SSD for Windows XP computer?
 

Hello everyone. I would like to try the project explained in this link:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ation-vhs.html

In it the OP suggests to use a SSD to capture videos onto. My capture computer has Windows XP on it. Could a SSD work on it? I plan to use the drive as the drive separate from that of the operating system that videos can capture onto.

Thanks in advance.

I believe XP is limited to 2TB (32-bit limit) which is fine as most commercially available SSD's are 2TB or smaller today. If you want to install XP on your boot disk you might have to slipstream the SATA drivers into your XP install DVD (something I did years ago and long since forgot how to do) but it definitely works. I upgraded my old Lenovo laptop with a 256GB internal boot SSD and was able to install XP without any issues. I also have an external 2TB SanDisk Ultra plugged into a USB port and both work perfectly. I like keeping my SSD/HDD's external and connecting with a StarTech usb312sat3cb (available on Amazon) SATA to USB adapter. Makes moving drives very easy.

Bill

If the drive is used only as the capture drive (not as both the OS and capture drive), an SSD is probably overkill. A SATA1 drive is fast enough to capture one video/audio stream.

That said, there's probably nothing wrong with using a large SSD for capture under XP, especially if it is an external drive moving files from XP for capture to a newer faster machine for further processing. If it's in your budget, go for it. The transfers will be faster, at least on the faster machine. I think the interface (USB 3.0, etc.) will be the bottleneck. Finding a good 2.5" external eSATA enclosure may be an issue though. In any case, be sure to partition and format the drive correctly for compatibility in XP. But do at least the partitioning under Win 7 or 10. See below.

As I understand it, there are 2 issues with using an SSD with WinXP: Lack of "Trim" support and incorrect "alignment" of partitions created on SSD's when partitioned in XP.

Discussion of Trim
Discussion of alignment
There are a lots of online discussions on SSD use with XP. Most discussions are older from when XP was still more commonly in use. I read a bunch and made my decisions. YMMV

I'm trying an SSD as a boot drive for an XP capture system. I picked up a bunch of cheap 250 GB SSD's and plan to make fully operational back-ups to swap in and out. Many SSD makers also supply utilities that are supposed to do Trim even on XP. But their use is argued both for and against and seems to be unclear.

To handle the alignment issue I partitioned the disks in an external drive enclosure under Windows 7 or 10. I then formatted and installed XP into that existing partition. It seems to be fine so far, but it hasn't been very long.

BW

I'm in the very early stages of building this box, so in no way do I claim expertise. I haven't started capturing, but I did just complete installing Windows XP, so I thought I should add to the discourse.

The Video8 capture computer I'm piecing together now uses an SSD. I have Windows XP SP2 installed on a 1TB Samsung 860 QVO (Dell Dimension 8300).

I suppose it makes sense to keep the OS and capture drives separate...but...I think I'll only do so if I start seeing problems.
I'm hoping the lack of write latency (albeit over SATA II), 3.5 GB RAM, and 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 should make up for any shortcomings... (someone please politely correct me if I am wrong!)

Windows XP (minimally, SP1) lacks SATA drivers. Supposedly, nLite allows users to slipstream service packs, drivers, and other files into Windows installation media. I was unable to get my slip-streamed ISO to install on my SSD, so I ended up using the recovery disk (SP2) from an Inspiron E1405 (circa 2006).

BW67 does point out some of the issues with an SSD on Windows XP in post #3 (lack of TRIM support, for example).

Your original question:
The answer? Yes.

I can't yet speak to this.

SSD for XP is not needed, nor suggested.

Use a good SATA-II 2tb Seagate drive. And done. For a capture system, SSD is irrelevant overkill, does nothing beneficial for you. In fact, it may lead to problems, due to lack of TRIM. Even after just a few months, you'll run into problems, due to lack of TRIM.

I started to make my reconsiderations after BW37 stated earlier that a regular SATA drive is fast enough to make the captures. I already have a regular HDD as a separate drive to make the captures, though it's only 500 GB, it's Western Digital, and it's SATA III. I bought it before I found out Seagate is the go-to for video capturing. It's refurbished though, so I think that makes it a stronger drive, right? Also it being SATA III doesn't really matter much, does it?

As scharfis_brain pointed out here using an SSD for capture may not only be overkill, it might be problematic.

This is probably because the newest, larger, and cheaper (and therefore more seductive) SSD's are all QLC based drives. These use fundamentally slower memory and try to make up for it with large buffers. This works fine for small reads and writes but doesn't help with large, continuous file reads and writes. So writing a large continuous file like an avi is exactly what they do worst! Of course this is exactly where a clean, defragged HDD is at it's best even relative to even fast SSDs. Still slower, but not by as much as for small files and random reads and writes. And plenty fast enough for capture.

BW

That interests me too. lordsmurf? :)

SATA1 is slowed, but can work.
SATA2/3 is fine.
Having a SATA2 motherboard is really the primary concern for XP capturing.
Other than not, I'm not sure what the question is.

As a long time Windows XP user I can say using a SSD is fantastic. I even was running a first-gen SSD in a Windows 98 Second Edition PC over a decade ago. There are configuration settings that need to be changed within the Windows OS after installation of the OS to prevent undue wear to the SSD itself, but it is all well worth the effort. The speed is notably faster than what a mechanical HDD is capable of. Now, having said that, for actually recording analog A/V using Windows XP it doesn't make a difference whether recording to a SDD or to a HDD, it's the re-encoding and editing process that benefits from a SSD being involved. So my advice is you record the raw AVI (or whatever format you wan to use) onto a HDD, and then save the re-encoded/edited file to whatever you please.

I have recorded to both secondary HDDs and SSDs and the only time it was beneficial to record directly onto the SSD was with a video I wanted to save/re-encode specific segments of as separate files. So if you were digitizing a old home movie of someone's birthday party for instance, just record it straight to a HDD. If you were digitizing a TV commercial sequence that you want to split it into the individual commercials post processing, record to the SSD. And, reason for that is when you are segmenting the file in a video editing program, like VirtualDub, you can move through the video file frames in mere seconds, rather fantastic speed! Whereas doing the same action with the same file on a HDD could literally take a solid minute or longer. It's a massive time saver to save such a file onto a SSD. But again, to reiterate, if it's just one long video you're digitizing and plan to keep as such, then there's no real benefit to recording it directly onto a SSD.