EARS for both xp and 7

[anonxlg_]

here is the situation, my desktop is xp, my laptop is 7
i plan on putting this internally in my desktop, but i may take it out and hook it up on my laptop
i also plan to dual boot xp machine with 7 in the near future

the drive will only be for storage, so os will not be on it
also reading that there may be problems if i partition the ears drive

not sure that happens if you use the wd tool to format under xp and then use in 7

my laptop also has linux and mac partitions

is it that after i format it, it should work? if so, does it matter if i format it under 7 first, then put it into my desktop machine, or should i use the alignment tool and format it under xp (ie, will there be a performance difference over the 2 different format options)

 

[taltamir]

the ears drives have a jumper that shifts all address spaces by a slight amount so that partitions created by windows XP will be correctly aligned. However, this is not necessary as you can simply manually partition the drive with the correct alignment (read about it in any SSD guide).
If you intend to move the drive between winXP and win7 I would simply not use the jumper (aka, do not set it to "xp mode"), and simply use windows7 to partition the drive. Regardless of whether windows 7 or winXP partitions it, both windows XP and windows 7 will have no problem reading it. The only issue is if windows XP is used to partition it, so don't let it.

No special tools are needed AFAIK if you partition it with windows 7 and then put it into the desktop machine.

 

[anonxlg_]

so if i format and/or partition+format it under 7, would be the same as formatting it under xp with the wd alignment tool with no performance difference?

 

[sub.mesa]

Do not use the jumper, its an ugly hack.

Instead, install Windows 7 first, let it create both partitions for Windows 7 and Windows XP. Then install XP the existing (second) partition; don't let XP create the partition yourself.

This should get you aligned partitions and work properly in both XP and Win7.

Note that XP does not align on 4K boundaries within the filesystem; you cannot fix that its inherit to XP.

 

[taltamir]

Instead, install Windows 7 first, let it create both partitions for Windows 7 and Windows XP. Then install XP the existing (second) partition; don't let XP create the partition yourself.

Neither OS is going to be installed on this drive.
Computer A:
-OS drive with winXP
-Slot for EARS drive

Computer B:
-OS drive with Win7
-Slot for EARS drive

EARS drive will be moved from computer to computer.

Note that XP does not align on 4K boundaries within the filesystem; you cannot fix that its inherit to XP.

But to be clear, you can use a 3rd party tool to perform the alignment in windowsXP instead of letting the OS do it, or you can simply create the partition in another OS...

BTW, it doesn't matter which computer formats the partitions, only which computer creates the partitions. I would use win7 though on a full format this first time around.

 

[sub.mesa]

So what will be on the EARS drives, just a single NTFS data partition? If yes, let Windows 7 create that partition, and you should be fine. If you insert them into the XP computer; XP will use the aligned partition. But if you let XP create the partition it will be misaligned for both XP and Win7.

What i meant with the XP not aligning to 4K boundaries is different from an unaligned partition. An unaligned partition will cause ALL I/O to start at a misaligned block. If you create an aligned partition with Windows 7 then it will start at the beginning of a 4K block; meaning it is properly aligned. But, the position where it starts will be aligned; but that doesn't mean the filesystem reads/writes in multiples of 4K; it may just write 3.5KiB; which still causes the EARS drive to have to read the sector to know the 0.5KiB that did not change in that sector, and then write 4KiB+new ecc of both old and new data. Since it has to read for this process, it becomes a lot slower.

This kind of 'filesystem misalignment' is not avoidable on Windows XP; it is inherit to the OS. Windows Vista and 7 work better with EARS drives for system disks and other random access. But Windows XP should just work properly as long as you do mostly large file transfers; sequential access and not random access. That's what 5400rpm are best at, anyway.

 

[taltamir]

Indeed those are two different kinds of alignment issues. End of the day though, the solution to both is to simply let windows 7 create the partition.