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Comment: Re:Bundling / wrapping is old news (Score 1) 228

by TheThiefMaster (#38301028) Attached to: Download.com Bundling Adware With Free Software

Correction: The cpu cache line size of modern cpus is 64 bytes. This means that any random RAM access will load 64-bytes (as a single read). The CPU is then capable of extracting 1, 2, 4, 8 or even 16 byte (SSE2 vector load/stores) sections of that into registers, as a single operation if the data is aligned to its size, or as a few micro-instructions if not. This is no different between 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs.

Comment: Re:Bundling / wrapping is old news (Score 3, Informative) 228

by TheThiefMaster (#38282706) Attached to: Download.com Bundling Adware With Free Software




Comment: Re:It'd better happen quick then (Score 1) 311

by TheThiefMaster (#38213790) Attached to: Is the Time Finally Right For Hybrid Hard Drives?

What you really want is failure rate within first N years of operation, which you can't calculate from the MTBF figures.

Actually MTBF is defined as failure rate in the "constant failure rate" stage of a components lifetime, which is between the initial failure rate (aka infant mortality) and wear-out failure stage. So it's actually the failure rate over the regular lifetime of the component (typically 1-5 years).

Comment: Re:It'd better happen quick then (Score 5, Insightful) 311

by TheThiefMaster (#38212952) Attached to: Is the Time Finally Right For Hybrid Hard Drives?

MTBF is not the failure rate of a single disk, it's the average failure rate of disks used in an array. If you have a type of disk with a 100,000 hour MTBF, and use 100 of them (whether in a raid array, a cluster, or 100 individual desktops in a company). Then you will (roughly) replace one disk due to failure for every 1000 hours (100,000 MTBF / 100 disks), or 40 days.

It doesn't try to pretend that a single disk lasts 100,000 hours. That's stupid.

Comment: Re:odd power savings (Score 1) 219

by TheThiefMaster (#37421162) Attached to: On the topic of computer power consumption ...

Dropping the +-5V DC and running with only the +12V DC would greatly simplify power supplies.

But would actually increase power use, because most circuits run on 5V or 3.3V, and the 12V would have to be dividered down (much less efficient for small power users than getting the PSU to do it. For a big power draw like a GPU I think it's better to drop the voltage actually at the GPU). Most laptops drop the 12V line, the batteries tend to be wired to provide 6V or so at max charge (dropping down to 5V at minimum charge).
I suspect the rise of 3.3V chips is why SATA power cables have an additional 3.3V line compared to the old molex power cables.
