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How I Got Full Windows XP Installed Under 2GB!

B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
~misfit~ wrote on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:07:24 +1300:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
>> ~misfit~ wrote on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:41:55 +1300:
>>> You're wasting you time rat, I get into it with this clown at least
>>> once every few months, when I can no longer stomach his idiocy. (He
>>> has two subjects, netbooks and SSDs [or flash drives, LOL].) The
>>> more you try to take him to task the more off on a tangent he goes.
>>>
>>> I guess I'm lucky he's just a faceless entity on usenet and not my
>>> brother-in-law or next-door neighbour or I'd probably have killed
>>> him by now.

>> The problem with you Shaun, is that you try to pick fights with more
>> knowledgeable people than yourself. Which would be ok if you were well
>> equipt to do so. But you don't, all you carry with you is your
>> slanderous comments and that is all. Sad to say, that just isn't going
>> to cut it.

>
> You have such a high opinion of yourself don't you Bill? That speaks to me
> of loneliness and sadness.


Actually you keep trying to attack people smarter than you shows to me
that you are in loneliness and sadness. As I myself is doing just fine.
And you are the one who wants to kill people, remember?

>> You are like trying to take a small rowboat and attacking a large
>> battle cruiser.

>
> LMAO!!! There's no single room big enough for your ego, it needs the whole
> internet!


You really can't stand anybody with higher education than yourself, can you?

>> So of course you are going to be easily defeated. You
>> are attacking an electronic engineer the wrong way.

>
> What, you didn't say "literally a rocket scientist" this time? Right, I
> guess it's best to leave that one in the bunker for special occasions.


Yes I was a rocket scientist. I was okay at it. But I wasn't the best
and I knew I wasn't going to be the best. So I left it for the others
who were better. So what do you claim you where the best at? Oh yeah,
using a rowboat and attacking battle cruisers, right?

>> Now if you believe I or others

>
> I've noticed that you say 'we' a lot and now it's "I or others". See my
> comment above.


Still trying the slanderous attacks, eh? How about using research for once?

>> are wrong, you have to do so through
>> references and do your homework. At least learn how to use Google for
>> goodness sake. As we engineers have already done our homework for
>> decades.

>
> Learn how to use Google? Ok, let me practice a bit.....
>
> How's this?
>
> http://images.google.com/images?gbv...Drive&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g3g-m7&start=0
>
> or: http://tinyurl.com/yzs79o7
>
> and:
>
> http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=SSD&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10
>
> or: http://tinyurl.com/yf2f6tq
>
> Now, how do "you engineers" account for the fact that Google throws up two
> *totally* different things for the two terms? Not one result in common.


Because you are searching for what clueless users think. Why don't you
use a search for like "SSD and flash drives are the same" or something?
Oh right, that would make you out as a fool. Okay I got it.

> (Arghhhh! I'm engaging the clown in conversation again!!!! You'd think I'd
> learn.)


Yes attacking a battle cruiser with a row boat just doesn't cut it. Even
morons should know better than that. But you... well... you just are not
too smart. What can I say?

>> Secondly, I have talked far more about laptops than I have about
>> netbooks or SSD here. And don't you recall when you first got on my
>> bad side by calling me a dick because I said all of my 2.5 inch HDD
>> stated they use 550ma or higher?

>
> As you're a 12th dan black-belt with Google would you care to show me
> *exactly* where I called you a "dick". That shouldn't be a problem for
> someone like you right?


You don't remember? That is very sad. Very sad indeed. You honestly
don't recall the very first attack you attacked the battle cruiser? I
better hold off for now (should be easily searchable). As I am starting
to worry about you a lot.

>> That has nothing to do with SSD or
>> netbooks. Then I showed you the label of the HDD and we all learned
>> who was the real dick, now didn't we? Don't you ever get tired of
>> being wrong all of the time?

>
> The only place that I'm wrong all the time is in your aberrant mind Bill.


No wonder why you never learn anything. As you can't remember anything.

>> Also some of us wants to stay current with technology and this
>> sometimes leads into talk about netbooks and SSD. Sorry that
>> technology doesn't interest you, but there is no reason to attack
>> those who tries to keep up with the times.

>
> Then "tries" harder to keep up!


Which is a total mystery to you. As you can't keep anything straight.

>> It is also too bad that you have a chip on your shoulder and you don't
>> like people with more education than yourself.

>
> I guess when nobody else does you have to love yourself twice as much.


You lost me there. As my life is going well. You are the one who wants
to kill me. I am not up to 007 status yet. But maybe I should be, eh?

>> And if you want to kick my ass, well I am not too worried unless you
>> are taller than 6'1". Thus most people are much shorter than myself
>> and they really don't even want to try. ;-)

>
> Ewww! Keep your sick fantasies to yourself! I don't want anything to do with
> your "ass" (even though, if you talked out of it you'd probably make more
> sense).


I guess you forgot, you wanted to kill me this very day. Your time it
might be yesterday.

And Shaun... as a friend... I am no expert or anything, but I see lots
of red flags popping up. As I don't hate people who are smarter than me.
Nor do I want to kill them. Nor do I want to call them a dick. So I
think maybe you should seek professional help. Maybe you need medication
or something. As what do I know? I am just a dumb ass electronic
engineer who knows almost nothing about mental problems.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)
 
M

~misfit~

Flightless Bird
Somewhere on teh intarwebs the wharf rat wrote:
> In article <hjanvl$129$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>
>> Doesn't the CRT resolution degraded as well do to this?
>>

>
> Aaaahhhhhhh!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!
>>
>> http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/nec-multisync-1550v/4505-3174_7-7105749.html

>
> That's a BRAND NAME! Not a technology...
>
> Ooooohhhh, my head hurts.


LOL. That's why I just killfiled him. Life's just too short....
--
Shaun.

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
~misfit~ wrote on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:17:09 +1300:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs the wharf rat wrote:
>> In article <hjanvl$129$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>> Doesn't the CRT resolution degraded as well do to this?
>>>

>> Aaaahhhhhhh!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!
>>> http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/nec-multisync-1550v/4505-3174_7-7105749.html

>> That's a BRAND NAME! Not a technology...
>>
>> Ooooohhhh, my head hurts.

>
> LOL. That's why I just killfiled him. Life's just too short....


You have no idea what a multisync monitor actually means, do you wharf
rat? Yes NEC uses the name on their multisync monitors for obvious
reasons. Because they are multisync monitors. This should be a no brainier.

There are two kinds of monitors. Fixed frequency and multisync monitors.
Fixed can only handle one refresh rate, say 60 hertz for example.
Multisync monitors can handle more than one refresh rate, thus the name.

Now claiming there are no multisync LCD monitors in your world is very
strange. As in ours, we can use different scan rates with are LCD
monitors. And we can adjust how often our pixels gets updated. So sad
that in your world, your scan rates are fixed. Sorry to hear that.

This Gateway LCD HD1900 is a multisync monitor and can handle up to 75
hertz vertical and 80 hertz horizontal, for example.

http://www.gateway.com/product_spec.php?product_recid=529668251

And Shaun, sorry to hear you are calling it quits. As you can't get
anything right anyway and this is just another example. So maybe it is
best if you leave this stuff to the experts. As it is better than
leaving much disinformation and having others to always clean up the
mess you leave around.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hjcttl$ca5$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>You have no idea what a multisync monitor actually means, do you wharf
>rat? Yes NEC uses the name on their multisync monitors for obvious
>reasons. Because they are multisync monitors. This should be a no brainier.
>


There's no such thing as a multisync LCD. An LCD doesn't scan.
Each picture element is individually addressed.

Now, an LCD (or a driver) may display a scan rate because there's
a signal on that wire, but it's not scanning. It's got nothing to scan with.

>And we can adjust how often our pixels gets updated.


That's refresh. Not scan. The monitor uses the vertical scan
frequency to decide how often to refresh. It's got nothing to do with
scan.

Ok, look, if the LCD is scanning WHAT is it scanning with? No
electron guns. Pixels dont' fade so no reason to refresh unless an image
might have changed...
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
the wharf rat wrote on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:28:39 +0000 (UTC):
> In article <hjcttl$ca5$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>> You have no idea what a multisync monitor actually means, do you wharf
>> rat? Yes NEC uses the name on their multisync monitors for obvious
>> reasons. Because they are multisync monitors. This should be a no brainier.

>
> There's no such thing as a multisync LCD. An LCD doesn't scan.


Sure there is. Any LCD monitor which can handle more than one frequency
are multisync monitors. LCD TVs I am not sure, but they might be mostly
fixed frequency LCD and than they wouldn't be multisync.

> Each picture element is individually addressed.


Yes and it gets this information from the video card which puts out the
scanned video signal.

> Now, an LCD (or a driver) may display a scan rate because there's
> a signal on that wire, but it's not scanning. It's got nothing to scan with.


Sure it does. Each pixel gets updated just like it does with CRTs. The
first pixel in the top left gets updated first, then the next one to the
right, and so on until the whole line gets updated. Then it starts over,
but now with pixel just below the first one. And this continues until it
updates the whole screen.

>> And we can adjust how often our pixels gets updated.

>
> That's refresh. Not scan. The monitor uses the vertical scan
> frequency to decide how often to refresh. It's got nothing to do with
> scan.


Not so! One complete scan equals one refresh cycle.

> Ok, look, if the LCD is scanning WHAT is it scanning with? No
> electron guns. Pixels dont' fade so no reason to refresh unless an image
> might have changed...


Right, no electron guns. Although it scans row by row the same way. And
each pixel gets updated during its moment in time in sync with the scan
signal.

And passive-matrix LCDs do have to be refreshed. or the screen would
fade in a matter of a few hundred milliseconds. As during each scan, it
gets a small charge and it bleeds off quickly. Thus it must be refreshed
or it just fades away.

But you are probably thinking of Active Matrix LCD, which does not have
this persistence problem. Even still, a given pixel only gets updated
when its time has come up during the scan. If I recall correctly, every
pixel gets updated about every 16.7 ms.

Because LCDs and CRTs scan the same way, we can use the very same video
signal for either type of display. If it worked differently, this
wouldn't be possible.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:4b557363$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net,
M.I.5¾ typed on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:56:00 -0000:
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
> news:hj238v$rus$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>> In news:4b544b3f$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net,
>> M.I.5¾ typed on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:52:26 -0000:
>>> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
>>> news:hiqp5i$8nk$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>> In news:hiqnvm$kf2$1@reader1.panix.com,
>>>> the wharf rat typed on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:50:46 +0000 (UTC):
>>>>> In article <hiqmeq$mc1$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>>>> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> True, but that takes 100,000 rewrites per cell to kill it.
>>>>>> Writing 100MB
>>>>>
>>>>> Not really. Given a sufficiently large population of cells one
>>>>> cell will fail for every certain number of writes. The chances of
>>>>> any particular cell failing on any particular write are about 1 in
>>>>> 100000, but the chances of any one of the cells in the array
>>>>> failing are much larger. And they're still dependent on the number
>>>>> of writes, so SOME cells will INEVITABLY fail.
>>>>
>>>> So? In time a hard drive will suffer a bad sector or two. They are
>>>> marked as bad and life moves on. The same on a flash drive. No big
>>>> deal.
>>>
>>> Not so. If a bad sector on hard drive is detected, the drive logic
>>> simply maps a spare sector to cover the hole and the drive carries
>>> on. Not so on a FLASH memory chip, a bad cell will be detected and
>>> render the whole memory read only (usually). There are FLASH
>>> memory chips with spare blocks to cover failures but I have never
>>> seen them in anything other than very high end equipment.

>>
>> I don't know where you are getting this nonsense! But I just had a
>> bad block on my Adata 16GB SDHC Class 6 flash drive just the other
>> day. No problem, marked as bad and everything is fine. And how do
>> you explain my three different capacities with my three 16GB Adata
>> flash drives? That is if they are not being marked as bad, then why
>> is there a difference in capacity between them? This is reported by
>> CHKDSK. 1) 15,880,752 KB total disk space. 1,985,094 blocks.
>> 2) 15,672,112 KB total disk space. 1,959,014 blocks.
>> 3) 15,664,088 KB total disk space. 1,958,011 blocks.
>>
>> "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people
>> who are doing it." -- Anonymous

>
> Easy one. The flash chips aren't exactly the same in the three
> devices. Even if they appear to by the same device by type number
> they may be different revisions.


You mean internally the firmware is using a small amount of it and
different versions are using different amounts?

> I have never known any SD (or SDHC) card that continues to operate
> with a reduced capacity when a memory block fails.


I forget how many flash drives I have now, like 12 of them I believe.
About half of them are SD(HC) type. I have been using flash drives for
over 10 years now. And if you count EPROM and EEPROM over 30 years now.
And I have never had one fail on me yet. Except one EPROM quit on me
about 20 years ago, but that was it.

I even have a SDHC 8GB fake from China that is really a 2GB SD. I didn't
know how to fix it the right way, so I created a 2GB partition and left
the rest of the 6GB (that really doesn't exist) unformatted. I tested
every byte of the 2GB and it passes. This one I would expect to fail,
since it probably has no wear leveling or anything. It is probably only
good for 5,000 or less writes as well. Although even this one just keeps
going and going too.

And remember, I have one Adata that does have a bad block (that's #1
above). And a week later, another one popped up. The rest of it is still
working just fine. So it isn't working like you say it should. Why is
that? And since it is an Adata, they will replace it for free for life.

I have a Brit friend who is living in France. His flash drives only last
him about 2 months and then they die. One of his died in a short 2
weeks. I can't explain it, except perhaps flash drives are different on
this side of the pond. I just don't know?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3
 
O

olfart

Flightless Bird
"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
news:hjhp40$84u$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> < big snip>
> I have a Brit friend who is living in France. His flash drives only last
> him about 2 months and then they die. One of his died in a short 2 weeks.
> I can't explain it, except perhaps flash drives are different on this side
> of the pond. I just don't know?
>
> --
> Bill
> Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3

this is really unusual, because in France things generally surrender to keep
from dying.
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hjhp40$84u$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>And I have never had one fail on me yet. Except one EPROM quit on me
>about 20 years ago, but that was it.
>


Hmmmmm, what's standard deviation on a sample of 1? 100%?

>I just don't know?


I'd tend to agree.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:hjin1h$s4k$2@reader1.panix.com,
the wharf rat typed on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:01:53 +0000 (UTC):
> In article <hjhp40$84u$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>
>> And I have never had one fail on me yet. Except one EPROM quit on me
>> about 20 years ago, but that was it.
>>

>
> Hmmmmm, what's standard deviation on a sample of 1? 100%?


Who has this one you speak of? As I have dozens of EPROMs and EEPROMs.

>> I just don't know?

>
> I'd tend to agree.


No wonder others have called you a troll. Selective quoting is dishonest
and illegal. It is also called slander.

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its
limits" -- Albert Einstein

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3
 
M

~misfit~

Flightless Bird
Somewhere on teh intarwebs olfart wrote:
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
> news:hjhp40$84u$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>> < big snip>
>> I have a Brit friend who is living in France. His flash drives only
>> last him about 2 months and then they die. One of his died in a
>> short 2 weeks. I can't explain it, except perhaps flash drives are
>> different on this side of the pond. I just don't know?
>>
>> --
>> Bill
>> Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3

> this is really unusual, because in France things generally surrender
> to keep from dying.


LMAO!!!!!!
--
Shaun.

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hjjnvj$u4g$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>Who has this one you speak of? As I have dozens of EPROMs and EEPROMs.
>


Anecdotal evidence. "My Fiat never broke down. Therefore Fiats
are very reliable." Bad logic.

>No wonder others have called you a troll. Selective quoting is dishonest
>and illegal. It is also called slander.


"Please edit your included text".
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
the wharf rat wrote on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:13:18 +0000 (UTC):
> In article <hjjnvj$u4g$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>> Who has this one you speak of? As I have dozens of EPROMs and EEPROMs.

>
> Anecdotal evidence. "My Fiat never broke down. Therefore Fiats
> are very reliable." Bad logic.


You are not paying attention! I am not basing my experience with flash
drives on one example. I am basing it on 12 flash drives from different
manufactures over the past 10 years. And there has been no failures yet
at all.

And out of dozens of EPROMs over the past 30 years, I only had one
failure. I would say those are also very reliable.

So I don't know where M.I.5¾ is getting his information that one bad
block and the whole thing quits. As I have had two bad blocks and they
still work just fine. Just like what happens with a bad block on a hard
drive.

Also M.I.5¾ believes that no flash drive has wear leveling except for
the expensive corporate versions. I also don't see this at all. As if
these didn't have wear leveling, they wouldn't be working for all of
these years.

Also Adata wouldn't be replacing any of their failed SDHC for life
either. As they would be out of business in no time if many of them failed.

M.I.5¾ maybe thinking of the older flash memory called EPROM and EEPROM.
As these didn't have wear leveling and those I believe would stop
working with one bad block. But there has been a lot of advances since
those old days.

>> No wonder others have called you a troll. Selective quoting is dishonest
>> and illegal. It is also called slander.

>
> "Please edit your included text".


I found them by Googling "the wharf rat". There is where I also learned
that you are called this because people told you that you will never
amount to anything.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hjn3pf$fjf$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>You are not paying attention! I am not basing my experience with flash


No, YOU don't understand statistics. Niether a sample of one (you)
nor a sample of 12 (the set of flash drives you own) are statistically
significant and you can't use your personal experience as scientific
evidence. Flash drives aren't proven failure-proof because you've
personally never had one fail... Great Ghu...


>There is where I also learned
>that you are called this because people told you that you will never
>amount to anything.
>


Close. It's actually because everyone said I'd come to no good
but I got up and flew away.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:hjnmda$lp9$1@reader1.panix.com,
the wharf rat typed on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:21:46 +0000 (UTC):
> In article <hjn3pf$fjf$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>
>> You are not paying attention! I am not basing my experience with
>> flash

>
> No, YOU don't understand statistics. Niether a sample of one (you)
> nor a sample of 12 (the set of flash drives you own) are statistically
> significant and you can't use your personal experience as scientific
> evidence. Flash drives aren't proven failure-proof because you've
> personally never had one fail... Great Ghu...


You are so wrong on so many levels. First off you don't understand
statistics. As 12 trouble free flash drives in 10 years is a very good
sample rate. Secondly, I also have friends and family members who also
have flash drives. Thirdly, I hear about others experiences with flash
drives here and in other newsgroups. Fourth, I also read tech magazines.
Fifth, I am an electronic engineer and it is my job to know these
things. Six, I have access to the manufacture's data sheets. Seven, if
there were a big problem with flash drives, I would know about it. And I
could go on and on why you are wrong on so many levels.

>> There is where I also learned that you are called this because people
>> told you that you will never amount to anything.

>
> Close. It's actually because everyone said I'd come to no good
> but I got up and flew away.


That isn't what my research shows. As the above is a good example of
your history on the net. Unless you mean you fly once you are exposed in
a given newsgroup and fly off to another one to start another game of
yours. As I saw a lot of that as well. :-(

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hjpelr$sva$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>You are so wrong on so many levels. First off you don't understand
>statistics. As 12 trouble free flash drives in 10 years is a very good
>sample rate.


No, it's not. It's too small to be a valid sample. Approximately
150 million flash drives are sold each year. 12 out of a billion is
not a sufficiently large sample to allow you to draw conclusions. And it's
not a random sample, so you can't easily generalize observations to the
general population.

That's all just a fancy way of saying that even though you may never
have personally experienced a failure that doesn't mean we can disregard the
manufacturer's published failure rates and treat these things as 100% reliable.
The people who make them tell me that I can expect a certain number of device
failures under described conditions, and you know what? I think they're
probably right.

Secondly, I also have friends and family members who also have flash drives.

Lol. "I not only have anecdotal evidence to support my claims. I
also have hearsay anecdotal evidence!"

I guess this is engineering by faith :)


>Fifth, I am an electronic engineer and it is my job to know these
>things. Six, I have access to the manufacture's data sheets. Seven, if


The manufacturers state N failures per drive per service hour due
to cell death under tested loads. The devices are adequate as temporary
portable storage but not as main operating system storage. "Solid state
drives" are attempts to engineer around flaws in the technology to provide
that reliability but aren't completely proven in the consumer market and
are too expensive for the embedded system market that's their natural target.

But you know all that, right? Cause of being an engineer and all.

>That isn't what my research shows.


Your research is flawed. You need to cite primary sources.

"Some folks look for answers,
others look for fights."
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:hjppko$48o$1@reader1.panix.com,
the wharf rat typed on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:29:12 +0000 (UTC):
> In article <hjpelr$sva$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>
>> You are so wrong on so many levels. First off you don't understand
>> statistics. As 12 trouble free flash drives in 10 years is a very
>> good sample rate.

>
> No, it's not. It's too small to be a valid sample. Approximately
> 150 million flash drives are sold each year. 12 out of a billion is
> not a sufficiently large sample to allow you to draw conclusions. And
> it's not a random sample, so you can't easily generalize observations
> to the general population.


Sorry, I am not buying what you are selling. First no way in hell can
you convince me that I have the only working flash drives in the world.
Secondly, these things are mass-produced. And being mass-produced, you
only need a small sample.

For example, when I was involved with IC manufacturing, we made tens of
thousands at a time. Although we didn't test thousands. But just a small
handful. If they were good, the rest was expected to be so too.

For example, when a cook makes a meal to feed an army. He/she tastes a
small sample to make sure they made it with all of the right
ingredients. Now the cook doesn't eat all of the food to test it, now do
they?

I have all of these Asus 701/702 netbooks. Now are mine any different
than other people's Asus 701/702 netbooks? Nope not really. They all
work the same. We all got he same software, same ports, same CPU speed,
etc. I could not normally tell mine apart from each other either. Good
thing they all have different serial numbers or colors. Otherwise I
wouldn't know if I were grabbing one that has Windows installed vs. one
that has Linux installed on it.

> That's all just a fancy way of saying that even though you may never
> have personally experienced a failure that doesn't mean we can
> disregard the manufacturer's published failure rates and treat these
> things as 100% reliable. The people who make them tell me that I can
> expect a certain number of device failures under described
> conditions, and you know what? I think they're probably right.


I have never claimed that zillions out there are 100% reliable. I even
stated my friend burns out those he purchased in France in a short two
months. I don't know where he gets them. Out of cereal boxes for all I
know. lol

> Secondly, I also have friends and family members who also have flash
> drives.
>
> Lol. "I not only have anecdotal evidence to support my claims. I
> also have hearsay anecdotal evidence!"
>
> I guess this is engineering by faith :)


Your logic is far different than any I ever met, except from bozo the
clown.

>> Fifth, I am an electronic engineer and it is my job to know these
>> things. Six, I have access to the manufacture's data sheets. Seven,
>> if

>
> The manufacturers state N failures per drive per service hour due
> to cell death under tested loads. The devices are adequate as
> temporary portable storage but not as main operating system storage.
> "Solid state drives" are attempts to engineer around flaws in the
> technology to provide that reliability but aren't completely proven
> in the consumer market and
> are too expensive for the embedded system market that's their natural
> target.
>
> But you know all that, right? Cause of being an engineer and all.


For starters, take a 4GB SLC flash drive. To wear one out, you need to
write 400TB worth of data to wear out each cell. And I never have
written that much to such a flash drive yet. Thus probably why I also
never had one fail on me either.

Second of all, solid state drives have proved reliable and are used for
a main operating system. As many use them all of the time. I am using
one this very second and I have been for two years now. And in the next
year or two, half of all laptops are said will be using the solid state
type instead of conventional hard drives.

And no, they are not too expensive. You can buy laptops with 1TB or more
with a solid state drive right now. And some of the cheapest netbooks
are using solid state drives already. So they are very affordable.

>> That isn't what my research shows.

>
> Your research is flawed. You need to cite primary sources.


You haven't done any research at all. You have no idea what is going on
in the world and are totally clueless. The world is passing you by and
you don't even know it.

> "Some folks look for answers,
> others look for fights."


The latter for you is very obvious. The rest of us looks for the former.

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people who are
doing it. -- Anonymous

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

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hk9f0f$rkc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>Secondly, these things are mass-produced. And being mass-produced, you
>only need a small sample.
>


That's a false statement. Modern manufacturing uses statistical
quality control methods to reduce testing sample sizes by controlling the
process, but it doesn't eliminate quality testing. The samples are much
smaller than you might predict but a sample of 12 out of a billion would
never work.

>For example, when a cook makes a meal to feed an army. He/she tastes a
>small sample to make sure they made it with all of the right
>ingredients. Now the cook doesn't eat all of the food to test it, now do
>they?


A cook performs many samples over time of a single item. Typical
mass production manufacturing performs a small number of samples over time
of a large population of items. Each sample size is dictated by required
tolerances (margins of error) and population size.

(Anyway, cooking's an art not a science. Each dish is a little bit
different. One of the challenges a chef faces is developing consistency.)

>
>I have all of these Asus 701/702 netbooks. Now are mine any different
>than other people's Asus 701/702 netbooks? Nope not really.


That's another mistake. They are very different. Each part is
identical to the other parts in other laptops within certain tolerances.
The machine is designed to work as long as each part is within those tolerances
even if it's slightly "different". You get very interesting failures when
several parts are just barely out of spec.

>Your logic is far different than any I ever met, except from bozo the clown.


If you actually remember Bozo you'd also remember that he
solved more mysteries than Scooby Doo. (The cartoon Bozo, that is.)

>
>For starters, take a 4GB SLC flash drive. To wear one out, you need to
>write 400TB worth of data to wear out each cell.


No, you only need to have a failure in an important part of the
array. Because of file system structure a couple of dead cells in the first
meg or so would probably be fatal.

>Second of all, solid state drives have proved reliable and are used for
>a main operating system. As many use them all of the time


Many people buy lottery tickets, don't back up their data, and use
their birthday as their Paypal password. It's not correct because everyone
does it. That's called the "appeal to common practice", and is shown to be
bad logic by everyone's mother:

"If Johnny jumped off the roof would YOU jump off the roof too??"


>And in the next
>year or two, half of all laptops are said will be using the solid state
>type instead of conventional hard drives.
>


Oh, and I suppose they'll all be using Rambus memory and we'll be
driving to Best Buy in our flying cars?

>And no, they are not too expensive. You can buy laptops with 1TB or more
>with a solid state drive right now. And some of the cheapest netbooks
>are using solid state drives already. So they are very affordable.
>


Terabyte SSD drives retail for about $3,800. That's hardly price
competitive with traditional magenetic storage.

>You haven't done any research at all.


At least I looked up the price of the things on newegg before
talking about how affordable they are. $3800 isn't affordable unless you're
talking about a car.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:hka924$8ui$1@reader2.panix.com,
the wharf rat typed on Tue, 2 Feb 2010 22:30:28 +0000 (UTC):
> In article <hk9f0f$rkc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>>
>> Secondly, these things are mass-produced. And being mass-produced,
>> you only need a small sample.
>>

>
> That's a false statement. Modern manufacturing uses statistical
> quality control methods to reduce testing sample sizes by controlling
> the process, but it doesn't eliminate quality testing. The samples
> are much smaller than you might predict but a sample of 12 out of a
> billion would never work.


Well I never said I could speak for 12 billion flash drives. So get that
idea right out of your head. Secondly, I've done my research and I am
convinced they are reliable. In your mind, they are not. Which is fine
by me. As there are more and more people learning the very same thing.
And they are just becoming more and more popular than ever before.

And before there was any study that I knew about the reliability of hard
drives. I did my own study. I did a study on just 20 hard drives over 20
years and I came up with just under 7% early failure rate. I didn't know
how close I really was until.

Google later did their own study of hard drive reliability of 100,000
over 5 years. And their study showed I was only off by a small margin.
Although if I only counted the drives just the last five years, my
numbers would have been much lower. As my experience is that hard drives
are generally far more reliable in recent years than they were 20 years
ago.

>> For example, when a cook makes a meal to feed an army. He/she tastes
>> a small sample to make sure they made it with all of the right
>> ingredients. Now the cook doesn't eat all of the food to test it,
>> now do they?

>
> A cook performs many samples over time of a single item. Typical
> mass production manufacturing performs a small number of samples over
> time of a large population of items. Each sample size is dictated by
> required tolerances (margins of error) and population size.
>
> (Anyway, cooking's an art not a science. Each dish is a little bit
> different. One of the challenges a chef faces is developing
> consistency.)


I think many would disagree with you there. As that Taiwan electrolytic
capacitor fiasco about 9 years ago is a good example. As *recipes* for
making components are a well kept secret. Although a Taiwan company had
stolen the *recipe* from a Japanese company and started to produce their
own. But get this, the stolen *recipe* lacked one very important
*ingredient*. And all of those Taiwan caps started failing left and
right after about a year. I have one $800 Avatar computer that became
worthless in 11 months because of this. The last time it was turned on,
the video was in B&W and you could only run DOS. Anything running in 32
bit just wouldn't work.

Manufacturing electronic components has their recipes, ingredients,
batches, baking, etc. just like cooking does. As they use many of the
same terminology. Thus I don't see them much different like you do. By
the way, I was involved in component manufacturing when I worked for
Magnavox. So were did you get your experience from again?

>> I have all of these Asus 701/702 netbooks. Now are mine any different
>> than other people's Asus 701/702 netbooks? Nope not really.

>
> That's another mistake. They are very different. Each part is
> identical to the other parts in other laptops within certain
> tolerances.
> The machine is designed to work as long as each part is within those
> tolerances even if it's slightly "different". You get very
> interesting failures when several parts are just barely out of spec.


My Asus notebooks work just like anybody else. You can talk all you want
to but it doesn't change the truth. Of course components has to be
within spec. Otherwise it is a failure. But there are millions of these
things out there still working. Reports of failures are far and few in
between.

>> Your logic is far different than any I ever met, except from bozo
>> the clown.

>
> If you actually remember Bozo you'd also remember that he
> solved more mysteries than Scooby Doo. (The cartoon Bozo, that is.)


Sorry, no I don't remember. Too involved with science and engineering I
guess.

>> For starters, take a 4GB SLC flash drive. To wear one out, you need
>> to write 400TB worth of data to wear out each cell.

>
> No, you only need to have a failure in an important part of the
> array. Because of file system structure a couple of dead cells in
> the first meg or so would probably be fatal.
>
>> Second of all, solid state drives have proved reliable and are used
>> for a main operating system. As many use them all of the time

>
> Many people buy lottery tickets, don't back up their data, and use
> their birthday as their Paypal password. It's not correct because
> everyone does it. That's called the "appeal to common practice", and
> is shown to be bad logic by everyone's mother:
>
> "If Johnny jumped off the roof would YOU jump off the roof too??"


Apples and oranges. I have no problems running Windows or Linux on flash
drives and I do so everyday. You can believe they are not reliable as
much as you wish. It doesn't bother me one bit. And I have found flash
drives many times more reliable than hard drives so far.

>> And in the next
>> year or two, half of all laptops are said will be using the solid
>> state type instead of conventional hard drives.
>>

> Oh, and I suppose they'll all be using Rambus memory and we'll be
> driving to Best Buy in our flying cars?


Nope, I haven't heard that one yet.

>> And no, they are not too expensive. You can buy laptops with 1TB or
>> more with a solid state drive right now. And some of the cheapest
>> netbooks are using solid state drives already. So they are very
>> affordable.

>
> Terabyte SSD drives retail for about $3,800. That's hardly price
> competitive with traditional magenetic storage.


That isn't a lot. The first GUI personal computer was designed back in
'71 with a list price of $10,000. My first laptop back in '84 cost over
$2,000. People who buys powerful game machines and servers, this is
reasonable. I've heard that some servers are now using flash drives
instead of hard drives.

>> You haven't done any research at all.

>
> At least I looked up the price of the things on newegg before
> talking about how affordable they are. $3800 isn't affordable unless
> you're talking about a car.


When you are talking about powerful laptops or desktops, that is a
common price range. And it doesn't sound out of line to me. After all
back in the late 80's I bought $1000 worth of GEOS OS and software
applications. Sounds a bit expensive I know. But it was still cheaper
than a Mac. <grin>

And I know you like to argue and are often full of it. But I know that
the prices will come down very quickly in the next few years at any
rate. I know you said you don't believe it, while history shows you are
wrong in either case.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <hkeu26$9kg$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>Well I never said I could speak for 12 billion flash drives.


Sure you did. You said that you'd sampled 12 of them and so you
could conclude that all 12 billion will never fail because none of yours
had. Which IS kinda silly, don't you think?

>drives. I did my own study. I did a study on just 20 hard drives over 20
>years and I came up with just under 7% early failure rate. I didn't know
>how close I really was until.


Ok, I have to ask: Which 40% of that second drive failed? The
top half or the bottom half?

>
>Manufacturing electronic components has their recipes, ingredients,
>batches, baking, etc. just like cooking does. As they use many of the
>same terminology. Thus I don't see them much different like you do. By


Oh, great Ghu, no. Modern mass manufacturing carefully designs
processes to eliminate as much variability as possible. In fact, you try
to eliminate the actual *variables*. What you can't eliminate you design
elaborate process controls for. The end result really *IS* a sort of
recipe that you can more or less duplicate at will (but not entirely:
look at the scrap rates at different chip fabs for instance).

But cooking CAN'T be reduced to recipes because there's no way
to eliminate the myriad variables, and because it's a manual process you
can't really build in good controls. That's why any old person can't just
follow a recipe and turn out a dish worthy of a four star chef. Take a simple
thing like baking a loaf of bread: how alive is the yeast? How much
moisture is in the flour? How warm is the room? It's a much more fluid
and dynamic process than anything you see in a manufacturing plant.

>My Asus notebooks work just like anybody else.


They may WORK like all the other samples but they're NOT identical.
They don't clone them, you know. They build them out of parts, each of which
varies just slightly from all the rest. Sometimes you get one that varies
TOO much. Those are the ones people complain about on Usenet.

>> Terabyte SSD drives retail for about $3,800.

>
>That isn't a lot.


That's an awful lot for just a terabyte drive. I can build an
entire SAN array for 4 grand. Fibre channel.
 
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