Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
 

Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users

Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years.

By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.

The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable.

However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format.

Read the full Article here.

Compliments to jk2447 for the find :)

-Ken

perhaps i should write an article about how World of Warcraft refuses to work with my Windows 95 system which also refuses to work with my new fiber router or something?

oh but wait, that wouldnt suprise anybody would it?

apparently the 10 year old OS not working with brand new hardware is surprising people, if only we had gone to EFI or something then XP users could suck it

This.

Plus, what HDD manufacturers are saying isn't that it won't work but that there may be a performance hit. The truth is even with a 10% performance hit when writing to the drive its still a whole ****e load faster than HDD were when XP was released.

Ryan, Horde or Alliance?

Sorry gentlemen, maybe I'm missing the point, but why would a general user or even an average desktop support person know the newer generation of hard drives won't work or will cause a reduction in performance on XP? Unless an article like this comes out ahead of time and propagates through the likes of us.

A ridiculous amount of companies are going to keep XP as their client OS for a ridiculous amount of time IMHO. In 2011 when a HDD fails and a new one is ordered, why would you think "hang on, is that a 4k drive?" You probably haven't wondered that in the last 8 1/2 years.

Just my opinion of course

James

Same reason the guy who owns the 10 year old Audi knows it might not have / support all the cool **** in a 2010 model


Users are not as thick as we like to often treat them
in fact, plenty of users I know replace entire systems when they get a bit too slow
users who don't notice that slowdown often don't replace, chances of them doing anything fancy is pretty slim though!

In fact, a user thick enough to get a single component upgraded 10 years after the OS went life is likely taking it to a dealer, who should not be thick, and who should provide appropriate pre-sales counsel to the users about the likelihood of issues from the upgrade and make suggestions

They wouldn't. It is still interesting to know though. I'm still using XP at the moment, but am eying up a switch to Windows 7, just got to get a bit more memory.

And they will get a ridiculous level of support
Windows XP is out of mainstream support (yeah yeah if you have the right SP theres a little life left!)
Extended support only now, which costs money! companies hate spending money

any company governed by security regulations will get in crap as soon as security patches stop too, because they will fail audits, which are expensive things to fail!

The simple fact is, the upgrade is imminent, its going to happen, and the tools and technology are in place to make it painless in a lot of cases, it just requires proper planning
budgetary wise, supporting systems no longer supported by the manufacturer jump the OpEx costs up so high it pretty much covers the CapEx for upgrades!

Should be a none issue. The people who aren't smart enough to take this into consideration shouldn't be smart enough to even need to bother with it i.e. when they need a new computer or something inside their current hard drive breaks, they either buy a whole new computer or they'll take it to a shop to fix it. If you're smart enough to swap a hard drive out and reinstall Windows, this thought of thing shouldn't be a problem.

Very good points and seeing as you are in Pre-sales, you'll certainly know more than I. What I wanted to get across was that there are going to be a lot of people who won't know why a 4k drive isn't working or is slower on XP. I say that because as the article says, since HDD's came out, its never been an issue so for what? 20+ years its been a standard 512 bytes as we all knew. To a lot of people, a hard drive is a hard drive with various speeds and interfaces but essentially the same from a users perspective.

Admittedly tho, you advise companies on requirements for a living so its looking likely I should stop debating now. . .

Being smart has nothing to do with this. Just because some people may not know one end of a computer from another doesn't automatically make them stupid.

Who calls Microsoft for support? :biggrin

It doesn't make them stupid but if they're not smart enough to replace a hard drive, this update to hard drives shouldn't be an issue for them as they'll leave it in someone's hands that do know a lot more about computers. Someone who does know how to swap a hard drive, format it and reinstall Windows, i'd expect to be able to look at this update and make the appropriate decision on which direction to go i.e. update to Windows Vista/7 or to go for an older 512k hard drive.

No foul in debating mate
your right, HDDs have not changed for the longest amount of time, BUT, people at the level generally are not buying components, and if they are, they should have a clue, the issue arises when people in the industry who are supposed to know whats going on, don't, and your right, that will happen an awful lot!
but its not something the industry should make a huge fuss over, idiots just need to get fired ;)

As soon as you get into the SAN world and array world, the numbers change anyway, as your really not dealing with the set in stone 512byte stuff anymore, can play with block sizes, stripe sizes, a bunch of other things come into play really

XP needs to go away, its a huge industry overhead

Really? Amazing... it doesn't cause me any overhead! :biggrin