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    TZ: Is anyone running Vista on an SD card?

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by epbrown, Mar 7, 2008.

  1. epbrown

    epbrown Notebook Consultant

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    Has anyone tried permanently running their OS from an SD card?

    Reading that in a couple of months there will be 32GB Secure Digital cards available, I was thinking of setting my TZ150 to boot from the SD slot and installing Vista there. That would let me take advantage of SSD-type speed for my OS while I get to use all of my 100GB internal drive for file storage and still get to keep my intenal DVDRW. If I still needed additional space, I'd still have my USB ports, ExpressCard slot, and MemoryStick port. I'd lose use of the SD slot, but I've never used one before anyway, and this would be a lot simpler than opening the entire laptop to replace the internal drive with a 32GB SSD.

    I know this is do-able in some Thinkpads, as I've run some of my older ones from Compact Flash cards, but this is the first Sony where I've had the option of booting from flash memory.
     
    epbrown, Mar 7, 2008
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  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    SD cards are not as fast as SSDs...typically, SD cards run at 4-6MB/s where a normal laptop hard drive gets 25-70MB/s (SSDs around 100MB/s on a good day).
     
    Greg, Mar 7, 2008
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  3. nobscot6

    nobscot6 Wise One

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    thanks greg

    saved me from looking it up ;)
     
    nobscot6, Mar 7, 2008
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  4. zkaudio

    zkaudio Notebook Evangelist

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    yeah, people aren't even able to boot from Express card SSD's with any reasonable speeds
     
    zkaudio, Mar 7, 2008
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  5. epbrown

    epbrown Notebook Consultant

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    I see. According to specs released, the 32GB SDHC (and Memory Stick PRO-HG) will do 60MB/s. That's slower than I've experienced with CF cards, but from what I've read on Tom's Hardware, the drive in the TZ struggles to hit 30MB/s, with an average speed of 22MB/s.

    And that's weird about ExpressCards - I'd think they were as fact as Compact Flash since the interface is similar to PC Cards. Does the TZ port emulate a USB 2.0 port, as I've read Macs do, or is it PCI-E, which should have pretty good performance (2.5GB/s).
     
    epbrown, Mar 7, 2008
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