I really wonder where this common "Flash is faster than HD" myth comes from...

Sure, spin-up is "much faster" (since there isn't any) and seek time is also faster, BUT actually writing or reading data is usually a bit slower. Not that significantly for an average user, but definitely "not faster"

Also, 8-16GB is way too small for many users (myself included), but I guess that it still might be enough for some users, or thin client systems, which mount The Big Drive over network connection.

Also, many filesystems tend to write certain data (edb, directory structure etc.) at always exactly same position on the disk (different from files themselves, which just are "written where there is space"). This combined with the limited write cycles can make those more important parts of the disk fail first.

[ Edited by Jupp3 on 2007/8/30 12:42 ]