computer without hard drive

[VaHam]

I'm kind of enjoying the conversation going on here

Careful the ring side tickets are expensive

[az2008]

Bottom line is if anyone is stupid enough to not want to use EWF to protect their flash memory then let them do so. There is a good reason why it is included as a part of the HP XPe os image for thin clients; which is because they use flash memory.

There's no reason to use EWF with an XP dedicated laptop, with lots of unnecessary services turned off. I can't say why HP includes EWF except that they have no idea how a thin client may be used, and that in a normal (user interactive, high activity) deployment EWF would make sense.

If someone feels it is not necessary to do a nightly reboot let them do them whenever they like. I personally see no harm and some good in the technique.

Again, it's not that nightly reboots are "bad." Just that, if it's to prevent viruses it's not the most direct way to prevent them, and on a thin client it comes with some consquences, such as losing the previous day's upgrade.

If someone is comfortable with the MJ upgrades as soon as they are pushed then fine let them just accept them immediately instead of waiting before committing to them. Personally I see no benefit to that approach.

If avoiding upgrades is desirable, it can be prevented using a laptop and blocking access to upgrade.talk4free.com. Then there's no risk of disruption which nightly reboot (environment reset) won't prevent.

A laptop user can let the upgrade through when they're comfortable with what they've read about it. If they want to revert back, they can use the freeware Clonezilla tool to do so. (5-10 minutes).

That's not as automatic as a thin client's ability to revert back automatically. But, considering upgrades only occur 2-4 times a year, it's not a terrible burden.

I'm sorry you felt so threatened by attempts to frame things in terms of an apples/apples comparison.

Mark

[arcadia2uk]

My reason for preferring EWF is that I can use the thin client as a Sandboxed environment. You can try whatever you like and you still don't clutter your system.

This system is slow as it is and with the limited number of space you have you don't want to have fragmentation and leftover registry settings slow it down further, only with the OS itself you use up to 80-90% of your flash memory.

[az2008]

This system is slow as it is and with the limited number of space you have you don't want to have fragmentation and leftover registry settings slow it down further, only with the OS itself you use up to 80-90% of your flash memory.

That's the difficulty in comparing a thin client to a laptop with an IDE-to-flash (hard drive) adapter. It's like the topic of nightly reboots. A thin-client user has more reason due to the limited amount of memory (192m or 256m) they're working with. A memory leak will affect them more than a laptop user.

Conversely, a laptop user (not using EWF to protect their flash drive) would have less reason to reboot (presuming they have 512m to 1gig of memory) and more reason not to do it (it would cause writes to the flash drive).

Personally, when I can upgrade my old laptop's memory to 2 gig for $35 (and have the original 1gig as spare parts), and buy 8gig if flash for $25 (or 32gig for $70) I feel like I've stepped back in time when the discussion is in terms of 192meg of memory and 512meg of flash.

The thin client sounds like an interesting tool. I'd like to get one to play with. I don't mind spending $150 to learn something new.

But, there's a certain point where, with each flash memory location being writable between 10k and 100k times, and 16gig costing $40, it's hard to fathom how long a flash drive that size would last when a minimal install of XP takes only 2 gig. That's 14gig available to write tens of thousands of times. When you disable all the unnecessary services (background file transfer, indexing, system restore, event log) it's not going to write very much during the day.

It's stuff like this that makes the cross comparison difficult. A thin client presents challenges that don't exist with a laptop. Things like "committing," etc. that aren't possible because they aren't necessary. OTOH, a thin client's emphasis on "thinness" makes it possible to do things you wouldn't want to do with a laptop (converted to a solid-state device), such as gratuitous rebooting. And, makes it unnecessary to do things like turn off unnecessary services.

Mark

[stroths]

The EWF isn't really necessary on the thin client for what we are doing. It's just more of a safety net since most of us aren't changing the config much.

I just got my wife an Eee PC which has a solid state drive with a limited amount of writes similar to the thin client's DOM. However, the controller on the SSD helps spread out the writes across the drive to ensure it wears more evenly. I assume the same is done on the thin client's DOM, but I can't say that for sure.

I've taken configuration steps that are similar to the thin client such as adding a ram drive, pointing my temp directories to that ram drive, removing the page file and doing other things to reduce disk writes. I've added a 4GB SD card in its built in slot to save documents, download, etc as well. The base install of XP only took up about 700mb after all of this.

However, I don't have EWF enabled on it as it would be more of a hindrance since she will be saving things to it regularly. It also runs antivirus and antispyware software. With the exception of the SSD, its basically a typical notebook now.

My point is that the thin clients should run fine without EWF if you chose to. If I were to use a thin client as more of a general purpose PC with multiple changing functions, I would have EWF disabled.

[Boondocs]

I'm kind of enjoying the conversation going on here

Careful the ring side tickets are expensive

Haha that's funny

[az2008]

However, the controller on the SSD helps spread out the writes across the drive to ensure it wears more evenly. I assume the same is done on the thin client's DOM, but I can't say that for sure.

I believe that is a feature of all flash memory. They have a controller built into them, and a filesystem that ensures the same part of the flash isn't written over and over again. It will distribute the writes so every cell works its way up to the 10,000 (to 100,000) lifespan evenly.

I'm not an expert on this topic. But, I've never heard of this applying to only some flash devices. It's always sounded like it's part of how all flash devices work.

If that's true, then it would take a *very* long time to exceed the capacity of a 16gig flash drive. Win XP would consume ~2gig. There would be 14 billion locations which could be written to an average of 50,000 times. Just with average background processing I think that would a long time to exhaust. If the usual background services are turned off (background file transfer, indexing, system recovery, and maybe even event logging) it could take decades to exhaust that much space in a standalong environment running XP.

But, I understand that a thin client doesn't have 14 billion locations to absorb writes. With just 512meg total, and much less free, then EWF probably makes a lot of sense.

However, I don't have EWF enabled on it as it would be more of a hindrance since she will be saving things to it regularly. It also runs antivirus and antispyware software. With the exception of the SSD, its basically a typical notebook now.

I have access to some old laptops. If I get time, I'd write up a how-to for creating a solid-state laptop (unless someone else gets inspired before I do). And, include instructions for enabling EWF (if someone wants to go extremely barebones using a 1gig flash drive; or is fastidious about protecting against writes to flash; or wants the power-on reset capability of a thin client). It shouldn't be too hard to do.

Mark

[az2008]

I believe that is a feature of all flash memory. They have a controller built into them, and a filesystem that ensures the same part of the flash isn't written over and over again. It will distribute the writes so every cell works its way up to the 10,000 (to 100,000) lifespan evenly.

FYI: I found that this is called "wear leveling." and at least this reference which says Compact Flash (CF) cards implement this feature in their controller. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash#Description). The link on that page to "wear leveling" says the same thing, and that it's normally part of SD cards too.

I was reading some other pages saying SSD write-life has increased to 1 million writes. That's probably for higher-end SSD drives. But, they gave an example of a 64gig disk used in a write-intensive application (continual data logging). They calculated that the drive would last 51 years. (http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html)

I was looking over the thin-client forum. I saw a reference to purchasing Transcend SSD drives. That's a relatively high-end, expensive choice isn't it? If CF cards use "wear leveling" (which may not even be important because you use EWF to protect against writes), you can get a 44-pin IDE-to-CF Flash adapter for $12 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812186050). Or, another one which presents two CF cards as master/slave drives (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812200175). Then get 8 gig of CF for $25, or 32gig for $70 (http://www.flash-memory-store.com/)

It seems like that could be a good solution when the transcend SSD I saw referenced in the thin-client forum is $20 for 1 gig.

Disclaimer: I haven't used those IDE-to-CF flash adapters. I've only been looking at them for a year or two, thinking about making a solid state laptop. And, I've never purchased from flash-memory. They only popped up at the top of a google search.

Mark

[stroths]

They sell IDE to CF adapters that will fit into a standard laptop hard drive bay with the screw holes in the right place. I have one that I ordered when playing around with upgrading the flash on the thin clients. If you can find it, a fast SSD would be a better solution than CF just for the speed aspect. If you enable EWF, then write speed won't play as much of a role since you are running our of RAM.

Here are some useful links for setting up XP on a SSD. They are for the Eee PC or Aspire One, but it doesn't really matter as the steps are pretty much generic for any computer.

Nlite Guide - LINK

Guide to tweaking XP on a SSD - LINK

Guide for setting up EWF - LINK

Here's a tool you can use to monitor the EWF memory usage, so you can reboot before it hits 512mb and crashes - LINK

[az2008]

They sell IDE to CF adapters that will fit into a standard laptop hard drive bay with the screw holes in the right place.

The two I posted links to are of that variety. I haven't used them though. I can't attest to their quality. The one that provides slots for two CF cards, presenting them as master/slave drives sounds useful to me for an extra $10.

If you can find it, a fast SSD would be a better solution than CF just for the speed aspect.

I can see that being an issue for a laptop someone uses interactively (starting and closing web browsers, email clients, word processors). But, I don't think it would be much of a factor for a dedicated MagicJack box. The nature of it's usage shouldn't require a more expensive Solid State Drive. 8gig of Transcend is over $111. You can get the same amount on a CF card for $25. (Assuming what I read is true about CF cards having wear-leveling built into their on-board controllers.).

Thanks for the links. I'll keep those. I think it would be cool to setup a solid-state laptop and create a how-to (delving into the parts, services to disable, optional EWF).

Mark