Am 14.06.2010 20:34, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
>>> Today if it doesn't fit in RAM, the OS makes the computer
>>> pretend it has more RAM than it does (with the *minor issue* of a vast
>>> slowdown and halving the life of your harddrive).
>>
>> I'd rather put it this way: Today, if it doesn't fit in RAM, the OS
>> helps you "juggling" the memory chunks to work on. (And if it doesn't
>> fit in L1 or L2 cache, the CPU provides essentially the same service.)
>> Which makes life much easier in a world where you don't know how much
>> RAM you'll have when programming the software. (Back then, you /did/
>> know the specs of the one machine you wrote your programs for.) Plus,
>> it allows much easier and faster (and therefore more economical)
>> design of software where runtime performance doesn't matter that much.
>
> Well, there is that, yes. But I (and presumably everybody else) would
> prefer it if we could actually make RAM really, really fast...

... which will never ever again happen for main memory, at least not in 
the sense of being equally fast as whatever caches we'll be using then: 
We'll always have to live with memory being arranged in multiple tiers 
of different speed.


>> (As for harddrive life, I guess that depends on your harddrive.)
>
> If stuff is being swapped out just because it isn't being used right
> now, that's fine. But watch a program trying to random-access several GB
> of data when you don't have multiple GB of RAM. It's an extremely
> efficient way to give your HD a *very* strenuous workout! ;-)

Sure, but some HDs are designed for this type of life.

BTW, it's not harddrive life that worries me in such situations, but the 
bare struggle to get the system's attention back. Try killing a 
swapping-mad program when it keeps thrashing the task manager out of 
main memory... >_<

Post a reply to this message