The memory speed was slightly slower than DDR4 but the benefits didn't seem to outweigh the downsides. I think it probably kicked a lot of ass for specific use cases (eg. in-memory database that needs persistence), but the market was too small. Plus, SSDs are getting so ridiculously fast that it would put pressure on a product like this too.
Perfect for when civilization collapses and we have to do some wasteland 2 shenannigans to get the lost knowledge of the past back by hoarding laptops.
it'll hit business servers first... speed and power draw = profits. Even if they cost 1000x more than SSDs, the power savings and speed alone could pay for itself in a datacenter.
So you know those encrypted files you might have? You know how your computer is able to display them? Yeah, you enter the passcode and then it and any information derived from it is (probably, barring special hardware) stored in RAM to in order do that. This isn't usually an issue because turning your computer off will quickly erase the RAM and it can no longer be used to open that file.
Sounds more like a very small security risk, to me. For most people if someone steals their laptop it doesn't really matter what kind of RAM is in it.
If you're in some kind of high-security role then use a laptop with volatile RAM instead. Non-volatile will probably be more expensive than the old stuff for quite a while so it's not going anywhere.
Wouldn't it kill your hard drive quickly if every bit in memory was constantly written there - if it was all virtual memory? I think of it like "stuff in my desk" vs "stuff on top of my desk", and now nobody mixes up the papers on my desk when I walk away.
That's what RAM is. Following your analogy, you'll put stuff occasionally inside the desk when you're done with it, and keep working what's on your desk. I see persistent ram as like working inside the desk, which is a bit weird to me. Or a desk that just never gets cleaned up.
Our Families Windows XP Laptop had a RAM to storage feature that essentially did the same. I think Windows killed it off but if I had to guess it's just not a good idea to avoid rebooting properly so I really can't see the use for this.