One Terabyte of RAM for XP

[boozercruiser]

I'd like to add One Terabyte of RAM to my XP computer. Can XP handle
this much memory?

 

[Paul]

I'd like to add One Terabyte of RAM to my XP computer. Can XP handle
this much memory?

If you scroll down here about 1/3rd of a page, the limit is 128GB on WinXP x64 version.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx

Memory comes in DIMMs, and you would need 250 of the items in the following
picture, to make a full One Terabyte of RAM. The RAM would cost $5750.
The motherboard to hold the DIMMs, would end up being about 20 feet long
and 12 inches wide. That isn't likely to happen. It would take roughly
four minutes, before the BIOS could start the boot process - that is the time
it would take to initialize One Terabyte of RAM sitting in the BIOS screen.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211561

If you were referring to disk drive storage, a single hard drive
can store One Terabyte of files. And this only costs $55.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152173

The file systems on the computer, can handle a lot more storage,
than the CPU can handle memory DIMMs.

In terms of the largest capacity motherboards I've seen, it's possible
you could get around 192GB max. I saw a computer with four FBDIMM
risers, each with 8 slots, for a total of 32 FBDIMMs. Each FBDIMM could
hold 8GB of RAM for a total of 192GB of memory. I haven't checked lately,
to see if that situation is improved. FBDIMMs have gone out of favor
as far as I know.

WinXP also has a CPU socket limit. The Professional version supports
two CPU sockets. If you were to buy a couple $4000 10 core processor
chips, you can have as many as 20 cores running under WinXP.

And larger limits are available using _server_ versions of operating systems.

Paul

 

[Bob Willard]

I'd like to add One Terabyte of RAM to my XP computer. Can XP handle
this much memory?

Before you worry about XP, worry about hardware:

- The biggest RAM stick current sold by Crucial is 16GB, for $700.

- So, to get a PC with 1TB you must find a MoBo that has 64 RAM slots
and you must write a check for ~43K$.

Or are you just confused about the difference between RAM and HD?

 

[David H. Lipman]

I'd like to add One Terabyte of RAM to my XP computer. Can XP handle
this much memory?

No. Not even WinXP/64.

As for a 32bit OS, 2^32-1=~4GB and is much less than 1TB.

 

[Tim Slattery]

I'd like to add One Terabyte of RAM to my XP computer. Can XP handle
this much memory?

No way. Look at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx which
shows memory limits for various Windows operating systems. 64-bit
WinXP can handle up to 128GB, that's one eighth of what you're talking
about. The 32-bit version of the OS can handle 4GB (and won't actually
be able to use all of that). Some of the server operating systems can
handle a terabyte. Win Server 2008 R2 can handle 2 Terabytes, but none
of the client systems will handle a TB.

That's if you can even find a motherboard that will support a terabyte
of RAM.

If you're talking about disk space though, the answer is yes, XP can
handle a 1TB disk. In fact, I've got a 3TB USB disk plugged into my XP
machine.

 

[John John MVP]

In fact, I've got a 3TB USB disk plugged into my XP machine.

Is that a Network Storage drive? Or did you get a special driver to use
the drive on Windows XP? Or are you using XP x64?

John

 

[Tim Slattery]

Is that a Network Storage drive? Or did you get a special driver to use
the drive on Windows XP? Or are you using XP x64?

Not network storage, just a USB hard drive. It's 32-bit XP SP3. When I
first connected the disk it loaded a driver. I assume that's to allow
WinXP to read the GUID partition table. That's a new format that's
necessary because the old partition table format can't handle a disk
larger than 2TB.

 

[VanguardLH]

I'd like to add One Terabyte of RAM to my XP computer. Can XP handle
this much memory?

Please enlighten us by stating what is the current brand and model of
motherboard you have that permits you to add 1 TB of memory?

 

[James D Andrews]

VanguardLH was thinking very hard and all he could come up with was:

Please enlighten us by stating what is the current brand and model of
motherboard you have that permits you to add 1 TB of memory?

I think it's safe to say Mr. Slattery is confusing RAM & HDD storage.
All the different Gigs of this and Terabytes of that in a system can be
confusing sometimes.

--
-There are some who call me...
Jim


"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."
- Yoda ('The Empire Strikes Back')

 

[Peter Foldes]

I think it's safe to say Mr. Slattery is confusing RAM & HDD storage. All the
different Gigs of this and Terabytes of that in a system can be confusing
sometimes.

No he is not confusing it at all. Tim said exactly what is what in his reply to John
John. Read it and comprehend it instead not letting the whooooooosh get by you

--
Peter
Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.
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[Ken Blake, MVP]

No he is not confusing it at all. Tim said exactly what is what in his reply to John
John. Read it and comprehend it instead not letting the whooooooosh get by you

James is apparently confusing Tim with boozercruiser, who asked the
question, not Tim. And he's very likely right about boozercruiser.

 

[Al Sparber]

You need your head to be examined boy! Even servers don't have that
much RAM.

 

[Tim Meddick]

This is really weird - I was only thinking last week, that, what with
steadily increasing RAM sizes (now averaging at around 4GB in latest
models) in the future we may see a rapid increase in both RAM sizes and the
size of applications that take advantage of it.

It wasn't so long ago that we saw application size break through the 1MB
mark and now very few programs around are smaller than 1MB.

Today applications can be 10, 20, 50 or more MB in size, and the size of
RAM is the only* (*together with a proportional increase in CPU and bus
speeds) limiting factor to ever larger software sizes...

Eventually, we could see RAM in the 10s of Gigabytes, then maybe in the
100s of Gigabytes, then, sometime, maybe even RAM a Terabyte in size - one
day.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[David H. Lipman]

This is really weird - I was only thinking last week, that, what with steadily
increasing RAM sizes (now averaging at around 4GB in latest models) in the future we may
see a rapid increase in both RAM sizes and the size of applications that take advantage
of it.

It wasn't so long ago that we saw application size break through the 1MB mark and now
very few programs around are smaller than 1MB.

Today applications can be 10, 20, 50 or more MB in size, and the size of RAM is the
only* (*together with a proportional increase in CPU and bus speeds) limiting factor to
ever larger software sizes...

Eventually, we could see RAM in the 10s of Gigabytes, then maybe in the 100s of
Gigabytes, then, sometime, maybe even RAM a Terabyte in size - one day.

One must realize that with each doubling of the OS opertaion size that primary and
secondary storage requirements must rise.

Compare the CP/M OS and its exectutable size to a x86 to 32 bit and now 64 bit OS'.

I remember a Dell server I managed where the RAM was almost a thousand dollars and wasn't
evebn close to 1GB.

Actually the OS is a limiting factor. Win16 is faster than Win32 which is faster than
Win64.

 

[Tim Meddick]

My point was that the software takes advantage of increasing hardware
functionality.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[David H. Lipman]

My point was that the software takes advantage of increasing hardware functionality.

There was a time when the hardware drove the software.

That meant that the software had to conform to the hardware at large.

I don't know the exact or proximate dat when that no longer was true.

Now software drives the hardware. That means that the software has lofty requiremensts
and the ahrdware manuafactures must meet those requirements.

It is now my peronal opinion that if you get a new computer, desktop or notebook, get as
much RAM as possible. Ram is cheaper now than ever and the system works much better when
it has a large amount of primary storage.

 

[James D Andrews]

Tim Meddick snuck on to your hard drive to scribble:

My point was that the software takes advantage of increasing hardware
functionality.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

This rather twisting, turning and yet still somehow on-topic thread
brings to mind the question:

What is the current max RAM?

For mobos, the most I've seen is 24GB (either 3x 8GB or 6x 4GB), but I
don't work with servers and such. Is 32GB or larger out there?

Max I'm seeing on Flash Memory Cards or Flash Drives is 128GB.

I'm sure all of this will be doubled soon enough, though. Anyone got
more at present?

--
-There are some who call me...
Jim


"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean
that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel
good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
-Gandalf, after Bilbo Baggins says "Good Morning"

 

[Tim Meddick]

I'm sorry but I can't agree with your last statement...

To my mind, it's quite clear that hardware manufacturers design (more
advanced) hardware and [new] software is written to operate upon it.

It can't work the other way around!!

You can't write software for a device that hasn't been invented yet, can
you?!!

Even something like new Operating Systems are developed in close
co-operation with the hardware manufacturers - advancements in hardware
technologies such as processor architecture have to have software written
for it.

No-one writes software and waits for someone else to create hardware to
enable it to run....

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Peter Foldes]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx
--
Peter
Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
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[David H. Lipman]

I'm sorry but I can't agree with your last statement...

To my mind, it's quite clear that hardware manufacturers design (more advanced) hardware
and [new] software is written to operate upon it.

It can't work the other way around!!

You can't write software for a device that hasn't been invented yet, can you?!!

Even something like new Operating Systems are developed in close co-operation with the
hardware manufacturers - advancements in hardware technologies such as processor
architecture have to have software written for it.

No-one writes software and waits for someone else to create hardware to enable it to
run....

You may disagree with me but I have been in the industry since CP/M and Z80/8080/8085 and
this is what I have seen as a VAR technician and a certified technician.

Vendors do write software such as games, simulators and emulators that make the hardware
manufacturers make that software run better. Whether it be the CPU, video coprocessing or
networking. The hardware has to play catch-up to the software demands.