Flash memory vs harddisk.

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jpwise

590 posts

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#5983 14-Dec-2005 11:49

Well, I guess it doesn't fit any other category.

Has anyone had experience with using flash memory in place of harddisk for booting? ie: using CF-IDE or SD-IDE adapters to boot from compactflash for sd memory.

Have a workshop machine that the harddisks starting to pack up on and am debating the options of replacing it with a ~1gb flashdisk to speed up the boot speeds (gets started/shutdown several times a day).

Has anyone done much with them? Any feedback positive/negative? Particular modules to steer clear of, etc?

Thx.
Jp.

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Authorised Service Agent for Apple, BenQ, Sony, and Toshiba - warranty & non-warranty repairs.

paradoxsm

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#24771 15-Dec-2005 09:33

Works great, you have to avoid using Disc caching.

two ways to do it, setup a RAmdrive and cache to that.

There was also a tweak to force windows to use physical memory only which is better

using the flash ram for caching would kiil it within a week.

I have obtained a USB stick which can be setup as a "hard disk" instead of "zip disk" (removable media) so i'll be doing some fiddling over the next few days as windows didn't want to know about booting from a "removable disk"

I have previously had Windows 3.11 modified by Mwah from the Windows95 installation application, and windows 98 (or was it 2000?)

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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Geekzone

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#24772 15-Dec-2005 09:38

I should probably not be saying that much, but there will be a time in a not so distant future that the only thing needed to add more memory to a system is to plug a USB memory key...

Now this is OT and I will go back to my cave...

jpwise

590 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#24814 15-Dec-2005 18:11

Good point. Hadn't factored in the caching/swapfile stuff. But once the temp dir + swap etc is moved off, it 'should' be a reasonably fast way of at least getting the unit booted.

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Authorised Service Agent for Apple, BenQ, Sony, and Toshiba - warranty & non-warranty repairs.

Mutly

250 posts

Master Geek

#24826 15-Dec-2005 21:14

You should ask for one of these for Christmas..

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2480

Cheap way of having a solid state HDD.

jpwise

590 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#24842 16-Dec-2005 08:14

Yeah, I saw those a few months ago, looks nice, and would love to have one, but probably a bit of overkill. : ) Still... might check out the price on them though. ;)

Working for Service Plus - www.serviceplus.co.nz

Authorised Service Agent for Apple, BenQ, Sony, and Toshiba - warranty & non-warranty repairs.