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Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6825		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  AlunD [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8557144.stm
Quote:
Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years.


I have to say this was news to me :shock:
Author:  big_D [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
Most of the recent reviews of hard drives I've read in German magazines have had a box-out about this and actually list XP compatibility against each drive reviewed...

The 512b emulation is included in a lot of drives, but they don't universally work with XP at the moment.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
Will this be an issue for many? As people replace their machines they will get new OSes which can cope. Though I suppose businesses which still use XP a lot may be affected.
Author:  pcernie [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
Quote:
To help Windows XP cope, advanced format drives will be able to pretend they still use sectors 512 bytes in size.

When reading data from a drive this emulation will go unnoticed. However, said Mr Burks, in some situations writing data could hit performance.

In some cases the drive will take two steps to write data rather than one and introduce a delay of about 5 milliseconds.


That bit's interesting... Personally, I've no intention of leaving XP any time soon since there's no benefit in 7 for me from what I can tell, and I've got enough drives around the place to just back up my installation to another one anyway. Also, I take it we're talking about HDDs here rather than SSDs? :?

That's another thing, I'll probably want a SSD when they're cheap enough :D
Author:  l3v1ck [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
AlunD wrote:
I have to say this was news to me :shock:

You need to visit Bit-Tech more often. ;) :lol:
Author:  AlunD [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
l3v1ck wrote:
AlunD wrote:
I have to say this was news to me :shock:

You need to visit Bit-Tech more often. ;) :lol:

Yeah True. :D
Author:  paulzolo [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
Is XP still on Microsoft’s support rota? If so, then they surely have to address this.
Author:  l3v1ck [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
paulzolo wrote:
Is XP still on Microsoft’s support rota? If so, then they surely have to address this.

I should hope so, Netbooks are still sold with XP. The issue would be how would old XP CD's install if they can't read the drives. Any XP changes would need the updates after a clean install.
Author:  JJW009 [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
l3v1ck wrote:
The issue would be how would old XP CD's install if they can't read the drives.

I imagine you could use the "Install third party RAID drivers" option, provided you have a floppy drive and someone has actually written one.

However, it doesn't really matter. They've been designed to work in an XP compatible mode, and although it may be 10% slower it will still be much faster than an old drive.

I'll be using XP on my Netbook, media centre and two main PCs for a long time to come. I quite like 7 but I can not justify the expense of upgrading until compatibility with new software and hardware forces the issue. I rarely buy a whole new machine, they just slowly evolve through upgrades.
Author:  big_D [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
paulzolo wrote:
Is XP still on Microsoft’s support rota? If so, then they surely have to address this.

It is in emergency support until some time in 2014. That means security patches, but no new functionality.

As this is new functionality and not security, the problem has already been "patched" with Vista and Windows 7... :?
Author:  rustybucket [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
Quote:
By contrast, Windows 7, Vista, OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and versions of the Linux kernel released after September 2009 are all 4K aware.

This is the important bit.

I don't particularly like MS but they have done the decent thing and supported XP for over 8 years. You can't buy an OS in 2001 and expect it to remain current until 2011.

Sorry but XP users need to get with it.
Author:  JJW009 [ Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
rustybucket wrote:
Sorry but XP users need to get with it.

I'll probably go Linux in 2014.

Hopefully there should be enough support by then, because I'm afraid I rather struggle with it at the moment. My biggest problem is simply graphics performance; my Acer could barely manage 1 frame a minute with the supplied Linux install compared to 50fps under XP. My HP had a similar performance gap, especially with Flash.

Until then, I doubt I'll be buying any new hardware or software except maybe a NAS so it just doesn't doesn't matter to me.
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