destructive read

English

Noun

destructive read (plural destructive reads)

1. (computing, often attributive) A read operation that inherently erases the data that was read, requiring it to be immediately written back to the storage medium to prevent loss of data.

   Although ferroelectric RAM has many advantages over conventional DRAM, it does share one of DRAM's disadvantages: as with DRAM, reading a FeRAM cell is a destructive read process which erases any data in the cell. When using FeRAM for persistent nonvolatile storage, this destructive-read nature can potentially result in data loss or corruption if power to the device is suddenly lost during a read operation.

Antonyms

• non-destructive read

See also

• write-after-read