Wintec and Aluratec recently came out with expresscards boasting 115MB/s read and 65MB/s write capability.

http://www.wintecind.com/FileMate/index_solidgo.htm

It seems to me that eBoostr, with some modifications, could turn these devices into an alternative SSD for notebook users like myself.

Here would be the advantages:

1) Fits flush in the expresscard slot; no profile change or USB flash drives hanging off my laptop.

2) Huge cost savings.  I currently have a 320GB WD Scorpio Black HDD.  To buy an SSD capable of replacing that storage capacity would easily be $850 or more.  I can buy one of the high speed expresscard SSDs for just over $125.

3) Configuration flexibility from having a second hard drive.

4) Solves the stuttering and performance degradation problems that many SSDs experience.  Stuttering is eliminated because eBoostr directs writes to the hard drive, then periodically updates the expresscard in a background operation.  Performance degradation is likely eliminated or, if not, much easier to correct: simply reformat the SSD and rebuild the cache.

5) No longer need a memory cache, so I gain usable memory.

To take full advantage of the possibilities that these card offer, eBoostr would have to allow me to pin entire directories to the cache.  For instance, I’d like to place all of my program files on the cache, whether they are “frequently used files” or not.  Perhaps eBoostr already allows me to do this, but I’m not convinced that it does.  This is only an educated guess as to how the program works, but I suspect that if only caches “frequently used files” (what ever that means).  If my cache size is too small, then it allows me to assign priority to the frequently used files I cache.  But I don’t understand that it allows me to pin entire directories to the cache.

BTW, adding the appropriate capabilities to eBoostr could open whole new marketing channels for it.  I don’t see the cost of SSDs coming down significantly anytime soon.  eBoostr plus one of these devices could give laptop users 80% of the performance gain at a fraction of the cost of an SSD.

Thoughts?