🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6181@brl-smoke.ARPA>, geoffs@brl-smoke.ARPA (Geoffrey Sauerborn ) writes:
> Why not have this "16 Mbyte RAMdisk" battery backed-up? (With a built-in
> clock/calendar to boot!) If it is battery backed-up and the battery
> will last 5+years and/or is rechargeable, then who needs a hard disk?
> 

    I think Glen already answered this question on the net awhile back...
his argument is  a) that to provide a reasnable battery backup (say 24 to
48 hrs) for 16 meg of dynamic RAM would take a REAL big battery and b)
that for every megabit of memory, you can expect to have one bit randomly
toggled every so many days (2? 10?). A Ramdisk is just not SAFE for long
term storage, but with a 20 minute battery-backup to protect against most
power failures, I for one would be willing to risk it (as long as I have 
backups).

    Of course, this means that if you are occasionally prepared to backup
and/or rebuild your ramdisk, you could survive quite nicely without a 
hard disk for quite some time.

                                 Mark Brinsmead @ University of Calgary

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Disclaimer:  What do I know about this? I'm a software type.