B
Bob
Is it possible to boot from a flash memory disk connected to a USB
port? It is assumed that the flash disk is formatted as a boot disk.
port? It is assumed that the flash disk is formatted as a boot disk.
Bob said:Is it possible to boot from a flash memory disk connected to a USB
port? It is assumed that the flash disk is formatted as a boot disk.
Is it possible to boot from a flash memory disk connected to a USB
port? It is assumed that the flash disk is formatted as a boot disk.
The more foolproof way to do it is to use a compactflash
card and CF-IDE adapter. That will work with just about any
motherboard because compactflash was made to work in ATA
mode. Many if not most CF cards may use PIO mode instead of
UDMA though, which is slower and uses more CPU time. I
believe Sandisk's higher-end cards are UDMA capable
(probably others now too but you'd need to see that as a
feature of the card to be sure), yet an UDMA supportive
CF-IDE adapter must also be used.
It depends on what you want to boot too. Flash drives may
have a removable media descriptor that changes how windows
handles them. Certain IDE drivers may not work with them
(for example, when I had a thumbdrive booting Win2k, it
wouldn't boot (finish booting) if the nVidia nForce2 IDE
driver was installed instead of the MS IDE driver. DOS is
dumber though, no such issues there.
It depends on the particular motherboard's settable BIOS settings.
Will this mode preserve the fast characteristics of flash memory that
you realize on USB?
I am just thinking about my next machine which is a ways off. I would
like to use non-volatile memory for the two main disks in my setup -
the boot disk and the backup disk. I will periodically clone these to
hard drives for archive purposes.
I believe flash memory is coming down in price such that you could use
a 32GB flash drive. I keep my drives very clean - no more than 15GB on
the two mentioned above. Therefore when 32GB flash memory comes down
to $100 per stick, I might want to give it a try. By then I am sure I
can find an appropriate mainboard. However if CF-IDE is as fast or
faster than USB, or is better overall, then that would be the way to
go.
I will have to borrow my son's flash stick, format it as a boot drive
and see if my BIOS will support it.
But that is moot because if I ever used flash disks I would build a
new machine around it.
I am wondering why you would use the flash for the main
drives then "periodically clone these to hard drives for
archive purposes".
It seems at least as useful to do it the
other way around, use the hard drives for the OS and clone
the important data to the more reliable but more limited
write cycle storage, the flash memory.
If considering speed then you will have to see benchmarks of
the particular product you are considering, to make a good
choice. Performance can vary considerably with the flash
drive or CF cards themselves, though a CF-IDE adapter (one
that supports UDMA) is a fixed entity, only a pin-adapter
that will be no faster or slower whether you picked up a
generic on ebay or something more expensive from a US
company... the latter would probably cost about 4X as much.
New as-in modern (at that time), thus tending to be faster
than what you're using now, or not?
since flash is still slower than a hard drive
Be aware of the limited number of write cyclesBob said:I come up with a list of specs - like flash disks - and the head of
tech support at Directron makes his recommendations based on the
latest available parts. He has never let us down so I continue to rely
on him to inform me of what is the best for my needs.
I have not used flash disks so I do not know what they are like. But
the people who have used them on USB claim they are a lot faster.
The reason for the archive to HDD is obvious. I do not want to lose
the data.
I am thinking out loud. I do not know why I would want to use flash
disks other than it is relatively new technology and it is purportedly
faster than HDDs.
I would use flash disks for both the OS and the online backup disk -
and periodically clone both to HHDs for archive purposes.
It sounds like I am a bit early with this.
I come up with a list of specs - like flash disks - and the head of
tech support at Directron makes his recommendations based on the
latest available parts. He has never let us down so I continue to rely
on him to inform me of what is the best for my needs.
I have not used flash disks so I do not know what they are like. But
the people who have used them on USB claim they are a lot faster.
No, i mean why TO HDD? HDD is an order of magnitude, if not
2 or 3, less reliable than flash so long as the # of write
cycles is kept within flash capability.
Be aware of the limited number of write cycles
flash disks have, if you use them as system
disk they will have a rather short live.
Faster than what?
They can seem faster in some uses, compared to a USB based
HDD. Still far slower than same HDD put inside the system
on PATA or SATA.
I am using the acronym "HHD" for "hard disk drive".
It is a reliable archive device.
Are you saying that flash disks are significant;y more reliable? If
so, then they are the way to go, no need for HHDs.
For archival use, yes flash is much more reliable. Primary
limitations are only the cost /GB and # of write cycles...
which tend to be high enough that archival use wouldn't be a
problem but operating system use (windows) could be.
Very interesting. Then I need to wait until 16GB USB flash disks are
cheap and use them instead of these removable hard disks I use now. If
the boot hard disk becomes corrupt I can clone it back to the previous
archive on the USB flash disk.
We have been talking about desktop PCs. The benefits of flash disks
would be better with portables because of lower power consumption.
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