Thread: Compact Flash

I would recommend a SanDisk Exteme III card or if your on a budget a Kingmax Platnum CF card. Extreme III has a transfer rate of about 15 mb/sec, which is still substantially slower than even most 4,200 RPM laptop hard drives. You really only need a CF card if you're going to be offroading or if you are driving over potholes constantly.

newegg.com has these cheap. Otherwise use a 2.5" laptop hard drive if you're concerned with hard drive data loss. I am using a Toshiba 2.5" 5,400 RPM drive w/ 16 MB cache combined with a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 series 80 GB 7,200 RPM 8 mb cache 3.5" drive. The Toshiba has the OS loaded on it with minimal stuff loaded (firewall, spysweeper, mcAfee antivirus, Epson printer drivers to my Epson C84 printer etc). This was I can have a drive that can withstand some shock (200 G of shock on the Toshiba) and cheap space for MP3's (only 60G of shock tolerance, which is probably actually ok even for a car).

Anyway you stack it, Windows will take up like 2.5 gig of space for an install. You can cut it down, but Microsoft doesn't want you removing the goodies. I would pick your options wisely when installing.

CF is expensive. As an alternative you could gut a iPod mini and take out the IBM MicroDrive and use that instead. Those are 3,600 RPM (SLOW), but have a very good shock tolerance rating. A 4 GB iPod mini actually is cheaper than a 4 GB IBM Micro Drive lol sometimes.

-LAKORAI

How is your boot up time? I am mainly using a compact flash with the OS on it becasue i want to save bot up time.

go to the OS Optimization forums and search there. this has been covered quite a bit. you should use nLite to slim XP down. depending on what you need you can get it as low as 250MB. You'll also need to use EWF on the card to protect it from writes.