is flash memory, CF and SD in particular, faster than a ATA133 hdd?
just thinking about getting a 2gb one to bootwindows off then having a 500gb external disk for everything else.
2gb gonna be enuff? id want at least 8 lol
Quote from: Binary Shadow2gb gonna be enuff? id want at least 8 lol
just for xp pro? for page file an stuff?
My Windows (XP) folder is 3.46GB! :shock:
7dayshop have cheap 4GB compact flash cards.
Possibly, though im sure the actual data throughput of a HDD is better than that of a flash drive.
Easy test, try loading a 300mb file of each and seeing which is faster. Im willing to bet that the minute anything tries to write to the flash card, itll start performing like a dog
no, not by a long way
cheap flash memory manages about 2-4 MB/s, Sandisk ultra and extreme cards manage about 10-13 deppending on the reader.
I bought a kingston 2gb stick hoping to put windows on it, then I found out how slow it was and wished I had spent more getting a better one.
Flash on converter to IDE should be fast but stick to USB is not so good I think
Sorry for asking a possibly stupid question, but why would you want to? Its not like a Mac operating system where you can just take it round your mates house to boot up? Different hardware will mean it does not boot? or am I missing the point. When i read this at first, I thought ... ace, what a cool idea, but then my second thought was what I would use it for. Please explain, am quite intrigued.
If it ran faster than a HDD then speed booting and running of windows... but as it looks like its slower there isnt much unless you are making a mini PC and cant do with the space of a 3.5" drive
Only reason I can think of would be noise on a DHCP server/router/firewall box which was to be on 24/7
If I set up my smoothwall again I shall swap out its clapped out and very loud 512MB HDD for a similar size CF card on a converter. twil be very nearly silent then
I just wanted to do it. There was no other reason.
Quote from: Chuck NorrisI just wanted to do it. There was no other reason.
Nope. Ive looked into it in the past. Tried booting Linux of CF using an IDE adapter & using a HDD as a media drive.
Quote from: Chuck NorrisI just wanted to do it. There was no other reason.
at the end of the day, what other reason do you need :D
Ive looked at the idea in the past and it is faster for booting windows etc...
virtually 0 seek time etc....
actual throughput might be down a little on large files, but whatd the chance your going to be copying large fiels on and off your 4gig... plus, would you really notice the tiny difference anyway ?
iirc. booting from a flash card connected up to an IDE port will get you booted up and into windows in under 14sec. (thats windows fully loaded and waiting for you... not just the backgroeund and start menu ready etc...)
mmm Im skeptical, even if your seek time really was 0 it would still only save you ~8-12ms per file. Youd have to access 100 files to save yourself a second, and youre going to loose some of that by going from 30+Mb/s to 10 or less transfer rate.
Depends, they might be fragmented in which case a single file can need many seeks. Windows goes through a lot of files at start up so it might make a difference. You also have to consider speed of transfer into the equation.
^^^ thats exactly it, theres no spin up time, practically 0 seak time etc. etc.