SATA Disk Types

Factors that determine Storage Devices

1. Form Factor

It is the chip design parameter that determines which type of hard drive fits the motherboard or cellphone.

Cellphone is a computer.

2. Connections

Type of connection that the device has to fit the HDD, SATA or NVMe drive..

3. Dimensions

Size determine the price and the mass production at the chip factory.

HDD

Drive is considered outdated. 

But this is where I started long before SATA came into existence.

HDD has mechanical parts and has the slowest rate of data transfer.

It's wear and tear is high.

Because it is made of magnatic hardware it can store data for a long time without destruction.

The data transfer is slow due to mechanical parts. This is technically called Latency 

Other BUSS words are Efficiency and Performance. Each device had its own performance quality and efficiency of data transfer.

1. SATA

SATA is considered outdated but I have 3 of them.

120 to 320 to two of 1 terabyte. 

All are functional and I have no desire to go for an expensive m.2 or NVMe devices.

All my academic and non academic data are stored in them. I do not need Google store them in cloud. Infac, I have removed all but the data of the last 3 years.

m.SATA

The letter m in m.SATA stands for mini or smaller, I believe 

Above types slo into SATA interface.

3. NVMe 

They need PCIe slot or interface in the motherboard.

It is the most modern.

NAND flash

NAND comes from the computer terminology the NAND gates of memory blocks. This are modern chips which can be programmed beyond binary program s.

I think the technology refers to Non Volatile Computer Memory.

HDD drives have non volatile memory and the Magnetic Tape can Store more data and they are used by network servers.

Data recovery is possible  with HDD but in SSDs DATA recovery is next to nothing if they are digitally damaged.

1. Form Factor 

3. Mounting Options

Ultimately it boils down to read and write and data transfer which is important in playing digital games

I am too, old for fast games but I promote Linux games but not Windows.

Valve's Steam is ruling the game world.

Solid State Drives were developed to replace old CD/DVD drives. Finding a laptop with CD/DVD ROM is a luxury now.

SATA are defined by the so called Form Factor which defined the interface with which it interact with the operating System and the Boot Loader (BIOS and new GRUB).

1.mSATA

Old laptops

Old SATA interface

2. Mini mSATA

New Slimmer laptops and cellphones.

Old SATA interface. 

3. M.2 SATA

Modern laptop with a slot (interface) to mount the disk.

SATA interface

4. M.2 NVMe

PCIe interface

OCI has 3 generations 3, 4 and 5.

They are not interchangeable.

Non Volatile Memory express.

Speed of 3500 MB in Gen 3

Speed of 7500 MB in Gen 4.

Speed of 14,000 MB in Gen 5.

Motherboard's BUSS support determined the speed of data transfer even though they fit into the same interface or slot.

 

Volatile Memory Blocks

Data are recorded in Units called cells. These cells are stacked one above the other likes bricks.

1. One brick layer is called Single Cell.

.

2. Two brick layer is called multiple not Dual 

3. Three cell layes are called Triple.

4. Four stack layers are called qudreple.

Aurora-Orion

 Aurora

Web site: auroralinux.org (not active)
Origin: USA
Category: Desktop
Desktop environment: GNOME, KDE
Architecture: sparc32
Based on: Fedora
Wikipedia:
Media: Install
The last version | Released: 2.0 | April 14, 2006

Aurora SPARC Linux – a researching & building a Sparc Linux distribution based on Fedora Core. Aurora was originally created after Red Hat dropped support for the SPARC architecture after Red Hat Linux 6.2.

The project status:
– A build 0.1 was released November 5, 2001
– The first “stable” build of Aurora (1.0) was released January 19, 2001
– The second “stable” build of Aurora (2.0) based on Fedora Core 3 was released April 14, 2006
– The Corona Tree (?) was based on Fedora Core 6 

 Orion OS

Orion OS was the first operating system developed by Aurora Systems International back in the 90's as a rival to Microsoft Windows 2.1.

The main advantages to Windows was that Orion OS was much cheaper and worked on slower machines of the time, where Windows couldn't.

Most of the information about Orion OS has been lost to time since the OS wasn't so popular back then to make archives, however some versions have been discovered by people that bought it back then and also people that worked on the OS as well.

Education and Linux

This Piece is in evolution (14-10-2008)

Education and Linux 

One of my first articles on Linux was based on Linux on Education.

Then, I was grumbling about not been able to find a Linux Guru either in Kandy or in Colombo.

Result at that time was appalling negative at that time.

Of course, i found a few gurus from abroad which included Christopher Naegus.

Unfortunately he has stopped writing or updating the Linux Bible.

I wont blame him.

The way, Linux progressing, nobody can keep pace with. 

Moment you write something on Linux and post it, it is outdated by many a miles. 

The topic today is to talk about contribution of Linux to education in general and science in particular.

With the introduction of One Laptop for Child (O.L.P.S) project there was proliferation of  educational products  from France to Germany to Poland to Spain.

The material included from preschool to university level.

Unfortunately, due to interference of Microsoft and they been able to port on O.L.P.S with the sole object of destroying the initiative of OLPS, it is hindering its progress.

For OLPS there is  SOAP (Sugar On A Stick-Means a Flash Drive), packages but unfortunately nobody seems to streamline and organize theses educational material in a systematic manner (built on an existing platform and add on serially to suit the different age groups and needs).

I found few packages very interesting and deal with them first before proposing a scientific way to establish this scenario of Open Source Science and Education.

Education is power in the modern world and that is why this Ranil guy is trying to destroy the Free Education. What we need is to improve the Free Education and not destroy it.

I call it OSSE-U (Open for Students, budding Scientists and Explorers of this Universe.

There is a series of 7 to 10 Linux C.D.S which I have NOT yet downloaded hence i would defer Science for the time being.

This has now matured into Debian Edu DVD and USB.

 

Education and Linux

I am not going to talk about science but education in Linux.

1. gCompris fron France for kids

2. Knoppix for Kids from Germany

3. Alt and Runtu from Russia (no global claim)

4.  DeepIn from China (no global claim)

5. OLPS and Ubuntu probably From mouthy Africa to begin with.

6. SOAP

7. Freeduck

8. Tux

9. Edubuntu limited but res ione has to pay

10. DebainEdu is huge and has evrything, meant for school but standalone installation is better.

11. Mysqi

12. PHP Myadmin

13. Gbasic

14. GFlash

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Open Office Version 1 to 3 (dated16-12-2008)

Open Office Version 1 to 3 (dated16-12-2008)

SunMicroSystem Open Office has taken a giant step from its 2.4 version to 3.

I happen to see this version on a laptop with Linux distribution and was bit curious since I had been using it from version 1 which was the Star Office of Sun MicroSystems Office package released to the web as an open source software. Linux guys grabbed this with enthusiasm and it was bundled with all the Linux distributions.

This was the time I was migrating from Windows to Linux and its features included Web Format as well as PDF format.

I used to import Microsoft Office documents and remove all the Macros with proprietary claims which unnecessarily makes the the word file bigger than it ought to be.

In addition these Macros attract Viruses and make page laying extremely difficult from page to page. It is the nuisance Microsoft users have to encounter.

Auto formatting was a pain in the neck.

Other features of Open Office included that one can save the document in many formats as one wishes so that the recovery (this does not happen with Open Office) of a Microsoft file gone haywire was just a touch of a button.

It has a automatic recovery system when the power fails (if one does not have a battery backup when power fails) which I found annoying but it was a safety feature that was important if you are working on a long file.

Over five year period this happened only  three or four times and you can see what a "Finicky Soul” I am when working with computers.

I have only had one file corruption (one of these recovery incidents) over period of five years that was all due to my 128 RAM getting overloaded (hardware problem and not software) by many programs running at the same time.

That is the beauty of Linux with  multitasking abilities.

I only had to shutdown and restart and the file would be recovered in a few minutes, since the program gave me an adequate warning of the impending file corruption (due to RAM overload) and the misbehavior. I did not use enough swap file in those early days.

That is the value of this office package which I have no hesitation to recommending to anyone especially one is short of cash to buy the Microsoft new office package. I believe it is a waste of money.

The real reason I used was its PDF format which was a necessary ingredient for transferring a file across the Web.

The new version has arithmetic (formula feature) and calculation function which would be very easy for school kids.

Once you are registered with the Open Office home site automatic upgrading is available ad one does not have to wait for the next version.

Only down side that the database cannot be uploaded to an old access database. I have to live with it for the time being but very soon he community would find a way out of this scenario and remove all the Macros and ActiveX script and get the database raw table into its domain, whether Microsoft likes it or not.

Footnote

The exposure of the Internet Explorer to hackers probably from China, raises the question how safe is the Microsoft Software including Office.

Linux has many browsers (explorers) from Dillo to Falkon to Firefox.

Why we Ceylonese not using these browsers speaks of our up to date knowledge of IT Industry.

It is time to move to Linux especially Suse-11 and Mandrake 2009.

Ironically SLT (Sri-Lankan Telecom) does not support its wired service to Linux.

I had to go to Singapore in 2009 and buy a Router for our private use.

The modems they dish out freely in the past and dishing out in this Christmas do not support Linux

They are hooked to Microsoft.

16th December 2008