Tim Hampton's Blog / Comments

EDIT: 11/21/09 - Added CNN.com article link

I just got done reading an article over at Macrumors.com entitled “Google Previews Chrome OS, Scheduled For Release in Late 2010”.  The point that stuck out to me the most is that, while Google’s mum about who they’re partnering with on developing hardware to run and support Chrome OS, the devices (e.g. netbooks) will most likely not have any internal storage like a hard drive but will instead utilize flash-based memory and cloud storage.

Woefully, I never wrote an article on my thoughts about a year and a half ago where I was sharing with a then-coworker of mine that I felt that in 10 years we would move completely away from HDD-based internal storage to either a flash drive based solution or a cloud solution.  As I explained to him then, computer users are doing more and more with portable flash drives and cloud storage.  It’s only inevitable that computers and their operating systems move toward this end and Chrome OS appears to be embracing this move from the outset.  An article from Wired Magazine on CNN.com agrees with my assessment: Google OS: the end of the hard drive?

This shouldn’t surprise anyone given that Google is easily the largest consumer cloud computing and storage services provider in the world.  The kicker is that Chrome OS already boasts boot speeds of a blazing 7 seconds!  If this holds to the final release, or improves, we’re looking at a full-featured operating system that you can turn on at the same time as your TV and both would be ready to use from a cold start at the same time.  That’s unheard of!

Personally I doubt Chrome OS 1.0 will still boot at that speed on release day, but even if it were to slow down a few seconds it would still kick the tail of any other consumer operating system currently available (except maybe some super-slim -nix variants).  I probably won’t have the money to plunk down on the hardware when the OS first comes out, but I’ll probably become a late adopter after the first few kinks, of any major OS, are worked out.