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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and how the tech are you? I received a request

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Speaker 1: to talk about flash memory from a hardware engineer, musician,

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Speaker 1: and self described total nerd via the I heart Radio

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Speaker 1: app talk back feature. Uh. That's that little microphone icon

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Speaker 1: you would see if you were to navigate to the

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff podcast page on the I heart Radio app.

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Speaker 1: If you click on that, you can leave a voice

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Speaker 1: message up to thirty seconds long there, and if you

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Speaker 1: want me to include the audio in an episode, you

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Speaker 1: can let me know. I always prefer opt in rather

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Speaker 1: than opt out. This particular voice message did not ask

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Speaker 1: for it to be used in an episode, so I'm

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Speaker 1: just leaving it out to be on the safe side.

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Speaker 1: But let's talk about flash memory now. One thing that

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Speaker 1: we need to clear up is when we talk about

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Speaker 1: flash memory, we're typically talking about data storage, you know,

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Speaker 1: like like a hard drive, rather than talking about something

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Speaker 1: like traditional computer memory like RAM. RAM stands for random

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Speaker 1: access memory. Computer memory, as we typically define it means

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Speaker 1: a temporary storage system that holds data and instructions that

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Speaker 1: a CPU or central processing unit needs when it's running

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Speaker 1: a particular process. Computer memory is what saves a processor

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Speaker 1: from having to retrieve specific information from long term storage

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Speaker 1: over and over and Without RAM, computers would be much

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Speaker 1: much slower than they are. And it's why some folks

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Speaker 1: will say that one way to speed up your computer

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Speaker 1: is to add more memory. It actually gets way more

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Speaker 1: complicated than that, though, and I'm sure I'll talk about

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Speaker 1: that in another episode. Maybe I'll do an episode about

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Speaker 1: the the components in your machine that determine how quickly

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Speaker 1: it runs, because there's a lot of There are a

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Speaker 1: lot of factors, it's not just one thing. Also, one

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Speaker 1: way that folks will describe RAM versus storage is the

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Speaker 1: kind of think of it like human short term memory

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Speaker 1: versus long term memory. We use short term memory to

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Speaker 1: handle something that's going on in the moment, such as

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Speaker 1: let's say you meet someone for the first time, and

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Speaker 1: they introduce themselves and they give you their name, so

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Speaker 1: you use their name as you talk to them. We

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Speaker 1: then commit important stuff to long term memory so that

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Speaker 1: we can pull from that should we ever need to,

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Speaker 1: like remembering that person's name when you see them at

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Speaker 1: a function three years later. Then you don't want to

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Speaker 1: look like a total jerk. By the way, I am

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Speaker 1: really bad at long term memory. I'm not great at

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Speaker 1: short term either. As it turns out, I kind of

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Speaker 1: live in the moment. It's like the world is just

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Speaker 1: constantly new and amazing to me. That's the way I

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Speaker 1: prefer to think of it, rather than I him really

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Speaker 1: bad at remembering people's names. But flash memory typically behaves

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Speaker 1: more like a hard drive than RAM does. It's a

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Speaker 1: way to store information for more of a long term solution.

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Speaker 1: Flash drives are also known as solid state storage devices UH.

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Speaker 1: They use an all electronic method to store data, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to traditional hard drives, which have moving parts like

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Speaker 1: platters and read right heads. Also, flash drives are non

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Speaker 1: volatile forms of storage. That means that the data stored

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Speaker 1: on a flash drive is going to stay there even

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Speaker 1: if the computer that the drive is is connected to

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Speaker 1: has been switched off. Stuff in RAM is volatile, so

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Speaker 1: information stored in RAM is volatile. Memory that are volatile data.

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Speaker 1: That means that information will go by by when you

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Speaker 1: power your computer down. RAM requires power to continue to

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Speaker 1: store information. That's not the case with flash storage. Or

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Speaker 1: flash memory. Like a traditional hard drive, a flash drive

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Speaker 1: will jealously cling onto that precious data. It just does

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Speaker 1: so in a different way from traditional hard drives. All right,

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Speaker 1: So let's do a quick rundown of how traditional hard

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Speaker 1: drives work so that we can make this distinction. Now,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned that a traditional hard drive has a platter

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Speaker 1: and a read right head, so you can kind of

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Speaker 1: think of it similar to a turntable or record player

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Speaker 1: and vinyl records. Only imagine that your turntable is able

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Speaker 1: to not just play music on a record, it can

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Speaker 1: also record music to a blank record. Now, with vinyl records,

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Speaker 1: we record information in grooves, and a stylist or needle

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Speaker 1: travels through that groove, and the physical vibrations the grooves

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Speaker 1: transferred to that stylus get transformed into an electric signal

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Speaker 1: thanks to a tiny electro magnet that then can be

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Speaker 1: amplified and sent to speakers, and then we get playback.

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Speaker 1: With traditional hard drive, we're not talking about physical grooves. Instead,

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Speaker 1: we're using the read right head, which is able to

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Speaker 1: generate and detect magnetic fields, so it can align magnetic

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Speaker 1: particles that are on the hard disk platter, and those

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Speaker 1: particles based on their alignment, can represent zeros and ones,

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Speaker 1: you know, bits, the basic language of computers. This, by

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Speaker 1: the way, is why you may have heard that you

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Speaker 1: should keep powerful magnets away from computers. If that computer

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Speaker 1: relies on any type of magnetic storage, a powerful magnet

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Speaker 1: could change the alignment of the particles on that platter,

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Speaker 1: and that would destroy the data stored on it. You

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Speaker 1: could do that on purpose too, in an effort to

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Speaker 1: make an old hard drive unreadable, you know, to conceal

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Speaker 1: whatever had been stored on the drive. We call this degassing,

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Speaker 1: and uh, it's an important step. If you were to

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Speaker 1: ever like retire a computer and you want to maybe

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Speaker 1: donate it, or sell it or or give it away,

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Speaker 1: chances are you want to make sure that anything that

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Speaker 1: you had stored on that computer is well and truly gone.

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Speaker 1: You don't want it to resurface at some point. It

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Speaker 1: might have some sensitive information on there, So that's one

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Speaker 1: reason you might want to decoss an old computer. But

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Speaker 1: flash drives don't use magnetism to store data, So you

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Speaker 1: could bring a powerful magnet near a solid state drive

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Speaker 1: and you would not change a single bit of data

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Speaker 1: that's stored on that device. So a flash or solid

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Speaker 1: state drive isn't susceptible to the gossing. That's good and bad.

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Speaker 1: It's bad only if you're trying to come up with

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Speaker 1: a way to prevent someone from retrieving data that was

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Speaker 1: once stored on that flash drive. You would have to

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Speaker 1: take a different approach in order to do that. Now,

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Speaker 1: the listener who left this request and my apologies but

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Speaker 1: I don't actually have your name, mentioned that he was

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Speaker 1: familiar with flash from ages back and referred to I

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Speaker 1: PROM Now I'm assuming he means e E p R

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Speaker 1: O M, but he could have meant E E p

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Speaker 1: R O M will cover both. So E E p

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Speaker 1: r O M stands for electronically eraseable programmable read only memory,

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Speaker 1: and it is kind of a forerunner to flash. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of the foundation that flash would be built upon,

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Speaker 1: although the two are distinct. So let's talk about read

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Speaker 1: only memory for a second because it's that's also important. Now,

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Speaker 1: I already mentioned RAM, that's random access memory. RAM is

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Speaker 1: volatile and it is rewriteable, meaning you can read or

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Speaker 1: overwrite data stored in RAM as much as you like.

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Speaker 1: Read Only memory or ROM is different, as the name indicates,

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Speaker 1: you usually can only read data from a ROM storage

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Speaker 1: source like a WRAM micro chip, but you aren't typically

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Speaker 1: able to write new data to a ROM. With computers,

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Speaker 1: we usually find very important basic level process is stored

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Speaker 1: in ROMs, such as the boot sequence for a computer,

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Speaker 1: so that your machine goes through all the necessary steps

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Speaker 1: to swing into working order. You wouldn't want to overwrite

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Speaker 1: that stuff. These are the most basic instructions needed to

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Speaker 1: make the machine work. If you're in the main or

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Speaker 1: multi arcade machine emulator scene, you might think of ROMs

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Speaker 1: as the code for a specific arcade game. In the

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Speaker 1: old days of arcades, manufacturers would program games on actual microchips.

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Speaker 1: The game was never meant to change, and so programming

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Speaker 1: them on rom's made perfect sense. So if you were

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Speaker 1: to open up one of those classic arcade machines, you

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Speaker 1: would find circuit boards holding various chips, and that, in

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Speaker 1: fact would be the game. It's not from a disk

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Speaker 1: or anything like that, unless you're talking about a game

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Speaker 1: like Dragons Layer, which in fact used laser desk technology.

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Speaker 1: But that's beside the point, and those games were stored

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Speaker 1: on read only memory. However, e E PROM E PROM

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Speaker 1: also includes the allotronically erasable programmable part. Right, So clearly

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Speaker 1: I PROM is not exactly like traditional ROM. It is

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Speaker 1: user modifiable. Users can erase and reprogram individual bytes of

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Speaker 1: data stored on I PROM. This in itself was an

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Speaker 1: evolution of single E E PROM E P R O

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Speaker 1: M that was just eraseable programmable read only memory and listener.

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Speaker 1: If this is what you were referring to, my apologies, Uh,

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Speaker 1: it means that you go further back than I anticipated.

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Speaker 1: So uh, E PROM actually was another form of PROM

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Speaker 1: that's programmable read only memory. You might wonder what's the

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Speaker 1: difference between E PROM with a single E and e

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Speaker 1: PROM with a double E, and it really is that

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Speaker 1: electronically eraseable part. So with the old e PROM chips

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Speaker 1: one E, you could technically erase data that was stored

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Speaker 1: on that chip. However, to do so, you first had

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Speaker 1: to expose the chip to ultra violet light for a

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Speaker 1: good long while, like an hour. So imagine having to

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Speaker 1: wait an hour in order to erase data that was

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Speaker 1: stored on a chip so that you could write over

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Speaker 1: it again. Obviously, that would not be viable for your

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Speaker 1: average user. Data on a double E e PROM, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, could be erased by applying a slightly

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Speaker 1: higher than normal electrical voltage to the chip. Now, as

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Speaker 1: you might imagine, that's way less work than exposing a

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Speaker 1: chip to ultra violet light, and it made e PROM

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Speaker 1: storage viable for specific applications, not yet to the point

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Speaker 1: of a solid state drive. Now, before I jump into

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Speaker 1: what makes flash work, remember flash is kind of an

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Speaker 1: evolution of e PROM. But let's let's talk about the

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Speaker 1: history of flash. So i PROM dates back a few decades,

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Speaker 1: and flash we can actually trace back to the mid

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Dr Fugio Massuoka, who was working for Tashiba,

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Speaker 1: developed flash memory. Masuoka said that the name flash was

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Speaker 1: actually suggested by a colleague, Mr. Shoji are Zumi, because

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Speaker 1: Razumi felt that the process of a racing store data

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Speaker 1: off the the flash method was very similar to an

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Speaker 1: old school cameras flash. Now, I suspect that some of

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Speaker 1: you all out there might not have had that much

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Speaker 1: experience with flash cameras because everyone's using their phones, and

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Speaker 1: I mean some people have like the little led flash

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Speaker 1: on their phones. But it's totally different from the old

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Speaker 1: flash cameras, which used capacitors to generate a very quick,

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Speaker 1: very bright flash of light when you were taking a

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Speaker 1: picture in low light situations. And flash cameras used to

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Speaker 1: be huge, and of course they still are being used

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Speaker 1: in some settings, like professionals of course still use them,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of I think a lot of the

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Speaker 1: average people out there probably have had limited access to

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Speaker 1: them if they are below a certain age. I'm of

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Speaker 1: an age where I remember flash being like just standard

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Speaker 1: on cameras, like you really needed it or else. Any

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Speaker 1: picture you took indoors was not going to come out properly. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the actual methodology for storing data on a flash drive

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Speaker 1: was really clever. I'll talk about that more after we

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Speaker 1: come back from this break. Okay, let's talk about how

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Speaker 1: flash data is stored in the first place. Imagine you

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Speaker 1: have a grid, so you've got columns and you've got rows.

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Speaker 1: Each box in this grid, each cell within that grid

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Speaker 1: has two transistors located at each of the intersections around it.

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Speaker 1: One of those transistors is what we would call a

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Speaker 1: floating gate transistor, which holds a charge inside it. The

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Speaker 1: other is a metal oxide silicon or moss transistor and

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Speaker 1: serves as the control gate. Uh now, I guess I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna need to talk about gates. As we're using floating

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Speaker 1: gate and control gate. That doesn't really mean anything unless

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Speaker 1: you dive a little further in. So gates are really

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Speaker 1: that's shorthand for logic gates, and this serves as the

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Speaker 1: foundation for any circuitry system uh, specifically digital systems. So

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Speaker 1: with a logic gate, you've got a circuit that at

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Speaker 1: least has at least one input, and it can have

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Speaker 1: more than one, but has at least one, and it

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Speaker 1: has only a single output. And what is being input

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Speaker 1: and output in this case, well, we're talking electric charges. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These circuits provide specific functions which we designate with names

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Speaker 1: like and or not nor nand and so on. Those

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Speaker 1: names tell us how the gates behave and the output

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Speaker 1: that they will produce based upon the type of input

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Speaker 1: coming into the gate. For example, a simple and gate

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Speaker 1: might have two inputs and will refer to these inputs

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Speaker 1: as input A and input B, and it has a

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Speaker 1: single output. Remember all gates have a single output we'll

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Speaker 1: call the output X. There are four possible scenarios with

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Speaker 1: this gate, which we will represent using binary data or bits.

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Speaker 1: That's that is, zeros and ones. So instead of talking

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Speaker 1: about electric charges. We're gonna talk about feeding zeros and

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Speaker 1: ones to a logic gate through its inputs and what

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Speaker 1: is generated as an output. Now you've got your and

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Speaker 1: logic gate, and let's say that you feed zeros to

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Speaker 1: both input A and input B. Well, and AND gate

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Speaker 1: will then produce a zero as the output. So output

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Speaker 1: X will generate a zero. Now let's say that you

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Speaker 1: feed a zero to input A and a one to

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Speaker 1: input B to your hand gate. Well, the X output

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Speaker 1: will still be zero. In fact, the only way that

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Speaker 1: the X will equal one is if both A and

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Speaker 1: B inputs are ones. That's why it's called an and gate.

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Speaker 1: The gate produces a one if all inputs going into

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Speaker 1: the gate are also ones. And remember like we're talking

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Speaker 1: about a simple example here where we have two inputs,

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Speaker 1: but you could have more than two inputs going into

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Speaker 1: a single gate, but it would have to be all

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Speaker 1: ones going into that gate for the gate to produce

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Speaker 1: a one. On the other side, with flash drives, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about NOR or nand architectures, So a NOR gate

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Speaker 1: will only produce a one if all inputs going into

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Speaker 1: the gate are at zero. So if input A zero

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Speaker 1: input via zero, then x will equal one. But with

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Speaker 1: any other combination, like if you have all ones or

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Speaker 1: a combination of zeros and ones going in as input,

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Speaker 1: the output is going to be a zero. A nand

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Speaker 1: gate is a not and gate. This will produce a

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Speaker 1: one out put in every single case, except when all

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Speaker 1: inputs are ones. So if you've got two or more

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Speaker 1: zeros going into a nand gate, you're gonna get a

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Speaker 1: one coming out. If you get a combination of ones

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Speaker 1: and zeros, you're gonna get a one coming out. If

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Speaker 1: all the inputs are ones, you get a zero coming out. Now,

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Speaker 1: these are the functions gates can serve, and you can

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Speaker 1: actually program stuff by creating all these different logic gates

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Speaker 1: in a various series in order to produce particular you know, outcomes.

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Speaker 1: But let's talk about the gates themselves. So we're talking

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Speaker 1: about transistors here. The transistors and electric circuits can serve

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Speaker 1: as a type of switch, either allowing data to pass

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Speaker 1: through or not. On one side of the transistor, you

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Speaker 1: have the source that is the place where input is

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Speaker 1: coming from, and on the other side of the gate,

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Speaker 1: you have the drain that's the place where the output

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Speaker 1: is going to. With a standard moss fat transistor. A

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Speaker 1: moss FET stands for metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor.

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Speaker 1: You would open the gate or you know, turn the

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Speaker 1: switch on by placing a charge on the gates electrode.

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Speaker 1: That would turn the semiconductor transistor into a conductor and

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Speaker 1: allow electricity to flow through. Removing the charge from that

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Speaker 1: electrode makes the semiconductor transistor behave like an insulator. That's

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Speaker 1: the big deal with transistors. They can, depending on the situation,

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Speaker 1: act either as a conductor or insulator. They can either

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Speaker 1: allow a charge to move through or prevent it. All right, Now,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about a floating gate transistor that has an

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Speaker 1: extra piece to it. The floating gate is electrically isolated

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Speaker 1: from the rest of the transistor. That isolation is key

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Speaker 1: because it means once you store a charge in a

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Speaker 1: floating gate, that charge will stay there. And that's because

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Speaker 1: the floating gate isn't connected to a drain where the

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Speaker 1: charge could otherwise go. This gets a bit tricky to

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Speaker 1: explain without visual aids, but I'll give it a go.

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Speaker 1: All right, So with a flash drive, we've got your

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Speaker 1: control gate, and we've got your floating gate, and an

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Speaker 1: intersection in this grid of rows and columns. The rows

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Speaker 1: of the grid are the word line, and the word

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Speaker 1: line goes through the control gate. With that link, the

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Speaker 1: cell and flash memory holds the value of one, so

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Speaker 1: by default, all the cells in flash memory are set

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Speaker 1: to one, not to zero. To change any cell to

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Speaker 1: the value of zero, you actually have to put in

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Speaker 1: some work. So the rows are the word line. What

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Speaker 1: then are the columns, Well, that's called the bitline. The

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Speaker 1: bitline can carry a charge to the floating gate by

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Speaker 1: pushing the charge through at a slightly higher voltage than

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Speaker 1: what is used for the control gate. That's enough for

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Speaker 1: electrons to bridge the gap of the otherwise isolated floating gate,

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Speaker 1: and the floating gate will then hold a negative of charge.

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Speaker 1: Because electrons are negatively charged sub atomic particles, and this

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Speaker 1: process is called the Fouler nord Heim tunneling process. The

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Speaker 1: collection of electrons in the floating gate then becomes kind

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Speaker 1: of a negatively charged force field between the floating gate

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Speaker 1: and the control gate. A cell sensor monitors how much

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Speaker 1: charge passes through the floating gate, and if the flow

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Speaker 1: is above a certain threshold, the value of the cell

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Speaker 1: is interpreted as a one. If the value is below

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Speaker 1: this threshold, the value within the cell is considered to

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Speaker 1: be zero. So another way to think about it is

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Speaker 1: that if the cell conducts a current, it's representing one.

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Speaker 1: If it is acting more like an insulator, it's representing

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Speaker 1: a zero. To return the cell value to one, you

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Speaker 1: have to apply a higher voltage electric field to the cell.

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Speaker 1: And really this process typically targets sections of the flash

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Speaker 1: memory called blocks, particularly for the type of flash memory

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Speaker 1: that we who's frequently um and sometimes you might even

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Speaker 1: have to target the entire flash chip itself and boiled down.

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Speaker 1: By controlling the voltage to the control and floating gates

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Speaker 1: of the transistors on the solid state drive, you can

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Speaker 1: create the zeros that represent the data. Remember it's by

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Speaker 1: default it's set at one, So really creating zeros is

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Speaker 1: what is writing data to that. Otherwise you just have,

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Speaker 1: you know, a block of ones. So erasing flash memory

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Speaker 1: really just means turning all the cells within the memory

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Speaker 1: to one, and writing to flash memory really just turning

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Speaker 1: means turning selective cells to zero. So let's say you're

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Speaker 1: starting off with a bite of blank flash memory. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that would be eight ones. So a bite is eight bits, right,

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Speaker 1: and we've established that a blank cell is a cell

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Speaker 1: that's holding a one within it. Let's say you want

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Speaker 1: to write a bite that is actually zero followed by

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Speaker 1: seven ones. You could theoretically keep writing to that same bite.

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Speaker 1: You could change you could reprogram that byte by changing

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Speaker 1: other ones in that series to zeros over time. You

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Speaker 1: could not, however, change in these zeros back to ones

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Speaker 1: without erasing the entire byte, really, without erasing the entire

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Speaker 1: block that the bite is on. So you could write

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Speaker 1: data in the form of zero one zero one, zero

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Speaker 1: one zero one, but you could not then go back

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Speaker 1: to zero followed by seven ones without first erasing everything

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Speaker 1: and starting over. It gets a little confusing. Don't worry,

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Speaker 1: it will get more confusing. I should also mention there's

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Speaker 1: also flash RAM. But that's the type of volatile memory,

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Speaker 1: meaning if it does lose power, then any information stored

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Speaker 1: within that memory is lost. This is the type of

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Speaker 1: memory found in things like car radio systems, where you've

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Speaker 1: maybe stored preset radio stations and such. So you might think,

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Speaker 1: but my radio stations stay on even after I'm you know,

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Speaker 1: turn off the car and I get out and do whatever.

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Speaker 1: But when your car is off, that system is still

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Speaker 1: drawing a very tiny amount of power from your car's

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Speaker 1: battery in order to maintain those settings. However, if your

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Speaker 1: vehicle were to totally lose power, like let's say you

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Speaker 1: had the battery completely removed, then you would lose that

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Speaker 1: data and you would have to reset all your favorite stations. Okay,

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Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll get into a little bit

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Speaker 1: more detail about NAND versus NOR architectures, because flash comes

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Speaker 1: in both, and we'll talk a bit more about how

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Speaker 1: flash is organized by architecture. Uh trust me, it actually

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Speaker 1: is really interesting. It does get a bit complicated, don't worry.

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Speaker 1: I'm here with you every step of the way. But

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Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Okay. I mentioned earlier

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Speaker 1: that flash typically comes in NAND and NOR architect ictures,

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Speaker 1: and the NAND architecture is the one most of us

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Speaker 1: have experience with. It's the type of memory used for

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Speaker 1: SD cards, USB flash drives, and computer solid state drives.

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Speaker 1: NOR is usually used for storing digital configuration information. Uh

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Speaker 1: nand flash has transistors in grid wired in series. NOR

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Speaker 1: flash has its transistors or cells wired in parallel. That

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Speaker 1: architecture does matter because with NOR you can actually program

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Speaker 1: at the bite level. You can write and rewrite at

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Speaker 1: the bite level. When nand you have to do it

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Speaker 1: at a much larger level, which we'll get to in

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Speaker 1: a second. And we're gonna stick with nand because again

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Speaker 1: that's the type most of us interact with regularly. The

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Speaker 1: organization of a nand flash drive goes with cell, which

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Speaker 1: is your individual unit in which you know you're storing

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Speaker 1: either a zero or a one one by default. Next,

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Speaker 1: you have strings, and as that name suggests, a string

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Speaker 1: is a series of cells that are connected to one another,

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Speaker 1: where the source of one cell connects to the drain

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Speaker 1: of the next cell. One level up from strings, and

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Speaker 1: you have pages. So a page is a collection of strings.

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Speaker 1: A collection of pages makes up a block, and a

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Speaker 1: collection of blocks connected through the same bitline makes a plane. Finally,

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Speaker 1: you've got the flash dye, which consists of one of

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Speaker 1: or more planes, plus all the components that allow the

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Speaker 1: drive to write, erase, and read data in those cells. Now,

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Speaker 1: this arrangement allows the drive to read and write on

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Speaker 1: a page level. So that's as far down as the

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00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: read right functions go as to the level of page. Remember,

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00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: you have cells, strings, then pages, so read write is

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Speaker 1: at the page level, and if you want to do

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Speaker 1: a race, you actually have to go up to the

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Speaker 1: level of a block. So to erase data from a

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Speaker 1: flash drive, you work in blocks. So let's say you've

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Speaker 1: got some data that's stored within a block, and there's

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Speaker 1: technically room for more data to be stored there, right,

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Speaker 1: So let's say that half of that block is filled

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Speaker 1: but the other half is available. Well, you want to

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Speaker 1: add more information to that block, but in order to

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Speaker 1: do that, you can't just write the information to the

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Speaker 1: end of the block. You would first need to erase

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Speaker 1: the block. So the way this actually works is that

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00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,920
Speaker 1: first you would have a different block in the memory

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Speaker 1: which has been untouched. All the cells are set to one,

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Speaker 1: so that block is effectively blank. You would actually copy

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Speaker 1: over the information in the partially filled block and you

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00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: would store it in the new block, and then you

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Speaker 1: would add in the new data that you wanted to

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Speaker 1: say at the end of that. So it's like you're writing.

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Speaker 1: You're rewriting stuff that was already there and then writing

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Speaker 1: the new information at end of it. The old block,

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00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:04,360
Speaker 1: the one you pulled from the one you copied, can

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Speaker 1: then be erased. All the cells can be reset to one.

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Speaker 1: Now this sounds messy, but I should add that when

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00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: I say you have to do this, it's not actually

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00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: you doing it, it's the computer. One drawback of flash

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Speaker 1: memory is that it can wear out over time. It's

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Speaker 1: not as big a deal now as it used to be,

433
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: and it never was a huge deal, but it was

434
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: something that you had to keep in mind. So you

435
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: have a finite number of a race and right cycles

436
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: or program a race cycles, also known as PE cycles.

437
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: See when I think of PE cycles, I think of

438
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: grade school and having to exercise. But no, over over time,

439
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: the cells will wear out and they won't hold a

440
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: written block of data properly. You can kind of think

441
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: of it in the way that um that batteries have

442
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,679
Speaker 1: recharge cycles, and I have a limited number of those, right,

443
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 1: Like a battery capacity to hold a charge decreases over time,

444
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: and the more times you discharge and recharge a battery,

445
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: the closer you get to that that level where the

446
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: amount of energy it can store is no longer sufficient.

447
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: Same sort of thing with flash drives. But again, these days,

448
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: flash has advanced to a point where it's likely that

449
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 1: other components in your system are gonna wear out or

450
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: break before you ever have to worry about running up

451
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: against the limitations of flash memory. Um. And that's for

452
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: two reasons. One, the design of flash memory has improved

453
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: over time so that they can withstand more program erase cycles.

454
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: And two we've also been able to cram way more

455
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: memory into a flash drive over time, and so you

456
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: don't have to erase as often because you've cut so

457
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:04,360
Speaker 1: much space to use. Now we all know, I mean

458
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: we should all know that when you create more space,

459
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you suddenly have all the freedom

460
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: in the world. Because if you have space, at some point,

461
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: you're gonna find ways to fill it, right, Like I

462
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: remember Bay back in the day when I was very young,

463
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: you know, hearing something about like a computer that would

464
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: come like with a two D fifty six megabyte hard drive,

465
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: and I was, I was, I was boggled. I was like,

466
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: who would ever be able to fill up a hard

467
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: drive that was as massive as two D and fifty

468
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: six megabytes? That's just crazy? And of course that's nothing now, right, Like,

469
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:53,479
Speaker 1: we don't even think about that being a significant amount

470
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: of storage these days, you know, you probably have programs

471
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:01,239
Speaker 1: that are far larger than that at the time, I thought, well,

472
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: there's no way, which at this point, it doesn't matter

473
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: how big the drive is. I know that someone's going

474
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: to find a way to fill it up, and probably

475
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,959
Speaker 1: way faster than I would anticipate. But these days, if

476
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: you look at solid state drives, you can find them

477
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: in the terabyte range. Right, They're holding terabytes of data

478
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: and these things can be really small. It's fascinating to

479
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: me how we've developed this technology. Uh. And it's due

480
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: to things like the manturization of transistors that it's even possible,

481
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: along with the improvement in architecture, so that you could

482
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: have this very dense storage system and a very small

483
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: form factor. Uh. Phenomenal to me that you can, you know,

484
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: pop onto a store and buy a two terabyte solid

485
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: state drive. Now, there are other benefits to solid state

486
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: drives too. Hard drives. You know, I mentioned before that

487
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: they are not prone to being a race if you

488
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: happen to be, you know, close to a large magnet.

489
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: But there are other big benefits as well. A solid

490
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: state drive has no moving parts in it, so it's

491
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: not as delicate as a hard drive is. A hard

492
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:15,719
Speaker 1: drive like a mechanical shock, as in dropping it and

493
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: having it land on the floor. That could be enough

494
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 1: to break it. Right. It could unaligned the platter so

495
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: the platter is no longer in the proper plane, which

496
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: means it won't turn properly. It could damage the red

497
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: right head. You could do physical damage to a hard

498
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: drive relatively easily. I say relatively because I used to

499
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: have an MP three player that had a physical hard

500
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: drive in it, and goodness knows, I dropped it a

501
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,239
Speaker 1: couple of times and I was just fortunate that it

502
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: was made exceedingly well and UM didn't immediately break the

503
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: hard drive. But yes, solid state drives are much more

504
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: resistant to physical damage than hard drives are. They're also

505
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: way faster because again, you don't have moving parts. You

506
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: don't have to spin a platter up to beat and

507
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: move the read right head to the proper physical location

508
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: on the platter to read the information. UM. For that reason,

509
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: you know, gamers really like solid state drives because games

510
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: will load much more quickly. You'll be able to load

511
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: information from the drive to memory to be processed faster

512
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: than you would with a physical hard drive. Again, when

513
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: we start talking about what is it in your computer

514
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: that makes it faster or slower drive. Drive type is

515
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: one of those factors, not necessarily the most important one,

516
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: but it is one of the factors. So I guess

517
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: I will do an episode. Maybe next week, I'll try

518
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: and do an episode about what are the things that

519
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: determine how fast or slow your computer is? Uh, because

520
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: I think that would be a fun discussion to have. Anyway,

521
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: that's kind of a low down on what flash memory

522
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: is and how it works. Like I said, it gets

523
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: a little complicated to understand without the use of visual aids. Fortunately,

524
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,479
Speaker 1: there are tons of resources out there where you can

525
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: learn more about this, including videos and papers and diagrams

526
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: and such. Um there's an article and how stuff Works

527
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: my old Stomping Grounds that explains how flash memory works.

528
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: All of that can be really useful if you want

529
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: to learn more. I highly recommend you look into it.

530
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the suggestion. Remember, if you

531
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: want to leave me a suggestion, you can do like

532
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: this listener did and leave a message on the voice

533
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: talkback feature on I Heart radio app. Go to the

534
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: tech Stuff portion of I Heart Radio's app. Use that

535
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: little microphone icon. You can leave a message up to

536
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: thirty seconds and length, or you can reach out to

537
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, the handle that we use as Text

538
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: Stuff HSW, and I'll talk to you again really soon.

539
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more

540
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app,

541
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

542
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