Microsoft Not Cool With Hybrid Storage Netbooks
Microsoft isn't too keen on SSDs and HDDs living under the same roof.
Some of the first mainstream computers to incorporate SSD technology were early netbooks. The durable and speedy nature of solid-state storage made them ideal for the application.
Now a couple of new models of netbooks have learned the trick of using an SSD for your startup and OS drive to take advantage of the speed and then using a traditional HDD for the less demanding storage. It’s a set up that many of us would like to have in all our computers, not just our laptops.
Unfortunately, Microsoft isn’t so taken with the idea for netbooks and is disallowing the bundling of Windows XP with ‘hybrid’ storage netbooks, according to Bit-tech. Microsoft setting hardware limitations for netbooks allowed to pack Windows XP isn’t new.
Netbooks with Windows XP can have an SSD no larger than 16 GB or an HDD up to 160 GB. Having both at the same time, however, appears to be taboo. The only netbook affected appears to be the MSI Wind U115, which is available in various combinations of 8 GB or 16 GB for the SSD, and 120 GB or 160 GB for the HDD. Bit-tech reports that MSI must remove its Windows XP-packed hybrid netbooks by the end of this month.
Last week NEC announced its own netbook packing both a 160 GB HDD and a 16 GB SSD, which appears will now not be shipping with Windows XP.

seriously why cant a notebook be more powerful ? because M$ said you cant hehe...
seriously why cant a notebook be more powerful ? because M$ said you cant hehe...
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.......dumb
I know ill get boo'ed for supporting MS, but this could make sense to me.
In the end, if M$ has his way, netbooks will not sell with any windows anymore thanks to M$. They keep pushing limits on it and people will just ignore them and go with linux.
I seem to recall a competing company dictating what hardware you can use with their software. This is why I don't support them.
How different is this than putting your system files on a 7200 RPM drive and storing excess files on an older drive? Sure the hardware is different but the concept is the same.
Then M$ should tell consumers the reason why they discourage such design, rather than putting pressure on hardware manufacturers to cave into their demand. We already have one Apple Inc. We don't need another software company dictating what hardware we should buy.
"Regular" customers do not know that, and if they reinstall the system, they will lose all the advantages of speed from the SSD.
I guess that this is in some-what a microsoft problem, which they do wish to hide from customers by not allowing it to be pre-installed on sold systems with hybrid drives.
And if a customer installs his own WinXP and has problems, microsoft can say "your problem, we said no".
What I was referring to is that the OS interacts with the SSD different (after optimizations) than it would with a regular HDD. If that clears it up for you tenor77
They are doing it, because they don't want the netbooks that are "too powerful" to be equipped with cheap xp licenses. They want to charge more when the netbook doesn't fall under the netbook specifics they have detailed (160 or 16).
They can do it, it's legal. No problem there. But it's not nice and it will push players to linux, to get the freedom to build their own system. M$ just wants them to buy the new windows7 home premium or a vista license for those systems.
Go back to the front page, go down 8 articles, and click on the "China Requiring Filters on PCs" - there is another great case of someone trying to "protect the consumers from themselves". Do you agree with this?
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Apple is a proprietary system where they dictate the standards, but Microsoft is making a product for an open system. In this open system market, all manufacturers have always released minimum requirements - but I have never seen one list maximum requirements. (However, I do remember the good old days where Asteroids would go by in a blink if you ran it on too fast of a machine - so PCs had 'Turbo' buttons for a while to switch between slow and fast mode...)
I'm not a linux fan-boy, but I think this is a good reason to switch. It has a few weaknesses - like you inability to play netflix natively (althought a roku box can...), and some DRM controlled media doesn't play right - but netbooks don't come with an optical drive. Why ANY manufacturer would like to limit themselves to paying for Microsoft products rather than develop some youtube videos on "how to use open source software and get the same results as Microsoft products" and going open sources is beyond me. Educate the consumers past their bias against open source software and improve your bottom line by making ultra-low cost systems.