NVMe HDD Demoed At Open Compute Project Summit

[sdack]

Fuck off, virgins.

Anyone can write "Fuck off". What it needs is a personal touch. There, fixed it for you.

[barti_ddu]

That's just plain wrong.

I've always thought that in case of PS/2 connection the key presses are registered like this:

key press -> the keyboard controller generates interrupt.

In case of the USB connection (at least USB 2.0, where all clients are AFAIK passive, but I doubt the keyboard can work in "higher" modes) the process is like this:

key press -> the keyboard controller registers it -> the USB host controller polls the state -> the USB controller generates interrupt.

I.e. simple interrupt vs polling + interrupt.

Is it plain wrong too?

[willmore]

I've always thought that in case of PS/2 connection the key presses are registered like this:

key press -> the keyboard controller generates interrupt.

In case of the USB connection (at least USB 2.0, where all clients are AFAIK passive, but I doubt the keyboard can work in "higher" modes) the process is like this:

key press -> the keyboard controller registers it -> the USB host controller polls the state -> the USB controller generates interrupt.

I.e. simple interrupt vs polling + interrupt.

Is it plain wrong too?

That has nothing to do with n-key rollover. USB can do n-key rollover just as well as PS/2, if not better.

If your concern is 'which one has lower latency', then you might want to consider transfer speed. Yes, it may take 1/1000 of a second (worst case) for a 12Mb/s USB-1 keyboard to get polled, but it'll transfer its message faster than the PS/2 will.

That part of the video directly addresses the latency issue.

[billyswong]

OK I am curious. What possible use does PS/2 serve these days that isn't better served by USB other than wake on keyboard? I have to admit it surprises me every time I buy a mobo and it still has a PS/2 connector even if they have gotten down to one.

Because somebody such as me still have perfectly functional ps/2 keyboards. They works and we aren't throwing them away in any time soon.

[coder]

So much for the "Non-Volatile Memory" part of Non-Volatile Memory express

Uh, I think you got that backwards. HDDs are certainly non-volatile memory. What they're not is very express.

Back in the old days, there used to "drum memory" that used a rotating drum like DRAM and then "core memory", which was the fast, expensive stuff (like SRAM, today).

[coder]

One thing is for sure. SATA is way past it's shelf life.

Why do you say that? It's cheap, it works, and it's absolutely fine for HDDs and even most SSDs.

There's no way NVMe cables are going to be a cheap, and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't as sturdy or reliable, either.

[coder]

Most motherboards don't have PS/2, but I do still see some high-end modern ones still come with it, which is kind of a shock. Maybe it's a government-required compatibility thing for military hardware? They're still using MS-DOS of all things so it wouldn't surprise me.

A lot of PS/2 KVM switches are still in use. I was using one that supported VGA + PS/2 or USB, until I finally upgraded to HDMI/USB, about 6 months ago. (of course, I didn't use it to switch video for my main PCs/monitor -- I only used the VGA for machines that mostly ran headless).

It does occur to me that there are fewer security exploits via PS/2 than USB. Remember that "Bad USB" exploit, from a few years back? Plus, using a PS/2 keyboard & mouse would enable certain security-conscious agencies & businesses to put epoxy in all their PCs' USB ports.

[coder]

Seagate should just produce better SSDs instead of trying to push old technologies, that draw too much power and needed to die yesterday.

If you're talking about discontinuing HDDs in favor of SSDs, we're not there yet. Modern SSDs don't have the data retention span of HDDs. HDDs also have better GB/$ + peak capacity. Why else do you think cloud providers and hyperscalers still buy them?

According to technology roadmaps from a couple of the big HDD manufacturers, HDDs are set to keep ahead of SSDs for a while.

• https://www.anandtech.com/show/16544...ap-120-tb-hdds
• https://www.anandtech.com/show/15484...or-hard-drives

[coder]

Because somebody such as me still have perfectly functional ps/2 keyboards. They works and we aren't throwing them away in any time soon.

Given that you can just use a little PS/2 -> USB adapter dongle, that wouldn't be the only reason.

[coder]

The main thing that bugs me about this is it's just taking us further down the path of bifurcating consumer and server technologies. Like the SSD ruler form factor and the SXM and OAM module form factors for GPU/compute-accelerators.

I lament the waning days of being able to scrounge parts from decommission servers and slap them in my home rig. That's how I got a 10 Gig ethernet card datacenter-grade SSD that I'm using.

Okay, for hard drives, I'd only buy new. However, if the enterprise market branches off to using an interface we don't have in PCs or NAS boxes, then we lose the option to get enterprise-class drives for them. I'm currently running WD Gold-series, in my fileserver.