# Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users.

*Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years (by end of January 2011).*



> Windows 7, Vista, OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and versions of the Linux kernel released after September 2009 are all 4K aware.
> 
> To help Windows XP cope, advanced format drives will be able to pretend they still use sectors 512 bytes in size.


-- Tom


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## Wino (Dec 1, 2001)

Morning Tom,

What am I missing here? I don't see the problem for XP now or the near futrure nor do I see the need to revamp HDD. I thought 64-bit OS's made higher RAM visible and usable. While I understand the real estate issue (say 160GB HDD only shows up as 147GB +/- the new would show 160GB - big whoopie). With static RAM HD's on the horizon I would presume all will remain backward compatible - anything else would be suicide IMHO. Again, am I missing something or is my skepticism valid?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Since all these drives will offer compatibility emulation, I also fail to see the issue.


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## TechGuy (Feb 12, 1999)

I think the problem is really that the compatibility mode will slow performance...



> In some cases the drive will take two steps to write data rather than one and introduce a delay of about 5 milliseconds.
> 
> "All other things being equal you will have a noticeable hard drive reduction in performance," said Mr Burks, adding that, in some circumstances, it could make a drive 10% slower.


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## redoak (Jun 24, 2004)

I read that article at about 0300 EST, USA! Apparently no need for Xpers to be alarmed. 

{redoak}


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## loserOlimbs (Jun 19, 2004)

I can see emulation as being a problem as well. Perhaps with semi-modern PC no noticeable difference. 

What I see as a benefit is that you get more space back, and a better chance of recovering lost data. A 1TB drive still won't have 1TB available after the decimal - Binary conversion... but your DVD on your hard drive will take less space since it will use less blocks and therefore less slack between blocks.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

TechGuy said:


> I think the problem is really that the compatibility mode will slow performance...


Well, anyone still running XP in 2012 or later probably isn't worried about speed.  Truthfully, I'm not sure for typical disk operations that the speed will be impacted all that much. For sequential reads or a block of data, which are a majority of disk accesses for most users, the only overhead is the internal buffering in the disk drive to emulate the small sectors. Writing could be slower, since they might have to fetch the sector before writing it, it'll be interesting to see how they handle that.


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## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

Snow Leopard can already do this, what's with this 2011 stuff? It made the switch from binary to decimal, so my 120GB hard drive shows AS 120...


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

namenotfound said:


> Snow Leopard can already do this, what's with this 2011 stuff?


By the end of 2011, these new drives will be the ones mostly available and those with "legacy" systems will be SOL or close to it.

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I've already seen these drives stuck into stuff like NAS boxes with no ill effects, I doubt this is going to be the burning issue that you folks seem to think it is. There could be some performance impact, but the world won't end.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

JohnWill said:


> There could be some performance impact, but the world won't end.


It most certainly will.... but in 2012.. John Cusack even knows it! 

Peace...


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## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

tomdkat said:


> It most certainly will.... but in 2012.. John Cusack even knows it!
> 
> Peace...


That was such an awful movie...


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## peck1234 (Aug 27, 2008)

I cant wait to hardrives are the dead format...

We really need to move forward to SSD...


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Sounds like what Peter Norton said in "Need for Speed" from years ago.
How the the Fat, sectors don't all have to be the same. Even said that the older Fat like for 95 was better and should be used for your OS and then have other drives for other programs you install and do things like first part of another drive as you swap file etc.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

peck1234 said:


> I cant wait to hardrives are the dead format...
> 
> We really need to move forward to SSD...


Well, we need a bit more development in that area as well as some major price reductions! So far, most of the SSD's are still slower than hard disks writing. The performance actually seems to vary all over the map, as well as with different benchmarks. I can wait another year or two for the second generation.


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## loserOlimbs (Jun 19, 2004)

namenotfound said:


> Snow Leopard can already do this, what's with this 2011 stuff? It made the switch from binary to decimal, so my 120GB hard drive shows AS 120...


Thats not what the article is about... its about a new technology, bot Apple's backwards attempt to make its customers happy.


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## chippynut (Dec 12, 2009)

Sorry to but in but what exactly is SSD ?


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

*S*olid *S*tate *D*rive. Like a Flash drive (no moving parts) but in the physical form of a hard drive.

Peace...


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## loserOlimbs (Jun 19, 2004)

tomdkat said:


> *S*olid *S*tate *D*rive. Like a Flash drive (no moving parts) but in the physical form of a hard drive.
> 
> Peace...


So essentially a CF card, SD card or thumb drive that attaches to your SATA interface and looks like a regular hard drive.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

loserOlimbs said:


> So essentially a CF card, SD card or thumb drive that attaches to your SATA interface and looks like a regular hard drive.


Well, not really. It does indeed use FLASH memory for the non-vol memory, but that's where the similarity ends. There is a fairly sophisticated controller and buffering in an SSD to increase performance several-fold over a SD or thumb FLASH drive.


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## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

JohnWill said:


> Well, not really. It does indeed use FLASH memory for the non-vol memory, but that's where the similarity ends. There is a fairly sophisticated controller and buffering in an SSD to increase performance several-fold over a SD or thumb FLASH drive.


Well not _all_ SSD's use FLASH. They also make DRAM-based SSD as well. It's just the FLASH-based ones are more common.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

DRAM based SSD products are specialty products, they're 3-4 times more expensive than FLASH SSD products and don't have nearly the reliability at the present time. Of course, there's also the pesky battery issue. 

http://www.amamax.com/acaan5sax1ra.html

[WEBQUOTE="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#DRAM_based_drive"]SSDs based on volatile memory such as DRAM are characterized by ultrafast data access, generally less than 10 microseconds, and are used primarily to accelerate applications that would otherwise be held back by the latency of Flash SSDs or traditional HDDs. DRAM-based SSDs usually incorporate either an internal battery or an external AC/DC adapter and backup storage systems to ensure data persistence while no power is being supplied to the drive from external sources. If power is lost, the battery provides power while all information is copied from random access memory (RAM) to back-up storage. When the power is restored, the information is copied back to the RAM from the back-up storage, and the SSD resumes normal operation. (Similar to the hibernate function used in modern operating systems.)

These types of SSD are usually fitted with the same type of DRAM modules used in regular PCs and servers, allowing them to be swapped out and replaced with larger modules.[/WEBQUOTE]


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## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

Which is why I said the FLASH-based ones are more common 

Btw, your linking to the wrong thing. DRAM-based SSD are "RAM Drive" *not* "RAM Disk" - two different things. Your link is to a RAM Disk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I don't understand your comment about linking to the wrong thing. Seems you're linking to the wrong thing. From your link:

[WEBQUOTE="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk"]*This article is about virtual drives emulated with software.* For hardware storage devices using RAM, see solid-state drive.[/WEBQUOTE]

Note we're NOT talking about emulated virtual drives here, aka RAM drives, we're talking about disk interfaced FLASH and DRAM drives. At least we were unless you're changing directions... Check my link again.

.


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## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

Well when you look up SSD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

You'll notice thay specify that


> An SSD using SRAM or DRAM (instead of flash memory) is often called a RAM-drive, *not to be confused with a RAM disk.*


Your link is for this product:


> Acard SSD (ANS-9010B) ANS9010B Ram *Disk* - Support 5.25" SATA x 1-to-DDR2 RAM *Disk*


When I mentioned DRAM you linked to that product, but you can see DRAM refers to RAM-drive, NOT RAM-disk


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

From the link in question.



> *# SATA 3.0Gbps Interface port*
> # 240-pin DDR2 DIMM module slots x6
> # One CF socket in front panel
> # Lithium Battery of 7.4V 2400mAh, enough to finish the backup
> # Dimension: 42(H) x 145(W) x 214 (D) mm


Sounds like a pretty standard SSD to me, it has a SATA interface.


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Why new hard disks might not be much fun for XP users (2 web pages).

In addition to what has already been discussed, this article also talks about The other big roadblock: the 2TB partition limit.



> *In addition to the areal density problem making errors more likely, a second issue has raised its head. The partition table, which the on-disk structure that describes the number and sizes of the partitions on a disk, can only really describe disks that are 2 TB or less in size. The partition table stores the size of a partition as a count of the number of sectors in that partition, and this count is a 32-bit number. That means it can go up to a little over 4 billion, but no more. Four billion 512-byte sectors is 2 TB. This poses a big problem for any company wanting to sell a disk that's bigger than 2 TB.*


-- Tom


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

The partition table limitation issue is more real than any XP issue, which is really just a performance issue. That will be interesting to see how that is addressed.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

JohnWill said:


> From the link in question.
> 
> Sounds like a pretty standard SSD to me, it has a SATA interface.


I think the overview description is more appropriate:


> ACARD RAM Disk is a solid state disk make up DRAM memory modules, for faster than the traditional hard drives and flash drives. With the speedy random access rate and shorter access time, RAM Disk is definitely suitable for graphics designs and database systems. It also supports an CF slot for data backup / restore to prevent data lost.


I think the confusion is the use of the term "RAM disk". Traditionally, "RAM disk" referred to using RAM as virtual disk storage (for performance reasons). In the case of the product JohnWill cited as an example, it's a physical device (a physical drive) that uses RAM as its storage technology, instead of Flash or other solid state technology.

So maybe they should change the name of the product to be a "RAM drive", since that better suits the true nature of the beast. Personally, I think 'Godzilla' would be a better product name but that's just me. 

Peace...


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

JohnWill said:


> The partition table limitation issue is more real than any XP issue, which is really just a performance issue.


I don't follow since the partition table limitation issue IS one of the *XP* issues, since XP doesn't support the larger sector sizes. 

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Good point, however if you format an external drive with a non-standard sector size, you could no longer read it at all with any previous version of Windows. That sounds like it'll be a bigger deal than the fact that the 4k sector drives resort to emulation of 512 byte sectors to me.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

JohnWill said:


> Good point, however if you format an external drive with a non-standard sector size, you could no longer read it at all with any previous version of Windows. That sounds like it'll be a bigger deal than the fact that the 4k sector drives resort to emulation of 512 byte sectors to me.


Yep, I agree. However, I don't see that happening very often at all and if someone does format an external drive with a non-standard sector size, they will probably have the technical ability to deal with issues on the other machines to which that external drive is connected. In other words J6P (Joe six-pack) won't format their external drive with a non-standard sectors size because they wouldn't know what a sector is, let alone what the standard sector size would be and then choose a different size for the format.  LOL

Of course, as more and more people migrate to Windows Vista or Windows 7 this will be less of an issue.

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I've got it covered.


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