Hooch Tan
03-12-2010, 10:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/why-new-hard-disks-might-not-be-much-fun-for-xp-users.ars' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...or-xp-users.ars</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"512-byte sectors have been the norm for decades. The 512-byte size was itself inherited from floppy disks, making it an even older historical artifact. The age of this standard means that it's baked in to a lot of important software: PC BIOSes, operating systems, and the boot loaders that hand control from the BIOS to the operating system. All of this makes migration to a new standard difficult."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1268417347.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Upgrades apparently does not a faster computer make. In order to keep up with our insatiable need for storage and to squeeze every last bit out of hard drives, manufacturers are making changes and these changes will negatively impact Windows XP machines. I am sure there will be plenty of people saying that you should no longer be using XP, but if someone has a computer that does everything they need it to, why upgrade? At least when your hard drive dies, and there are bound to be some computers out there that have 9 or 10 year old disks that are on the brink of failure, you will have a very good excuse to get a fancy new computer instead of just replacing the hard drive! I suppose this is the price of progress. In order to get more out of our systems, we need to keep everything current. I still have a few XP machines laying around, mostly because the cost of upgrading the OS is not worth it, but as much as I enjoy the aging OS, there will come a time when I must learn to let go.</p>