Info Microsoft Trying to Kill HDD Boot Drives By 2023: Report

mpo

Senior member
Jan 8, 2010
457
51
91
Microsoft Trying to Kill HDD Boot Drives By 2023: Report

2% of me says that consumers should have the choice in the type of hard drive they have in their computer. Ultra-low-cost machines still have spinners in them. They are still cheaper for ~1 TB capacities.

98% of me says, "it took this long?" I still have one older laptop with a spinner in it. I only use it a few times a year. Between MS and vendor software updates, it takes a minimum of half an hour to start productive work. All other laptops with SDDs running the same software are up and running in 5 to 10 minutes.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
I can't see this being really anything but good news. It was already painful enough trying to use a boot HDD in 2020 in Win10.

Ok so triple the cost, for what? 70 times the performance almost assuming the HDD is getting 100MB and that NVME is getting 7000? Sounds like a good trade off for me. I got clients who want cheap. We get them cheap. Then wonder why it is so slow. yea you have a hard drive. You didn't want the upgrade. Its like common people. its a no brainer upgrade.

Yeah, I've had clients like that.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: pcgeek11

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
335
127
86
I can't see this being really anything but good news. It was already painful enough trying to use a boot HDD in 2020 in Win10.



Yeah, I've had clients like that.

Still, if the user is happy with slower speeds, it should be his choice without pressure. Next, I suppose microsoft will dictate the style and color of the user's underwear.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
Still, if the user is happy with slower speeds, it should be his choice without pressure. Next, I suppose microsoft will dictate the style and color of the user's underwear.
Nobody's pressuring the end-user here, just the OEM, in an attempt to improve the end-user experience.

I know people that were so turned-off by the time it would take their budget laptop with a 5400RPM 2.5" HDD to boot - and then do Windows Update! - that they just started using their Android phone more.

How many more potential PC users due we want to piss off so badly that they move to other platforms, just to maintain the current state of affairs for "buggy whip sales". Because Freedumb?
 
Jul 27, 2020
15,761
9,830
106
OEMs will use crappy QLC 120GB SSD boot drives in conjunction with 4GB RAM to meet Microsoft's requirement. Consumers will be lucky to have these SSDs survive the warranty period due to excessive paging.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: VirtualLarry

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,382
2,419
146
This is a non issue. Only affects those who will do all 3 of: 1. buy a prebuilt, 2. use Windows 11, and 3. want a HDD as a boot drive. Who in their right mind would do all 3 of these things? Any single one of them is darn crazy enough...
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
This is a non issue. Only affects those who will do all 3 of: 1. buy a prebuilt, 2. use Windows 11, and 3. want a HDD as a boot drive. Who in their right mind would do all 3 of these things? Any single one of them is darn crazy enough...
Budget buyers whom are looking at $200 laptops, and are beholden to OEM configurations, which all too often, in an attempt to pad "the numbers" at the low end of the market, include a HDD as a boot drive, preferring quantity over quality and "proper" performance? Chances are, the CPU is an Atom or A6 or something like that too, adding insult to injury.
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,382
2,419
146
Budget buyers whom are looking at $200 laptops, and are beholden to OEM configurations, which all too often, in an attempt to pad "the numbers" at the low end of the market, include a HDD as a boot drive, preferring quantity over quality and "proper" performance? Chances are, the CPU is an Atom or A6 or something like that too, adding insult to injury.
I guess you get what you pay for lol. I guess this might actually help some of those people then, as they have a better guarantee of an SSD with their cheap prebuilt.
 
  • Like
Reactions: VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
I guess you get what you pay for lol. I guess this might actually help some of those people then, as they have a better guarantee of an SSD with their cheap prebuilt.
I should use this announcement as an "opportunity" to try to convince a certain friend's relative with a laptop with a HDD, that "Microsoft has said that Windows 11 PCs need to have an SSD". Which is sort of a paraphrasing of this announcement.

Thus far, I've given them a 2.5" SSD, and offered to put it in for them, but they've been holding off.

So much so, that I've got a brand-new laptop with an SSD to give them.

They had previously basically given up on PC laptops, because it took like a half hour after turning it on before it became usable.

I wanted to give them something new enough, with a PCI-E SSD, that they could just "turn on and use". Without having to wait around for a HDD to load Windows 10, and then do the (dreaded) Windows Update.
 
Jul 27, 2020
15,761
9,830
106
I wanted to give them something new enough, with a PCI-E SSD, that they could just "turn on and use". Without having to wait around for a HDD to load Windows 10, and then do the (dreaded) Windows Update.
Just give them a demo of the fast boot up to desktop. If that doesn't convince them, nothing can. Maybe they just don't want to spend money.
 

JWade

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,273
197
106
www.heatware.com
its to give a performance boost to windows. windows will run faster, smoother, quicker with an SSD instead of a spinner. So of course microsoft wants SSD's, so they can say windows performs faster now than it did a couple years ago
 
  • Like
Reactions: VirtualLarry