Boot XP off Microdrive?

**2L_SS** · 12-22-2007, 08:22 PM

I have a magicstor 4 gig ata/ide microdrive and I was wondering if this would be ok to boot XP off of. I wanted to use a CF but I read that you can't boot xp off of flash memory. Is this true???

**pokki** · 12-22-2007, 10:33 PM

No it's not true. Both microdrives and CF can be used to boot XP.

Last i checked microdrives were prety slow though.

**2L_SS** · 12-23-2007, 03:10 AM

How slow is slow? Slower than a regular disk type HDD?

**pokki** · 12-23-2007, 03:19 AM

The last time I checked 2gb microdrives were about 1-3rd to 1/2rd the speed of standard HDD (could be wrong) and about 1/4th the speed of the fastest CF.

**Rob Withey** · 12-23-2007, 04:56 AM

Microdrives are really slow, even compared to old laptop drives. I use an 8Gb microdrive for the maps and music storage in my setup.

**2L_SS** · 12-23-2007, 12:24 PM

I originally wanted to use a CF to boot off of but then I looked at the price. I thought that the Microdrive would be a decent substitute but I don't want something that slow. What about a USB flash drive? Has anyone tried that with XP?

**pokki** · 12-23-2007, 02:36 PM

USB flash drive requires bios support to boot.

Where as CF in an IDE adapter is supported by all PCs.

I'll be surprised if going the USB route saves you more than $10 over the CF card route when buying similar speed products.

As a rough guide i'd estimate drive speeds as follows:
266x CF = 40 MB/sec
150x CF = 25 MB/ec
7200 RPM hdd 25 MB/sec
5400 RPM hdd 18 MB/sec
Microdive 10MB/sec

Speeds will vary between manufacturers so check before you buy anything.

**2L_SS** · 12-23-2007, 05:02 PM

I think I may have go with the normal style hdd. The speed of the CF would be great but my budget says no. How would a 10,000-15,000 rpm hdd compare to the 266 CF?

**SFiorito** · 12-23-2007, 05:30 PM

I've used USB flash storage...prior to the new UDMA CF drives it was the best, but the configuration issues aren't worth it compared to these new drives.