A Laptop Innovation We All Need
Intel and AMD are making processors faster, ATI and nVidia continue to accelerate graphics and video, while faster memory and buses underpin both. Meanwhile, hard disks are spinning a bit faster, but getting bigger at the same time. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems like hard disk access speed continues to be the bottleneck. So can our laptops really get much faster?
The answer is hopefully yes, and here is an idea that hopefully will make them faster and more reliable at the same time. Some of you may have heard of SSD (Solid State Disk), but probably only a handful of you have ever had your hands on a machine with one built-in. For those who don't know what an SSD is, it is a small capacity "disk" made of flash memory chips that retain information without power. By small capacity I mean that most current implementations are 32gb in size (small when compared to 250gb laptop hard drives). An SSD is useful for the following reasons:
These features and benefits make an SSD very useful, but not necessarily very valuable (the price might be too high for many). Now I haven't seen how people are implementing SSD's in laptops, but I wanted to make my case for the solution that would make such a laptop very valuable to the mass market (thus creating a true innovation). It works like this:
Well, one way to fix some of the worst computer problem is to do a low level format of the hard disk and re-install your operating system and applications. This would make it almost painless to do this, and would allow users to keep their computer in peak performance at all times instead of limping along until they have time to do a full backup and restore. I'm limping along waiting for that moment as we speak. This all seems perfectly doable, but I wonder whether laptop manufacturers will deliver dumb SSD's or something more intelligent, to move from useful to valuable, and reap the rewards from the true innovation.
What do you think?
The answer is hopefully yes, and here is an idea that hopefully will make them faster and more reliable at the same time. Some of you may have heard of SSD (Solid State Disk), but probably only a handful of you have ever had your hands on a machine with one built-in. For those who don't know what an SSD is, it is a small capacity "disk" made of flash memory chips that retain information without power. By small capacity I mean that most current implementations are 32gb in size (small when compared to 250gb laptop hard drives). An SSD is useful for the following reasons:
- Uses less power than a hard disk
- Faster access than a hard disk
- Can be used together with a hard disk
These features and benefits make an SSD very useful, but not necessarily very valuable (the price might be too high for many). Now I haven't seen how people are implementing SSD's in laptops, but I wanted to make my case for the solution that would make such a laptop very valuable to the mass market (thus creating a true innovation). It works like this:
- SSD is upgradeable as memory prices per gigabyte drop
- Laptop comes with the operating system installed on the SSD
- Laptop comes with the operating system installed on the hard disk
- Laptop comes with an application that allows you to choose which to boot from on startup
- Laptop comes with a one-click application that does the following:
- Reformat and optimize the SSD
- Does a fresh install of the operating system onto the SSD
- Re-installs operating system level components of compliant applications
- Gives you a list of non-compliant applications and the option to remove them
(these applications would have to be reinstalled manually to work properly)
Well, one way to fix some of the worst computer problem is to do a low level format of the hard disk and re-install your operating system and applications. This would make it almost painless to do this, and would allow users to keep their computer in peak performance at all times instead of limping along until they have time to do a full backup and restore. I'm limping along waiting for that moment as we speak. This all seems perfectly doable, but I wonder whether laptop manufacturers will deliver dumb SSD's or something more intelligent, to move from useful to valuable, and reap the rewards from the true innovation.
What do you think?
Labels: Braden Kelley, Innovation
posted by Blogging Innovation at 5:19 PM
2 Comments:
Idiotic. The "best way" to fix any computer problem? Give me a break. Only someone who lives totally sheltered from normal people (non nerds) would think that a clean install is a good way to fix problems. It's a last resort. After a format most people would have to call a professional to get their stuff back the way it was before.
It is one of the ways, not the only one, and it would be great if there was a single button to reinstall the OS and reattach applications to it.
The first wave of the computer industry was to make things faster, now it is time to make things smarter.
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