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Windows on a SD Card ?

N

NikoKaoJa

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 17, 2011
7
0
So, if you can install Windows on an external USB, would it be possible to install it on a SD card?

I've looked around on this subject on the net, I didn't seem to find it on this forum. (Sorry if something on this subject already exists)

Has anyone tried this? It seems to be possible...
 
Do You Mean

NikoKaoJa said:
So, if you can install Windows on an external USB, would it be possible to install it on a SD card?

I've looked around on this subject on the net, I didn't seem to find it on this forum. (Sorry if something on this subject already exists)

Has anyone tried this? It seems to be possible...
Click to expand...

An install from a high capacity Photo card? No. From a compressed USB version yes.

As a caveat, you could back up to an sd but media differ, and a portable Windows installation isn't really a viable option.
 
Even if possible, the experience will be horrible, as most high class SD cards top out at 30MB/s read or write speeds, which is a third of what an HDD offers. Normal SD cards only offer 10MB/s, which would be even slower. External HDDs connected via USB will also only offer slow speeds of around 30-35 MB/s.
While that speed is okay for some tasks, like a Mac OS X clone on a USB HDD to troubleshoot, to run a full blown OS from it for more than that, can be quite a pain.

But I have seen some threads about this, maybe use the SEARCH feature found on top to find them.
 
I did this once on a CF card using an IDE adaptor.
XP managed to install OK but...

It made Windows even slower than usual! :eek:
Way, way slower.
This was before the advent of SSD.

Definetly not the way to go. Just get an SSD.
 
The thing is that I use my MacBook Pro for work, and I have a lot of valuable data that i don't want to mess around with...

I also need to have Visual studio, Delphi, PSpice and other mainly Windows programming stuff... I can chop down Win XP settings and appearance so that it uses less resources.

So when I pop in the Flash USB, usb hdd or an SD card i have my windows and programming languages, no worries about viruses and any harm to my internal Mac OS drive...
 
NikoKaoJa said:
The thing is that I use my MacBook Pro for work, and I have a lot of valuable data that i don't want to mess around with...

I also need to have Visual studio, Delphi, PSpice and other mainly Windows programming stuff... I can chop down Win XP settings and appearance so that it uses less resources.

So when I pop in the Flash USB, usb hdd or an SD card i have my windows and programming languages, no worries about viruses and any harm to my internal Mac OS drive...
Click to expand...

People still use Delphi?
 
IMHO sounds like a VM would be ideal for your needs. If you really want, the VM could easily be on an SD Card though performance will suffer.

B
 
This is something I'm considering - with a 5400RPM hard drive in my Mac, it just crawls at times when I run Windows (Boot Camp) in a VM in Parallels. Even Ubuntu makes my Mac crawl when running it in a VM.

With the SD card reader limiting reads to 60MB/s, is that sufficient enough to run Windows?
 
Kilamite said:
This is something I'm considering - with a 5400RPM hard drive in my Mac, it just crawls at times when I run Windows (Boot Camp) in a VM in Parallels. Even Ubuntu makes my Mac crawl when running it in a VM.

With the SD card reader limiting reads to 60MB/s, is that sufficient enough to run Windows?
Click to expand...

Short answer: No.
 
Longer answer,at least as I understand and it:

While your hdd reads/writes at 50MB/s. SD cards, while their read speeds can be similar to the hdd, write speed is limited to about half that, and micro sd cards write speed is maxed around 15MB/s. take a look at this: http://www.sandisk.com/about-sandis...-worlds-smallest-128gb-nand-flash-memory-chip

It says their newest, not yet on the market micro sd is limited to 18 MB/s (18million bytes/s, not 18MiB/s)

So, while your read speed would be ok at best, your write speed would be pitiful which isn't a good thing for handeling an OS.

My suggestion would be to boot camp 20 gigs on your hdd for the windows OS and use an sd card for file storage. Just read an awesome article you should check out: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/07/09/nifty-minidrive-invisible-add-on-flash-storage-for-your-macbook/
 
Cortb said:
\Just read an awesome article you should check out: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/07/09/nifty-minidrive-invisible-add-on-flash-storage-for-your-macbook/
Click to expand...

THIS IS GENIUS! I hadn't heard about this new product, so thanks for reposting. When I first got my MBP a few years ago, I searched and searched for a solution to use the SD slot as an extra storage option, but I didn't want an SD card hanging out the side all the time. There were discussions of cutting down cards, or trying to make your own microSD adaptor. I tried some of these, but they weren't reliable.

To get back on topic, yes, I have done lots with boot camp and VM installs of Windows on external and internal media (for example, I have an XP install on my FW800 drive that I use frequently, but it crawls). My solution is what others have mentioned here; dedicate the minimum HD space to a boot camp or VM partition, then have the files for that Windows install access a storage device.
 
I dont think the expierence is that good, why dont u want to boot from a fast usb keydrive?
 
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