Isn't he replacing disk I/O with network I/O, and unless you are talking about SSD isn't the network faster?
http://serverfault.com/questions/238417/are-networks-now-fas...
Doesn't google's search engine demonstrate this?
http://serverfault.com/questions/238417/are-networks-now-fas...
Doesn't google's search engine demonstrate this?
30ms latency is basically the best-case scenario you can expect for consumer internet (with a nearby datacenter and all that.) 10ms latency is about the worst-case latency for a rotational disk. And almost no consumer internet outside of Japan or South Korea is going to get more than 2 MB/s of real bandwidth, compared to 100 MB/s of real bandwidth from rotational hard drives.
Throw wireless or uploading into the mix (who's going to use a Chromebook over ethernet?) and it's even worse.
Congrats on asking this question, because it's a window into a foundational fact of life in computer programming and technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hierarchy
You can feel good about gaining important knowledge. (Advanced exercise: extrapolate from the implications of not having known one piece of fundamental knowledge, then take action.)
It was my understanding that most or all of the Chromebooks have (small) SSDs.