to and you may notice that you are running 651 00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:03,880 Speaker 1: out of hard drive space when you thought that you 652 00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,879 Speaker 1: should really have more. Yeah, why has all that gone? 653 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:11,120 Speaker 1: And it's because those cells are no longer viable. Well, um, 654 00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,640 Speaker 1: to prevent this, the controller on the s s D 655 00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:19,439 Speaker 1: is designed to route traffic in a way that will 656 00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:24,360 Speaker 1: try to put a fairly even uh distribution distribution of 657 00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,399 Speaker 1: usage across the different cells on the drive UH, thus 658 00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:33,560 Speaker 1: hopefully ensuring that no set of cells is worn down 659 00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,600 Speaker 1: more than the others. They're trying to put put even 660 00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:39,040 Speaker 1: wear and tear on it. Um. But the more full 661 00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:41,360 Speaker 1: you get now they're One of the complaints about s 662 00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:43,840 Speaker 1: s d s is that they seem to grow slower 663 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,560 Speaker 1: as time goes on. That's because that information, uh, those 664 00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:51,120 Speaker 1: those cells are getting full of information, those pages are 665 00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:55,080 Speaker 1: filling up. And because of the way they work UM 666 00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,120 Speaker 1: and they have to write and rewrite blank pages at 667 00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:03,000 Speaker 1: a time, Uh, it can seem to slow down because 668 00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,440 Speaker 1: there isn't as much space to UM for them to 669 00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,680 Speaker 1: the controller to route the information, re and and regroup 670 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,560 Speaker 1: things into pages uh fresh pages that can be written 671 00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:16,440 Speaker 1: and rewritten or not rewritten but UM erased and written 672 00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:20,680 Speaker 1: to UM. So UM. You know that that's that's sort 673 00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:24,560 Speaker 1: of a I would say an illusion. It's not really 674 00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:26,959 Speaker 1: an illusion. But that's why it's not because the drive 675 00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:31,320 Speaker 1: is uh crapping out generally, I mean, uh yeah, I 676 00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,919 Speaker 1: mean the vendors for these devices generally say that they're 677 00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:39,800 Speaker 1: good for you know, tens of thousands of read write cycles, 678 00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,120 Speaker 1: so they should be good for for years. Of course, 679 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,760 Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you shouldn't back up your hard drive. However, 680 00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,400 Speaker 1: it does mean that defragging like we used to do 681 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,839 Speaker 1: with the magnetic traditional platter drives is not a good 682 00:39:53,880 --> 00:40:00,160 Speaker 1: idea because you're adding to writing and rewriting uh those cells. Right, 683 00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:04,200 Speaker 1: You're you're effectively you are decreasing the life span of 684 00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:06,920 Speaker 1: your hard drive. And the controller really should be doing 685 00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,800 Speaker 1: that anyway with a garbage collection and um organization of 686 00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:12,799 Speaker 1: that that work, so it should be less of an 687 00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:14,640 Speaker 1: issue than it used to be. And the controller really 688 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,280 Speaker 1: is kind of like a very small, very specialized computer. 689 00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:21,600 Speaker 1: So in a way, you have a computer within your 690 00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,279 Speaker 1: computer because the controller is is taking this information and 691 00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:30,400 Speaker 1: putting it in the most uh, the the optimized format 692 00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:34,560 Speaker 1: and layout. So yeah, it's uh, it's an interesting approach 693 00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,400 Speaker 1: using this voltage difference instead of magnetism in order to 694 00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,920 Speaker 1: store information, and it has become incredibly useful, especially for 695 00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,880 Speaker 1: things like portable electronics. I mean, it's really decreased the 696 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:49,040 Speaker 1: size of what our electronics can be. Plus you can 697 00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,239 Speaker 1: go running with it and not worry about crashing the 698 00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,439 Speaker 1: platters on your hard drive. Ye. This is why back 699 00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,080 Speaker 1: when I remember when m P three's were MP three 700 00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,080 Speaker 1: players were first coming out, and there was always the 701 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,800 Speaker 1: argument of do you get the one with the spinning 702 00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:02,200 Speaker 1: hard drive, or do you get the one with the 703 00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,239 Speaker 1: flash hard drive? And the flash hard drives tended to 704 00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,759 Speaker 1: be more expensive, but they also were the ones you 705 00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:10,919 Speaker 1: could go and exercise with and not worry about them, 706 00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,360 Speaker 1: you know, something skipping around or or or corrupting a 707 00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:19,320 Speaker 1: file or crashing? UM, do you would would you like 708 00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,560 Speaker 1: to wrap up? Or should we mention encryption? We could mention, well, 709 00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,600 Speaker 1: you can mention encryption because frankly, my my research did 710 00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:31,120 Speaker 1: not cover that topic. UM okay, well the uh UM. 711 00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,880 Speaker 1: This is another in the series of articles UM on 712 00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,920 Speaker 1: ours Technical about S s d S, also written by 713 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,080 Speaker 1: Lee Hutchinson UM. And it's kind of fascinating because uh 714 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:46,200 Speaker 1: and in the process of UM compression UM, they go 715 00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:50,480 Speaker 1: through a D duplication phase. So it's sort of you know, 716 00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,759 Speaker 1: if they find two copies of the same information, it 717 00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,839 Speaker 1: will essentially get rid of one so that it takes 718 00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:57,879 Speaker 1: up less space and the hard drive. That's essentially how 719 00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:00,719 Speaker 1: how these things are done. And it's done in UM 720 00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:07,319 Speaker 1: other types of files to UM image and sound and uh, 721 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:09,360 Speaker 1: you know those kinds of things that they find the 722 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:11,840 Speaker 1: same information, they can reduce the amount of information in 723 00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,279 Speaker 1: that file. Well, they do that with hard drives too. 724 00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,720 Speaker 1: But one of the interesting things that that Hutchinson mentions 725 00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,960 Speaker 1: is now that modern operating systems are allowing you to 726 00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:24,040 Speaker 1: encrypt your entire hard drive. That actually makes it tougher 727 00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,719 Speaker 1: for s s d s because they can't de duplicate 728 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,759 Speaker 1: that information anymore. Because once you encrypted a file, it 729 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,920 Speaker 1: has its own individual signature. So even if they were 730 00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:39,439 Speaker 1: the same exact document, um, the computer sees it as 731 00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:44,280 Speaker 1: two different encrypted documents because the encryption information is slightly different, 732 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,680 Speaker 1: so will no longer recognize them as the same information. 733 00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,600 Speaker 1: So they will see them as completely different information. Taking 734 00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:56,399 Speaker 1: bulky and safe exactly. So it takes up the same file, 735 00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:58,760 Speaker 1: will take up twice as much space if it's been duplicated, 736 00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:00,880 Speaker 1: and it will not be the leaded because there's just 737 00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:05,200 Speaker 1: enough difference there so that it has essentially fooled the 738 00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,440 Speaker 1: controller into thinking it's two files, not one that's been 739 00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:12,480 Speaker 1: duplicated to two files. And what now? Um. The other thing, uh, 740 00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,120 Speaker 1: the thing to know is, you know, these these devices 741 00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:18,640 Speaker 1: are coming down in cost um. They're showing up more 742 00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:22,440 Speaker 1: often in uh, in laptops, ultra books and and you know, 743 00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:24,360 Speaker 1: just a few years ago, I remember that it was 744 00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:28,680 Speaker 1: really unusual to find a solid state drive in a computer, 745 00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,320 Speaker 1: and you were paying a premium for that if you 746 00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:33,520 Speaker 1: wanted it. And it was kind of interesting because at 747 00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,759 Speaker 1: the time, the solid state drives, while you were paying 748 00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,480 Speaker 1: a premium, tended to have a smaller capacity than the 749 00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,279 Speaker 1: traditional hard drives did when they first started coming out. Well, 750 00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:48,000 Speaker 1: now we've seen that slowly start to change, and that's 751 00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,560 Speaker 1: to be expected. That's the way technology tends to work 752 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,520 Speaker 1: in the market. We tend to see when it first 753 00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,880 Speaker 1: comes out, it tends to be pretty expensive and fairly limited, 754 00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,759 Speaker 1: and as it advances and we get better at the 755 00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:05,759 Speaker 1: production approach, these prices start to fall. And then next 756 00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:10,680 Speaker 1: thing you know, it's everywhere. Yes, so um, you know 757 00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,320 Speaker 1: it seems like they're they're becoming more common. Um. You know, 758 00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:18,279 Speaker 1: even even in run of the mill laptops. However, UM, 759 00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:21,759 Speaker 1: you know, the cost is still not as as inexpensive 760 00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:25,120 Speaker 1: as traditional hard drives. UM. And you know, you do 761 00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,680 Speaker 1: have those trade offs to be made versus the traditional 762 00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:30,800 Speaker 1: So if you were getting say you really wanted a 763 00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,600 Speaker 1: nice workstation to to use at home, you already have 764 00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,399 Speaker 1: a laptop, um, and you were choosing whether you wanted 765 00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,840 Speaker 1: to spend that extra hundred dollars two hundred dollars for 766 00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:42,080 Speaker 1: an SSD. You know it does. You would get some 767 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,759 Speaker 1: uh savings in in uh A cost if you went 768 00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:48,839 Speaker 1: with the magnetic drive. UM, but you would trade off 769 00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:52,320 Speaker 1: speed for that and the number of read write cycles. 770 00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:56,960 Speaker 1: Of course, magnetic drives have their own idiosyncrasies and you 771 00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:00,279 Speaker 1: may or may not lose your your hard drive. No, 772 00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,680 Speaker 1: it's not not to say that that the older hard 773 00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:06,440 Speaker 1: drives are any better. They just have a different set 774 00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,319 Speaker 1: of pros and cons. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it all 775 00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,759 Speaker 1: depends on what your use case scenario is. And I mean, like, 776 00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,920 Speaker 1: i have machines at home that of both types. So 777 00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:18,960 Speaker 1: I've got machines that have a spinning hard drive, I 778 00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:20,880 Speaker 1: gout machines that have solid state drives. I have an 779 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:23,279 Speaker 1: external drive that's a solid state drive that I used 780 00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,120 Speaker 1: for backups. Uh. You know, there's a lot of different 781 00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,239 Speaker 1: ways of going about this, and I think that both 782 00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:34,680 Speaker 1: approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages that will apply 783 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:37,360 Speaker 1: to you based upon the way you use your machines. 784 00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,440 Speaker 1: So that's always a good thing to think about. UH. 785 00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:42,520 Speaker 1: And it may even be that to you. It doesn't 786 00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:44,920 Speaker 1: really matter other than maybe the fact that you can 787 00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,240 Speaker 1: get a solid state drive with a small reform factor 788 00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:49,719 Speaker 1: than you could if it were a physical hard drive, 789 00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,000 Speaker 1: you know, the mechanical hard drive. I should say mechanical, 790 00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:55,080 Speaker 1: not physical, because they're both physical. It's not it's not 791 00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:59,040 Speaker 1: a virtual hard drive. Um so yeah, I mean that's 792 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,120 Speaker 1: it's all up to the way you use your machines 793 00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:04,160 Speaker 1: and what you what your personal preferences are, and I 794 00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,120 Speaker 1: guess what your budget is as well. Um yeah, I'll 795 00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:11,440 Speaker 1: never forget. I knew that solid state memory was going 796 00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:15,000 Speaker 1: to be a big deal. This flash based memory sticks 797 00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:19,239 Speaker 1: not solid state drives, slightly different, but I knew it 798 00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,880 Speaker 1: was gonna be a big deal when we went to 799 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,200 Speaker 1: I guess is when I went to C E. S. 800 00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:25,920 Speaker 1: It was the year after the two of us went 801 00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,080 Speaker 1: because the year that Chris and I both went to 802 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:31,320 Speaker 1: see EES, we picked up lots and lots of press 803 00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:35,560 Speaker 1: kits that were either paper press kits or CD comic 804 00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,600 Speaker 1: disk space. And then the next year I started seeing 805 00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:46,440 Speaker 1: companies produce their press kits on USB thumb drives, and 806 00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:48,920 Speaker 1: that's when I was I thought, Okay, this is a 807 00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:51,279 Speaker 1: big enough deal, because now it's cheap enough where these 808 00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:56,320 Speaker 1: companies can produce thousands of these things for an exhibition. 809 00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,160 Speaker 1: Because you've got lots and lots of people at c S, 810 00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:01,600 Speaker 1: you have to produce tons and tons of these not 811 00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:04,319 Speaker 1: literally tons and tons, but lots and lots of these 812 00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,440 Speaker 1: thumb drives, uh, in order to give them out to 813 00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,319 Speaker 1: all the people who stop by. Of course, nowadays they 814 00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:13,120 Speaker 1: don't even do that anymore. Now you get a card 815 00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:14,960 Speaker 1: that has a U R L and you go to 816 00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:18,000 Speaker 1: a website that has the press release, which is even 817 00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:21,120 Speaker 1: better really, although it does mean that I don't end 818 00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,399 Speaker 1: up with lots of thumb drives that I can use 819 00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:29,320 Speaker 1: once I erase the that's on there. You mean you 820 00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:32,680 Speaker 1: haven't moved everything into the cloud. Now I'm working on it, 821 00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,200 Speaker 1: but you know there. Here's the other thing about the 822 00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,520 Speaker 1: cloud that's a totally different discussions. I'm gonna I'm gonna 823 00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:38,880 Speaker 1: drop this. I was about to go off on a 824 00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,400 Speaker 1: cloud rant about how all my information is in different 825 00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:45,520 Speaker 1: pockets in the cloud. That's my problem. Now, so let's 826 00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,480 Speaker 1: let's that's a totally different podcast, which I'm sure we'll do. 827 00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,080 Speaker 1: And we've talked about cloud storage in the past anyway, 828 00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,400 Speaker 1: So we're gonna wrap this up. Guys, I do recommend 829 00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,520 Speaker 1: you go to ours Technica and look at those articles 830 00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,279 Speaker 1: if you are interested in solid state drives and what 831 00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,040 Speaker 1: makes them more work. We also have the flash based 832 00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,680 Speaker 1: memory article on how stuff works that has h illustrations 833 00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,440 Speaker 1: and animations in it to help explain the process. There 834 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:11,160 Speaker 1: are a lot of great resources on the web to 835 00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,800 Speaker 1: really explain this stuff in further details, so if you're interested, 836 00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:16,480 Speaker 1: I highly recommend you seek them out because it's a 837 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:18,839 Speaker 1: fascinating subject and I wish we could go into even 838 00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:23,000 Speaker 1: more detail, but one an audio format podcast makes it 839 00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:27,560 Speaker 1: difficult to do that. And to frankly, my understanding of 840 00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,520 Speaker 1: the subject matter is only so deep, right, I mean, 841 00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:33,360 Speaker 1: I think there comes a point where I've hit my 842 00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:36,040 Speaker 1: threshold and I'm thinking, all right, I kind of get this, 843 00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:41,080 Speaker 1: but I need more time to really digest it. So uh, Fortunately, 844 00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:43,279 Speaker 1: I'm sure you guys have nothing but time on your hands. 845 00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,080 Speaker 1: I mean, you're listening to us, right, So go out 846 00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,200 Speaker 1: there and check it out. And uh, if you want 847 00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:51,560 Speaker 1: to send us any suggestions for topics, or you have 848 00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:54,560 Speaker 1: a question, or you just want to say howdy, you 849 00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,800 Speaker 1: can write us our email addresses text uff at Discovery 850 00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,280 Speaker 1: dot com, or send us a message on Twitter or Facebook. 851 00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:05,440 Speaker 1: Our handle at both those locations is text of hs 852 00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:07,760 Speaker 1: W and Chris and I will talk to you again 853 00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:12,600 Speaker 1: really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics, 854 00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:19,080 Speaker 1: visit how staff works dot com. Brought to you by 855 00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:22,400 Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you