Boot from SD?

[williewalliewoo]

Is it possible to use a ~16GB Sd card, permanently inserted, as a boot drive and use the two internals (on the server model) for other tasks? What would the speed be like compared to a 7200 rpm drive?

 

[indg]

i doubt this would be possible. but even if it were, you're still better off with the performance from a sata II 5400rpm hdd. also sd cards aren't designed for the constant read/write of a modern os. they're not built like ssd's.

 

[williewalliewoo]

thanks

thanks for the quick reply. Ill try to work something else out them.

 

[MacRuler]

that would be sooooooo freakin awesome if you could do that.

 

[gianly1985]

Looks like you can:

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_build_bootable_sd_card_rescue_ranger_your_mac_sd_card_slot

But it's useful just for disaster recovery.

SDs are not made to be booted off in everyday life.

 

[Fearless Leader]

it should be possible, just know sd cards aren't meant to take that kind of abuse. Probably will be a quick death. They aren't fast either. Well, they can just as fast if you spend a bit. Just do some research on "Speed Class Rating"

 

[paepcke]

SDs are not made to be booted off in everyday life.

Are you aware that this slot supports SDXC (SD 3.0), that means 2TB drive size support and 300MB/s (R/W).

How does that make feel your Intel SATA MLC SSD drive now? Yes, feels like a big old dinosaur.

There is absolute no reason why we should not expect cheap multi channel & wear-leveling drives SDXC very soon on the market. It´s a real big consumer market cause of all the video and photo cam´s.

I´m sure there is a reason why Apple put this drives in all of it´s new boxes. And the placement of this slot at the back-side of the mac mini tells me that this slot is not planned for every day digital camera card usage.

Greetings,
Michael

 

[ValSalva]

Looks like you can:

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_build_bootable_sd_card_rescue_ranger_your_mac_sd_card_slot

But it's useful just for disaster recovery.

SDs are not made to be booted off in everyday life.

That's what I've heard too. And aren't they slow?

 

[WilliamG]

Are you aware that this slot supports SDXC (SD 3.0), that means 2TB drive size support and 300MB/s (R/W).

How does that make feel your Intel SATA MLC SSD drive now? Yes, feels like a big old dinosaur.

There is absolute no reason why we should not expect cheap multi channel & wear-leveling drives SDXC very soon on the market. It´s a real big consumer market cause of all the video and photo cam´s.

I´m sure there is a reason why Apple put this drives in all of it´s new boxes. And the placement of this slot at the back-side of the mac mini tells me that this slot is not planned for every day digital camera card usage.

Greetings,
Michael

Riiiight, cause 2TB 300MB/s drives are available right now for SO cheap! Oh wait. No, no, they're not. I'll take an Intel SSD over a non-existent drive, thank you very much.

Oh look, Kingston just announced a brand new 64GB SDXC drive, boasting.... 60 MB/s read and 35MB/s writes! WOW!

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/hom...leases-64GB-SDXC-UHS-1-Class-10-30131291.html

Let's go to Amazon and see what's available...

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Secur...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1276983822&sr=8-1

Wowzers! There's a 64GB available right now with 15MB/s performance!

What's my point? SDXC may very well be useful in the future. For everyone, - EVERYONE - right now, it's not.

 

[paepcke]

WilliamG,
in general i agree with you. The future for SDXC will be bright.

But as you should know, as Intel SSD fan (I´m too!) for an pure OS & Application drive not the max data rates count, but the low random access times. Same for write speed (Intel MLC SSD´s are also not really heros at write speed).

So I think an small 64GB SD Card with 60MB/s and low random access times is worth a try to get rid of the SATA disk from the new mac mini.

Greetings,
Michael