There have long been two primary options when it comes to disk storage. On one hand, there are HDDs. These disks, which have been in use for decades, store data on magnetic spinning platters. HDDs are cheap and reliable, but they are based on outdated technology, and that means that the devices have exceedingly slow read/write speeds. The other option is, of course, SSDs. SSDs, which do not contain any moving parts, store data within NAND cells rather than on magnetic media. SSDs have gained a reputation for being blisteringly fast, but endurance can be a problem…
What if disk manufacturers had a way of creating high performance, solid state disks that do not degrade over time?
Although this idea might seem like a pipe dream, there is a technology called MRAM that promises to be able to do just that. MRAM is another name for Magneto-Resistive Random Access Memory… The reason why I started off by talking about HDDs and SSDs is because MRAM disks can almost be thought of as a sort of mashup between the two technologies. Like an SSD, MRAM is a solid state storage technology with no moving parts. Whereas SSDs work by trapping an electrical charge in a NAND cell, however, MRAM storage works by manipulating a magnetic field, similar to the way that HDDs are based on magnetic storage.
MacDailyNews Take: This is one of those “years away” deals that will someday, hopefully, bear fruit.