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How I Got Full Windows XP Installed Under 2GB!

B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
Well it is partly true. As I moved the Program Files folder to a flash
drive. I believe this is a useful tip for those with small system
drives. And unlike Hitachi microdrive filter, it doesn't slow down the
computer and isn't a pain in the butt to install. I came up with this
because my nephew's 4GB netbook was always running out of drive space.

You can't normally just install new programs on a flash drive, because
about 50% of them will refuse to install on a removable drive. Nor does
it help for the programs already installed. This method fixes both
problems.

I used BartPE to move all of the folders and files found in the Program
Files folders to a flash drive. I suppose any boot disc would work as
long as you can move folders with it. I tried using Windows Safe Mode,
but it wouldn't move everything. If someone gets it to work, let me
know. I didn't try that hard.

Now the system drive must be in NTFS format, the flash drive doesn't
matter. Now boot Windows in Safe Mode. If you miss the opportunity,
Windows will recreate some of the Program Files once again in Normal
Mode. I haven't tested what to do in this case, so you are on your own
here.

Now with Windows in Safe Mode, I haven't seen Windows needing anything
in the Program Files folder to function, so it appears to behave. Next
you need to use diskmgmt.msc to mount the flash drive in the Program
Files folder. And that is it. Now reboot normally.

Now all of your programs lives on the flash drive. And any programs you
add to Program Files, also gets saved to the flash drive. This frees up
lots of space on the system drive. Also I found no program that
complains running from a flash drive yet.

I only found two side effects so far. And I like to hear from others who
may have found more.

1) Best to uninstall Avast if you are using it. Then reinstall it after
the mounting is complete. It wasn't in the System Tray afterwords. So I
don't know if it was running or not. But uninstalling before or after
and reinstalling it again works great.

2) MS Works v9 breaks if you move the folder and then put it back again.
I don't know why, maybe this is some sort of copy protection.

And like always, make backups before you do anything. <grin>

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3
 
F

flamer die.spam@hotmail.com

Flightless Bird
flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant read/writing
to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are limited to the
number of re-write cycles and have a limited number of years data
retention.

Flamer.
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

Flightless Bird
"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> said this in news item
news:hio5le$ml5$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> Well it is partly true. As I moved the Program Files folder to a flash
> drive. I believe this is a useful tip for those with small system drives.
> And unlike Hitachi microdrive filter, it doesn't slow down the computer
> and isn't a pain in the butt to install. I came up with this because my
> nephew's 4GB netbook was always running out of drive space.
>
> You can't normally just install new programs on a flash drive, because
> about 50% of them will refuse to install on a removable drive. Nor does it
> help for the programs already installed. This method fixes both problems.
>
> I used BartPE to move all of the folders and files found in the Program
> Files folders to a flash drive. I suppose any boot disc would work as long
> as you can move folders with it. I tried using Windows Safe Mode, but it
> wouldn't move everything. If someone gets it to work, let me know. I
> didn't try that hard.
>
> Now the system drive must be in NTFS format, the flash drive doesn't
> matter. Now boot Windows in Safe Mode. If you miss the opportunity,
> Windows will recreate some of the Program Files once again in Normal Mode.
> I haven't tested what to do in this case, so you are on your own here.
>
> Now with Windows in Safe Mode, I haven't seen Windows needing anything in
> the Program Files folder to function, so it appears to behave. Next you
> need to use diskmgmt.msc to mount the flash drive in the Program Files
> folder. And that is it. Now reboot normally.
>
> Now all of your programs lives on the flash drive. And any programs you
> add to Program Files, also gets saved to the flash drive. This frees up
> lots of space on the system drive. Also I found no program that complains
> running from a flash drive yet.
>
> I only found two side effects so far. And I like to hear from others who
> may have found more.
>
> 1) Best to uninstall Avast if you are using it. Then reinstall it after
> the mounting is complete. It wasn't in the System Tray afterwords. So I
> don't know if it was running or not. But uninstalling before or after and
> reinstalling it again works great.
>
> 2) MS Works v9 breaks if you move the folder and then put it back again. I
> don't know why, maybe this is some sort of copy protection.
>
> And like always, make backups before you do anything. <grin>
>
> --
> Bill
> Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3


There is a lot of bad advice in this post.

- As flamer sais, flash drives have a very limited number of write cycles.
They will die quickly when used the way you suggest.

- Flash drives are much, much slower than hard disks. A moment ago I copied
a 10 MByte file from my hard disk to a USB2 flash drive. I then copied a
different 10 MByte file from drive C: to drive E: (both are partitions on
the same disk). Here are the copy times:
to flash drive: 1,700 ms
to hard disk: 220 ms
In other words, the flash disk copy took 8 times longer than the hard disk
copy.

- You say that the Windows system drive must be NTFS. This is incorrect. It
can be FAT32.

- You propose your method as a way to overcome the limitations of a small
laptop disk. Yesterday I bought a 240 GByte laptop disk for $70.00. What is
the point of buying a slow 10 GByte flash disk that will wear out quickly
when you can have a fast 240 GByte hard disk that will last longer than the
laptop?
 
H

HeyBub

Flightless Bird
die.spam@hotmail.com wrote:
> flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant read/writing
> to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are limited to the
> number of re-write cycles and have a limited number of years data
> retention.
>
> Flamer.


Sort of. It's the writing, not the reading, that wears them out. But the
entries in the Program Files folder, no matter where it's located, are
written only once.
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <#AS47TYlKHA.4872@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>,
HeyBub <heybub@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Sort of. It's the writing, not the reading, that wears them out. But the
>entries in the Program Files folder, no matter where it's located, are
>written only once.


Not true. Many aplications regularly write state and initialization
data to their "home" directories in Program Files.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:-Oq4OkFXlKHA.5060@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
Pegasus [MVP] typed on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:29:12 +0100:
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> said this in news item
> news:hio5le$ml5$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>> Well it is partly true. As I moved the Program Files folder to a
>> flash drive. I believe this is a useful tip for those with small
>> system drives. And unlike Hitachi microdrive filter, it doesn't slow
>> down the computer and isn't a pain in the butt to install. I came up
>> with this because my nephew's 4GB netbook was always running out of
>> drive space. You can't normally just install new programs on a flash
>> drive,
>> because about 50% of them will refuse to install on a removable
>> drive. Nor does it help for the programs already installed. This
>> method fixes both problems. I used BartPE to move all of the folders
>> and files found in the
>> Program Files folders to a flash drive. I suppose any boot disc
>> would work as long as you can move folders with it. I tried using
>> Windows Safe Mode, but it wouldn't move everything. If someone gets
>> it to work, let me know. I didn't try that hard.
>>
>> Now the system drive must be in NTFS format, the flash drive doesn't
>> matter. Now boot Windows in Safe Mode. If you miss the opportunity,
>> Windows will recreate some of the Program Files once again in Normal
>> Mode. I haven't tested what to do in this case, so you are on your
>> own here. Now with Windows in Safe Mode, I haven't seen Windows
>> needing
>> anything in the Program Files folder to function, so it appears to
>> behave. Next you need to use diskmgmt.msc to mount the flash drive
>> in the Program Files folder. And that is it. Now reboot normally.
>>
>> Now all of your programs lives on the flash drive. And any programs
>> you add to Program Files, also gets saved to the flash drive. This
>> frees up lots of space on the system drive. Also I found no program
>> that complains running from a flash drive yet.
>>
>> I only found two side effects so far. And I like to hear from others
>> who may have found more.
>>
>> 1) Best to uninstall Avast if you are using it. Then reinstall it
>> after the mounting is complete. It wasn't in the System Tray
>> afterwords. So I don't know if it was running or not. But
>> uninstalling before or after and reinstalling it again works great.
>>
>> 2) MS Works v9 breaks if you move the folder and then put it back
>> again. I don't know why, maybe this is some sort of copy protection.
>>
>> And like always, make backups before you do anything. <grin>

>
> There is a lot of bad advice in this post.
>
> - As flamer sais, flash drives have a very limited number of write
> cycles. They will die quickly when used the way you suggest.


Nonsense. MTBF for solid state drives are 227 years. 7 times longer than
hard drives. Writing 100MB per day to a 4GB flash would take like 4,000
years to wear it out. To wear one out very quickly, I would have to
overwrite it completely 24 times per day for the next 11 years before it
was toast.

Secondly what everybody is missing completely is the netbook also has a
4GB solid state drive (aka flash drive). So you are moving stuff from
one flash drive to another. The one in the netbook is soldered in place
and cost $150 to replace (if you do it yourself). And the one you all
are worried about costs $8 and can be replaced in a second.

> - Flash drives are much, much slower than hard disks. A moment ago I
> copied a 10 MByte file from my hard disk to a USB2 flash drive. I
> then copied a different 10 MByte file from drive C: to drive E: (both
> are partitions on the same disk). Here are the copy times:
> to flash drive: 1,700 ms
> to hard disk: 220 ms
> In other words, the flash disk copy took 8 times longer than the hard
> disk copy.


Not all flash drives are created equal for one. They come in different
speeds for both read and write. And there are two types of flash. SLC
and MLC types. The later are much slower at writing than SLC types are.
And the vast majority of the time things in the Program Files folder are
only being read and not written too.

> - You say that the Windows system drive must be NTFS. This is
> incorrect. It can be FAT32.


Incorrect. You cannot use mount a drive in a FAT32 folder. It must be
formatted in NTFS.

> - You propose your method as a way to overcome the limitations of a
> small laptop disk. Yesterday I bought a 240 GByte laptop disk for
> $70.00. What is the point of buying a slow 10 GByte flash disk that
> will wear out quickly when you can have a fast 240 GByte hard disk
> that will last longer than the laptop?


You propose to install a 240GB hard drive in a netbook which has a solid
state drive soldered on the motherboard? How in the world are you going
to pull that off? I do have two netbooks with replaceable solid state
drives. But they use PCIe connections and 2.5 inch hard drives don't
fit. There just isn't enough room inside for one.

Secondly, you just believe you can wear out a flash drive. Cheap ones,
you probably can. As they can only handle a few thousand writes and they
are toast. Others won't die in your lifetime. ADATA for example
guarantees theirs for life. Or you get a free replacement.

Thirdly, your hard drive suggestion is a very expensive option when you
want portability. As hard drives are lucky to get just a years worth of
use while being moved around. This is do to vibrations and shock. I just
got two disk errors show up in my event logs just this morning while
using this laptop on my lap. Yet SMART shows 100% healthy. With flash,
you can move around all you want too. Even go on a Space Shuttle launch
if you want (this is what NASA uses for their computers).

Fourth, solid state drives are usually faster than hard drives. It isn't
uncommon to have half of the boot time when moving to a flash drive vs.
a hard drive. In the next couple of years, I will replace all four of my
laptops hard drives with flash drives. One of them that lives mostly in
a dock, can't even be undocked while running do to the fact that disk
errors will appear in the event log. Moving to flash drive, this problem
disappears.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In
news:390281aa-76b6-41f9-88ba-4f7a50c32b00@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com,
die.spam@hotmail.com typed on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:52:02 -0800 (PST):
> flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant read/writing
> to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are limited to the
> number of re-write cycles and have a limited number of years data
> retention.
>
> Flamer.


First of all, the system drive is already a flash drive. It is called a
solid state drive (SSD). So you would rather burn out the SSD soldered
on the motherboard ($150 worth) than to replace a flash card ($8), eh?

Second of all, SLC flash drives are good for 100,000 writes. MTBF is 227
years, or 7 times longer than hard drives. Writing about 100MB per day
on a 4GB flash would take about 4,000 years to wear it out.

And if you are really worried, just get an ADATA flash which is
guaranteed for life. Or you get a free replacement. Although that won't
happen for another 4,000 years.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2
 
M

mike

Flightless Bird
BillW50 wrote:
> In
> news:390281aa-76b6-41f9-88ba-4f7a50c32b00@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com,
> die.spam@hotmail.com typed on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:52:02 -0800 (PST):
>> flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant read/writing
>> to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are limited to the
>> number of re-write cycles and have a limited number of years data
>> retention.
>>
>> Flamer.

>
> First of all, the system drive is already a flash drive. It is called a
> solid state drive (SSD). So you would rather burn out the SSD soldered
> on the motherboard ($150 worth) than to replace a flash card ($8), eh?
>
> Second of all, SLC flash drives are good for 100,000 writes. MTBF is 227
> years, or 7 times longer than hard drives. Writing about 100MB per day
> on a 4GB flash would take about 4,000 years to wear it out.


This is a hot discussion topic that won't be settled here...but
Aren't most large flash drives MLC now?
Consider the case where your flash drive is full except for one block.
You have a continually updated log file that writes OFTEN.
With no wear leveling, you've got big trouble.
With excellent wear leveling, it may not matter at all.
And wear leveling is probably not in the spec or discoverable by
legal means. I'd expect a usb flash to have little and a SSD to
have a LOT of wear leveling. YMMV.

I just don't buy into 4000 years life.
I've seen anecdotal reports on wearing out a flash drive in a month
with windows without taking any precautions to limit writes.
People who used the embedded windows tools to limit writes fared much
better.
>
> And if you are really worried, just get an ADATA flash which is
> guaranteed for life. Or you get a free replacement. Although that won't
> happen for another 4,000 years.

In my experience, the life of the guarantor is the weak link in that
strategy.
>
 
H

HeyBub

Flightless Bird
the wharf rat wrote:
> In article <#AS47TYlKHA.4872@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>,
> HeyBub <heybub@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sort of. It's the writing, not the reading, that wears them out. But
>> the entries in the Program Files folder, no matter where it's
>> located, are written only once.

>
> Not true. Many aplications regularly write state and initialization
> data to their "home" directories in Program Files.


Ah, yeah. I forgot. That's one reason Vista gets all huffy if you try to do
so.

Still, the OS itself is niggardly about writing to the PF folder.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:hiql6s$4ih$1@news.eternal-september.org,
mike typed on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:02:35 -0800:
> BillW50 wrote:
>> In
>> news:390281aa-76b6-41f9-88ba-4f7a50c32b00@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com,
>> die.spam@hotmail.com typed on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:52:02 -0800 (PST):
>>> flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant
>>> read/writing to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are
>>> limited to the number of re-write cycles and have a limited number
>>> of years data retention.
>>>
>>> Flamer.

>>
>> First of all, the system drive is already a flash drive. It is
>> called a solid state drive (SSD). So you would rather burn out the
>> SSD soldered on the motherboard ($150 worth) than to replace a flash
>> card ($8), eh? Second of all, SLC flash drives are good for 100,000
>> writes. MTBF is
>> 227 years, or 7 times longer than hard drives. Writing about 100MB
>> per day on a 4GB flash would take about 4,000 years to wear it out.

>
> This is a hot discussion topic that won't be settled here...but
> Aren't most large flash drives MLC now?
> Consider the case where your flash drive is full except for one block.
>
> You have a continually updated log file that writes OFTEN.
> With no wear leveling, you've got big trouble.


Only those cheap no-name flash has no wear leveling. And what happens is
like any other drive. The area is marked as bad and the capacity gets
less and less. All of the information still stays save though.

> With excellent wear leveling, it may not matter at all.
> And wear leveling is probably not in the spec or discoverable by
> legal means. I'd expect a usb flash to have little and a SSD to
> have a LOT of wear leveling. YMMV.


I know a guy who claims that those cheap no-name flash drives only lasts
him 2 months on average. He runs VMs on them with tons of writing. Shall
I say constant writing on them.

I on the other hand, have never worn out a single flash yet. And in the
beginning, I used to worry about writing to them a lot. But after no
failures in all of these years, I have dropped my guard.

And in the newsgroups, I don't hear of anybody complaining of flash
drive failures except the cheap ones. Adata for example, I haven't heard
one reported case yet.

> I just don't buy into 4000 years life.
> I've seen anecdotal reports on wearing out a flash drive in a month
> with windows without taking any precautions to limit writes.
> People who used the embedded windows tools to limit writes fared much
> better.


I have three 16GB adata flash drives for two years now and no problems
with them yet. And writing to them on average 100MB per day, it would
take thousands of years to write each cell 100,000 times.

>> And if you are really worried, just get an ADATA flash which is
>> guaranteed for life. Or you get a free replacement. Although that
>> won't happen for another 4,000 years.

>
> In my experience, the life of the guarantor is the weak link in that
> strategy.


My SSD are not failing and my flash drives are not either. Let's see, I
have 5 SSD and 12 flash drives. And I decided not to worry about them
until one or two of them had failed. So far (knock on wood), no problems
to report. ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2
 
G

GbH

Flightless Bird
BillW50 wrote:
> In
> news:390281aa-76b6-41f9-88ba-4f7a50c32b00@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com,
> die.spam@hotmail.com typed on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:52:02 -0800 (PST):
>> flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant read/writing
>> to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are limited to the
>> number of re-write cycles and have a limited number of years data
>> retention.
>>
>> Flamer.

>
> First of all, the system drive is already a flash drive. It is called
> a solid state drive (SSD). So you would rather burn out the SSD
> soldered on the motherboard ($150 worth) than to replace a flash card
> ($8), eh?
> Second of all, SLC flash drives are good for 100,000 writes. MTBF is
> 227 years, or 7 times longer than hard drives. Writing about 100MB
> per day on a 4GB flash would take about 4,000 years to wear it out.
>
> And if you are really worried, just get an ADATA flash which is
> guaranteed for life. Or you get a free replacement. Although that
> won't happen for another 4,000 years.


Who's or what's life? you or the drive?
if the drive, that life might be a month? a year? 4000yrs? eternity?
whatever, it is undefined!
if you, you'll be dead and by definition won't give a monkey's.
in either case an absolutely useless guarantee!

--
--
Geoff
ExploitEd

Wisdom and experience come with age, they say, but I do wish I could
remember the darn question
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

Flightless Bird
*** See inline.

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> said this in news item
news:hiq3gf$h4v$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> In news:-Oq4OkFXlKHA.5060@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
>>
>> There is a lot of bad advice in this post.
>>
>> - As flamer sais, flash drives have a very limited number of write
>> cycles. They will die quickly when used the way you suggest.

>
> Nonsense. MTBF for solid state drives are 227 years. 7 times longer than
> hard drives. Writing 100MB per day to a 4GB flash would take like 4,000
> years to wear it out. To wear one out very quickly, I would have to
> overwrite it completely 24 times per day for the next 11 years before it
> was toast.

*** "Flash-memory cells have limited lifetimes and will often wear out after
*** 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write cycles for
SLC."
*** Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_disk
*** Note also that MTBF and wear-out times are two completely different
*** subjects. MTBF is a probability figure that is independet of usage.
*** Wear-out time is directly related to usage: The more you use it, the
*** sooner it wears out.

> Secondly what everybody is missing completely is the netbook also has a
> 4GB solid state drive (aka flash drive). So you are moving stuff from one
> flash drive to another. The one in the netbook is soldered in place and
> cost $150 to replace (if you do it yourself). And the one you all are
> worried about costs $8 and can be replaced in a second.
>
>> - Flash drives are much, much slower than hard disks. A moment ago I
>> copied a 10 MByte file from my hard disk to a USB2 flash drive. I
>> then copied a different 10 MByte file from drive C: to drive E: (both
>> are partitions on the same disk). Here are the copy times:
>> to flash drive: 1,700 ms
>> to hard disk: 220 ms
>> In other words, the flash disk copy took 8 times longer than the hard
>> disk copy.

>
> Not all flash drives are created equal for one. They come in different
> speeds for both read and write. And there are two types of flash. SLC and
> MLC types. The later are much slower at writing than SLC types are. And
> the vast majority of the time things in the Program Files folder are only
> being read and not written too.
>
>> - You say that the Windows system drive must be NTFS. This is
>> incorrect. It can be FAT32.

>
> Incorrect. You cannot use mount a drive in a FAT32 folder. It must be
> formatted in NTFS.

*** Mounting a folder is an optional extra. It is not required to run
*** Windows by itself.

>> - You propose your method as a way to overcome the limitations of a
>> small laptop disk. Yesterday I bought a 240 GByte laptop disk for
>> $70.00. What is the point of buying a slow 10 GByte flash disk that
>> will wear out quickly when you can have a fast 240 GByte hard disk
>> that will last longer than the laptop?

>
> You propose to install a 240GB hard drive in a netbook which has a solid
> state drive soldered on the motherboard? How in the world are you going to
> pull that off? I do have two netbooks with replaceable solid state drives.
> But they use PCIe connections and 2.5 inch hard drives don't fit. There
> just isn't enough room inside for one.

*** I was talking about an external disk installed in a USB case.

> Secondly, you just believe you can wear out a flash drive. Cheap ones, you
> probably can. As they can only handle a few thousand writes and they are
> toast. Others won't die in your lifetime. ADATA for example guarantees
> theirs for life. Or you get a free replacement.

*** See my Wikepdia reference.

> Thirdly, your hard drive suggestion is a very expensive option when you
> want portability. As hard drives are lucky to get just a years worth of
> use while being moved around. This is do to vibrations and shock. I just
> got two disk errors show up in my event logs just this morning while using
> this laptop on my lap. Yet SMART shows 100% healthy. With flash, you can
> move around all you want too. Even go on a Space Shuttle launch if you
> want (this is what NASA uses for their computers).
>
> Fourth, solid state drives are usually faster than hard drives. It isn't
> uncommon to have half of the boot time when moving to a flash drive vs. a
> hard drive. In the next couple of years, I will replace all four of my
> laptops hard drives with flash drives. One of them that lives mostly in a
> dock, can't even be undocked while running do to the fact that disk errors
> will appear in the event log. Moving to flash drive, this problem
> disappears.

*** I took the trouble to take some actual measurements. They can be
*** repeated by anyone. Perhaps you would care to do the same instead
*** of just stating "solid state drives are usually faster than hard
drives".
*** Unless you can substantiate your claim, it lacks credibility.

> Bill
> Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3
>
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:edh$PxplKHA.2164@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
GbH typed on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:09:12 -0000:
> BillW50 wrote:
>> In
>> news:390281aa-76b6-41f9-88ba-4f7a50c32b00@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com,
>> die.spam@hotmail.com typed on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:52:02 -0800 (PST):
>>> flash drives are NOT made for this application. constant
>>> read/writing to the drive will kill it very quickly as they are
>>> limited to the number of re-write cycles and have a limited number
>>> of years data retention.
>>>
>>> Flamer.

>>
>> First of all, the system drive is already a flash drive. It is called
>> a solid state drive (SSD). So you would rather burn out the SSD
>> soldered on the motherboard ($150 worth) than to replace a flash card
>> ($8), eh?
>> Second of all, SLC flash drives are good for 100,000 writes. MTBF is
>> 227 years, or 7 times longer than hard drives. Writing about 100MB
>> per day on a 4GB flash would take about 4,000 years to wear it out.
>>
>> And if you are really worried, just get an ADATA flash which is
>> guaranteed for life. Or you get a free replacement. Although that
>> won't happen for another 4,000 years.

>
> Who's or what's life? you or the drive?
> if the drive, that life might be a month? a year? 4000yrs? eternity?
> whatever, it is undefined!
> if you, you'll be dead and by definition won't give a monkey's.
> in either case an absolutely useless guarantee!


Yeah and your point is? If the flash dies tomorrow, you get a free
replacement. If it dies after 4000 years, nobody would care. So?

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:%23q6hfKqlKHA.5656@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
Pegasus [MVP] typed on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:54:09 +0100:
> *** See inline.
>
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> said this in news item
> news:hiq3gf$h4v$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>> In news:-Oq4OkFXlKHA.5060@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
>>>
>>> There is a lot of bad advice in this post.
>>>
>>> - As flamer sais, flash drives have a very limited number of write
>>> cycles. They will die quickly when used the way you suggest.

>>
>> Nonsense. MTBF for solid state drives are 227 years. 7 times longer
>> than hard drives. Writing 100MB per day to a 4GB flash would take
>> like 4,000 years to wear it out. To wear one out very quickly, I
>> would have to overwrite it completely 24 times per day for the next
>> 11 years before it was toast.

> *** "Flash-memory cells have limited lifetimes and will often wear
> out after *** 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000
> write
> cycles for SLC."
> *** Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_disk
> *** Note also that MTBF and wear-out times are two completely
> different *** subjects. MTBF is a probability figure that is
> independet of
> usage. *** Wear-out time is directly related to usage: The more you
> use it,
> the *** sooner it wears out.


Boy you must think you are really hot stuff, don't you? I have claimed
the very same for many years. Finally you got something right!

>> Secondly what everybody is missing completely is the netbook also
>> has a 4GB solid state drive (aka flash drive). So you are moving
>> stuff from one flash drive to another. The one in the netbook is
>> soldered in place and cost $150 to replace (if you do it yourself).
>> And the one you all are worried about costs $8 and can be replaced
>> in a second.
>>> - Flash drives are much, much slower than hard disks. A moment ago I
>>> copied a 10 MByte file from my hard disk to a USB2 flash drive. I
>>> then copied a different 10 MByte file from drive C: to drive E:
>>> (both are partitions on the same disk). Here are the copy times:
>>> to flash drive: 1,700 ms
>>> to hard disk: 220 ms
>>> In other words, the flash disk copy took 8 times longer than the
>>> hard disk copy.

>>
>> Not all flash drives are created equal for one. They come in
>> different speeds for both read and write. And there are two types of
>> flash. SLC and MLC types. The later are much slower at writing than
>> SLC types are. And the vast majority of the time things in the
>> Program Files folder are only being read and not written too.
>>
>>> - You say that the Windows system drive must be NTFS. This is
>>> incorrect. It can be FAT32.

>>
>> Incorrect. You cannot use mount a drive in a FAT32 folder. It must be
>> formatted in NTFS.

> *** Mounting a folder is an optional extra. It is not required to run
> *** Windows by itself.


Of course you dummy! That is the whole point! This trick won't work on a
FAT32 partition! Understanding just the simplest things escapes you. Is
it now starting to sink in? Do you now finally understand it? Why do you
have to be so ignorant?

>>> - You propose your method as a way to overcome the limitations of a
>>> small laptop disk. Yesterday I bought a 240 GByte laptop disk for
>>> $70.00. What is the point of buying a slow 10 GByte flash disk that
>>> will wear out quickly when you can have a fast 240 GByte hard disk
>>> that will last longer than the laptop?

>>
>> You propose to install a 240GB hard drive in a netbook which has a
>> solid state drive soldered on the motherboard? How in the world are
>> you going to pull that off? I do have two netbooks with replaceable
>> solid state drives. But they use PCIe connections and 2.5 inch hard
>> drives don't fit. There just isn't enough room inside for one.

> *** I was talking about an external disk installed in a USB case.


Oh really? I was talking about a flash card that fits into the postage
size SD slot on a netbook! This is a portable computer you can hold with
one hand and use the touchpad with the other. Sorry, but many
applications will refuse to install on a removable USB hard drive you
ignorant goof! And plus you need a third hand to hold the external hard
drive anyway. Unless you tape it to the netbook or something.

>> Secondly, you just believe you can wear out a flash drive. Cheap
>> ones, you probably can. As they can only handle a few thousand
>> writes and they are toast. Others won't die in your lifetime. ADATA
>> for example guarantees theirs for life. Or you get a free
>> replacement.

> *** See my Wikepdia reference.


It doesn't disagree with what I have been saying for years! The problem
is you have no idea what it means. So you spread fear and ignorance do
to your own misunderstanding!

For example clueless, if I take a 4GB flash drive and write 96GB to it
per day, it would take over 11 years to overwrite each cell 100,000
times. And your meaningless whining about "The more you use it, the
sooner it wears out" is just plain so petty. As a 4GB flash will be able
to write 400TB worth before it burns out. Do you have any idea how long
that would take the average user to write all of that to a flash drive?

It doesn't matter dummy! Whether it is a short 11 years or a long 4000
years. By the time somebody wrote 400TB, they would have gotten their
monies worth out of the darn thing.

Do you honestly believe that Asus would be dumb enough to put 4GB flash
drives soldered on the motherboard, put Windows XP on the damn things
with a swapfile and System Restore enabled and give the buyer a 2 year
warrantee for the whole works if they thought the buyer could burn out
the flash in two years or less? You have to be really stupid to believe
that one!

>> Thirdly, your hard drive suggestion is a very expensive option when
>> you want portability. As hard drives are lucky to get just a years
>> worth of use while being moved around. This is do to vibrations and
>> shock. I just got two disk errors show up in my event logs just this
>> morning while using this laptop on my lap. Yet SMART shows 100%
>> healthy. With flash, you can move around all you want too. Even go
>> on a Space Shuttle launch if you want (this is what NASA uses for
>> their computers). Fourth, solid state drives are usually faster than
>> hard drives. It
>> isn't uncommon to have half of the boot time when moving to a flash
>> drive vs. a hard drive. In the next couple of years, I will replace
>> all four of my laptops hard drives with flash drives. One of them
>> that lives mostly in a dock, can't even be undocked while running do
>> to the fact that disk errors will appear in the event log. Moving to
>> flash drive, this problem disappears.

> *** I took the trouble to take some actual measurements. They can be
> *** repeated by anyone. Perhaps you would care to do the same instead
> *** of just stating "solid state drives are usually faster than hard
> drives".
> *** Unless you can substantiate your claim, it lacks credibility.


Really? What do you think they have been saying the last couple of years
in computer magazines? What do you think demonstrations like this on
youtube are trying to educate dumb people like you for?

SSD v. HDD (Samsung)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf_QS3mZsyU

SSD vs 7200rpm HD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt6VbOY3xE0

And what about some servers replacing their hard drives with flash
drives? Do you really believe those fools would be replacing their hard
drives with flash drives if they didn't get something out of the deal?

Btw, it is you who are the one that is ignorant here and lacks
credibility. I suggest it is time for you to get educated! ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

Flightless Bird
"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> said this in news item
news:uFX21AtlKHA.5568@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> In news:%23q6hfKqlKHA.5656@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>
> Boy you must think you are really hot stuff, don't you? Of course you
> dummy! Why do you have to be so ignorant?
> What do you think demonstrations like this on youtube are trying to
> educate dumb people like you for?
> I suggest it is time for you to get educated!


Sorry, Bill, if it's a schoolyard brawl you're after then you need to look
elsewhere.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:u6p5GZtlKHA.2132@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
Pegasus [MVP] typed on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:03:54 +0100:
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> said this in news item
> news:uFX21AtlKHA.5568@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> In news:%23q6hfKqlKHA.5656@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>
>> Boy you must think you are really hot stuff, don't you? Of course you
>> dummy! Why do you have to be so ignorant?
>> What do you think demonstrations like this on youtube are trying to
>> educate dumb people like you for?
>> I suggest it is time for you to get educated!

>
> Sorry, Bill, if it's a schoolyard brawl you're after then you need to
> look elsewhere.


NO Pegasus! It is all about you pretending to know something that you
actually don't have a clue what you are talking about. You are being
stupid, plain and simple! Plus you are spreading fear and deception
throughout the world. Surely even you can see how that isn't right,
right?

If you think you know more about these things than us engineers and
scientists who design them, well think again. You are nothing but a dumb
punk compared to us. Someday this might sink into your thick skull of
yours. Hopefully it will come sooner rather than later. ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2
 
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