After being mightily impressed with the boot up times of my Eee PC I got to wondering whether it's possible to install a SSD in a normal PC and run the OS from there?

Would you be able to install apps on the HDD with the OS on the SSD? Would this work?

yes, but it's "sell your wife on the street corner" expensive last time I looked

Oh right, how much space does say XP, or Vista take up then? Normal 32 Bit not flippin 64 bit.

You could probably get your C drive down to around 1.5 GB (maybe / probably even less with some of the XP hacks floating around)

Mine is currently 3GB occupied under XP - but with quite a few apps installed - a helluva lot more installed on F:\Program Files.

You turning (trying to) into some sort of Geek or summat ? :P

I've got a WD Raptor stripped RAID array here (2x74GB) and it's pretty quick

I've got a WD Raptor stripped RAID array here (2x74GB) and it's pretty quick

Woo, I felt the hairs on my heed being compressed as that statement went flying over the top of it.

Cheers however I am but a lowly bumpkin and know not of the wondrous powers of the magic slab int corner.....

stripped RAID array here (2x74GB) and it's pretty quick

You got a URL you'd like to share for this ?

If your feeling flush

Hard Drives - Solid State Drives - Ebuyer

Compared to this: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer which is a third the price and has as much cache as the whole of the SSD! (And is 15 times the size).

Maybe a year ago, the 500Gb disk would have been the same price as the SSD is now...

A RAID array is when 2 or more disks do the job of one (there are a few varieties of it, this is a "striped array" & data gets spread over both matched disks in stripes) and theoretically it works at twice the speed, though not in practice. Downside is that if one disk quits, it's very difficult to recover any stored data. Upside is speed & that 2 75Gb disks would have cost less than a 150Gb one - but add the RAID controller cost...

You can run XP from a CD, so putting it on a solid state disc would be pretty much the same. See BartPE - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and UBCD for Windows for details on how to build your own. I can testify that it works

After being mightily impressed with the boot up times of my Eee PC I got to wondering whether it's possible to install a SSD in a normal PC and run the OS from there?

Would you be able to install apps on the HDD with the OS on the SSD? Would this work?

It's possible, but the swapping of virtual memory will shorten the life of the drive.

Do you have XP or the standard linux on your Eee PC, and what is it like? I want one

Compared to this: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer which is a third the price and has as much cache as the whole of the SSD! (And is 15 times the size).

Maybe a year ago, the 500Gb disk would have been the same price as the SSD is now...

...

Actually, the Hard Disk has about 1/1000 ( 0.1% ) of the cache that the SSD has in flash. 32MB rather than 32GB.

It's possible, but the swapping of virtual memory will shorten the life of the drive.

Do you have XP or the standard linux on your Eee PC, and what is it like? I want one

Indeed, even with the write-spreading technologies, you want to install so much RAM that you can turn swapping off. Repeated writes to the SSD will reduce its life. Having said that though, 4GB of RAM isn't exactly that expensive when you're contemplating a SSD

Run XP off a 4GB USB pendrive/internal compactflash.

Put the swap file and the apps on a hard disk and bobs your uncle

You got a URL you'd like to share for this ?

what sort of URL?

Compared to this: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer which is a third the price and has as much cache as the whole of the SSD! (And is 15 times the size).

Maybe a year ago, the 500Gb disk would have been the same price as the SSD is now...

A RAID array is when 2 or more disks do the job of one (there are a few varieties of it, this is a "striped array" & data gets spread over both matched disks in stripes) and theoretically it works at twice the speed, though not in practice. Downside is that if one disk quits, it's very difficult to recover any stored data. Upside is speed & that 2 75Gb disks would have cost less than a 150Gb one - but add the RAID controller cost...

HDD == 32MB Cache (not useable by the user only the HDD processor)

SSD = 32GB.

A RAID array is when 2 or more disks do the job of one (there are a few varieties of it, this is a "striped array" & data gets spread over both matched disks in stripes) and theoretically it works at twice the speed, though not in practice. Downside is that if one disk quits, it's very difficult to recover any stored data. Upside is speed & that 2 75Gb disks would have cost less than a 150Gb one - but add the RAID controller cost...

Lol - these discs were expensive! I bought two of them for double the price of the 3rd 500gb drive in my computer! and the RAID controller in built in on the motherboard

Lol - these discs were expensive! I bought two of them for double the price of the 3rd 500gb drive in my computer! and the RAID controller in built in on the motherboard

Yeah..

Raptors are not actually that quick and can be beaten by some 7k2 rpm drives. Where they are good is latency.

Also most motherboard RAID controllers do most of their work using the host CPU via a driver for the OS.

As for not being inexpensive....

Have a look at the drives that are used in commercial RAID arrays and you will suddenly realise just how inexpensive raptors are. It's all about relative cost, and even a $500 Hard disk is relatively inexpensive compared to the alternatives.

well yes, but we're talking about home systems

I've definitely noticed an improvement in general response and booting with the Raptors

Ta for the replies and links, I don't really think I know enough to set up a system like this, or whether it would have any real world benefits based on the points above. interesting discussion though.

Im not 100% on this and have had a quick look on the Dell website but couldn't see anything. I think Dell have started shipping there D430 range with a 30gig solid state drive?

As said before I have a 2 gig pen drive with XP installed which comes in very handing for certain browsing

Actually, the Hard Disk has about 1/1000 ( 0.1% ) of the cache that the SSD has in flash. 32MB rather than 32GB.

Oh yes

Slightly OT (ish) If you want to cut down the size of an xp installation, take a look at nlite

nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation - About

I have cut all the stuff I don't want out of XP with Nlite and have created an ISO and stuck xp on my dinky ee pc, takes up just over 1GB in size on my 4G model.

Slightly OT (ish) If you want to cut down the size of an xp installation, take a look at nlite

nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation - About

I have cut all the stuff I don't want out of XP with Nlite and have created an ISO and stuck xp on my dinky ee pc, takes up just over 1GB in size on my 4G model.

Looks good that, how well does XP run on the Eee then? Have you had to upgrade the RAM?

I have upgraded the RAM Roy, Asus put out a bulletin saying that a RAM upgrade will NOT invalidate the warranty, it boot's in around 6 - 10 sec 's from cold and I am running office 2007, media player classic, and more importantly VAG-COM from it now.

All for £219 from toys r us :D