Kickflash experiences

[Piru]

@tjaoz

Is your head so small that only E3B cliches may find room there, like that: "Speed never does matter"?

When producers of computer USB cards stopped producing USB 1.1 controllers, replacing them with Hi-Speed USB 2.0 units, he started releasing USB 1.1 controllers (Highway/Subway/Algor). You know: For E3B products "Speed never does matter."

Flash card designed to speed up booting and to allow USB stack to be launched even before OS has started is not an USB controller. It doesn't need the speed.

But what is the point in using Algor or Kickflash as a Flash disk, if their read speed is lower than that of a hard disk?

a) To allow USB stack to launch even before OS has loaded: Namely to allow use to USB keyboards, mice and mass storage.

b) To remove the need to have an extra reboot when using OS 3.5/3.9 (Remove the need to wait for hard disk to spin up, boot, load startup-sequence, start SetPatch, reboot, wait HD become available again and continue booting)

These are the main functions of Algor/Romulus afaik.

[Piru]

@tjaoz

Why would anyone want to replace harddisk with slower, smaller capacity and shorter lifetime flash disk?

Noise? Today's HDs are really quiet. Typically PSU fan makes more noise.
Seek time? Doesn't compensate the slow read/write speed. RAM: and RAD: are way faster anyway.
Removable & easy to pick with you? Well, I wouldn't call Zorro card removeble media... HD on removable HD rack makes much more sense.

I'm sorry but this flash disk usage doesn't just make any sense.

The only sensible use I can think of is holding extra ROM modules / new kickstart and/or drivers. That way system can be expanded to allow it to use special HW even before system itself boots up (USB devices for example). That doesn't involve flash disk.