Running Windows from a CF Memory Drive as a Fixed Disk

[dencorso]

Now that UHS-I is out (and being razor-edge technology are the most expensive thing possible), Class 10 cards are the way to go. Be sure you buy a Class 10 not a Class 6 or 4 (). Both Transcend and SanDisk are good enough.

[pointertovoid]

I strongly advise against MLC cards to install and boot Windows on them.

They're extremely slow for that task. This isn't just a matter of comfort: I once left the installer alone to observe, it took 10h to install Win. Worse, the Win installer may lose patience and declare the MLC card as bad for responding too slowly, though test software approve the Flash+adapter+cable+host+driver chain.

Even if you install Win by paste, MLC cards may freeze you OS unpredictably for one second. It takes you 5 min to be upset with it.

There's more. Most Flash cards have buffers too weak for a cable and can work properly only in a card reader or a camera. You won't notice it early - only at the end of the install, or only after some use if you install by paste, which is worse as you'll ignore the reason. Among SLC cards, my Transcend have always had good buffers, Adata and Lexar often - and MLC cards never.

Besides, Sandisk cards are often fakes, with horrible performance - especially on eBay, consider all Sandisk as fakes.

Add the "fixed" worry to this, and believe me that re-experimenting the choice of CF cards by yourself is a huge loss of time, costly and disappointing.

Some SSD have recently reached acceptable performance with MLC chips only because they have a ram cache and adequate batch write strategy - with some controllers only. Flash cards lack both.

[dencorso]

Buy your SanDisk from a reputable seller, test it, and have it replaced if fake.

Never happened to me, though.

---------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
      Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
---------------------------------------------------------------
32 GB Sandisk Extreme SDHC Class 10 Card 
on a Transcend RDS5 CardReader (on A7V600-X with Athlon XP 3200+)

   Sequential Read :   20.107 MB/s
  Sequential Write :   19.277 MB/s
 Random Read 512KB :   19.806 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :    1.800 MB/s
   Random Read 4KB :    4.030 MB/s
  Random Write 4KB :    0.016 MB/s

         Test Size : 100 MB
              Date : 2010/12/11 3:49:41

---------------------------------------------------------------
16 GB Sandisk Extreme III SDHC Class 6 Card 
on a Transcend RDS5 CardReader (on A7V600-X with Athlon XP 3200+)

 Sequential Read * :  20.214 MB/s
Sequential Write * :  17.303 MB/s
 Random Read 512KB :  20.081 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   7.995 MB/s
   Random Read 4KB :   4.665 MB/s
  Random Write 4KB :   0.102 MB/s

        *Test Size : 100 MB
              Date : 2009/08/09 11:42:43
---------------------------------------------------------------

Slow?

[Browncoat]

Then there is cost, in Canada the cheapest SSD I've seen is the 30gig OCZ at 79.95, you can buy 2-4 high quality CFs or SDHCs for that and still afford the adapters.

and unless you hang it loose, it needs a 2.5 to 3.5 cage adapter added for desktop use.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4364403&CatId=5300

and it takes up a SATA port that you could use for a data drive or RAID config, if you don't have a mobo with multiple,say six SATA ports.

If you want to use that empty IDE port:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=5301

200$

BIG FAT EDIT: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4143846&csid=_25

OOPS! I was previously unaware of these, please forgive my ignorance, so for me, the question remains, are these adapters

reliable? Since I'm still 'up in the air' about booting off alternate media, as opposed to magnetic discs. I may go this more expensive

route in the end. Maybe in a couple of weeks. I'd still like to see the 30gig OCZ drop in price more and learn about partitioning these,

for as stated above both my OS installs are just under 6 gigs each.

pointer: have you partitioned your SSD? how did that turn out? just like an ordinary HD?

and right now I am out of SATA ports, unless I add a PCI card.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Browncoat

[allen2]

I wouldn't buy a slc drive as most recent mlc ssd are now faster because they use better algorithms.

Also taking smaller drive will only make you loose the already integrated raid 0 that most ssd over 60GB use and they are faster with it.

Right now, if i needed to buy an ssd (sized about 60GB), i would buy either a Crucial M3/M4 64GB or OCZ agility 3 60GB (they are sold about 130$).

Ssd are like hard drive but you don't need to reserve the first partition to the partition who need the fastest read/write speed as the speed should almost linear everywhere on the ssd.

As you don't have a sata port and if you have a pci express x4 free slot you could buy a revo drive instead (i put the link for the 110GB, as it is only a little higher than the 16GB transcend slc ).

Edited June 29, 2011 by allen2

[pointertovoid]

At Flash disks, Slc still makes sense, because below Vista (or Seven), Mlc get slower over time.

SD cards are all slow because of their interface, bad choice.

If you stay a P-Ata ports, a CF is the best choice, with only SLC being good. At Crystal Disk Mark's 4k writes, they give 0.2MB/s instead of 0.02MB/s.

But if you have (or add) S-Ata ports, then a decent Ssd smashes any Flash card. They aren't so expensive now: I got a used 40GB Force 2 for 40€ including delivery, nice beast.