WIndows users, what do you use the left SD slot for?

For using the left SD slot with eBoostr (or the pagefile hack), does it make a difference whether you use a SD versus a SDHC card?

 

no.

 

I keep a 16gb SD card in there, where I backup my lightroom catalogs regularly...having lost several catalogs in the past due to disk, card, or SSD failure. I hate to have to do all the edits over again. I also have my mobile version of Evernote on the D drive, so I could, if necessary, pop out the card an access my Evernote account from any computer (windows).

 

I use my phone's MicroSD card in an adapter just to save schoolwork, Photoshop projects and pictures. I do frequent reinstalls so the 1GB I get is perfect for just a small backup.

 

Windows cannot by itself merge the storage space. But you can use a program that will enable you to use this slot as drive space that can hold all your Windows programs.

I have started a new thread to describe how this is done. Believe me, it will transform your Windows XP if you only have the 8Gb SSD drive. Search under MojoPac.

Stoker

 

Thanks, but I prefer Linux (Linpus in this case).

Joe.

 

I re-partitioned my system so that the boot partition (C:, with windows, etc) is separate from my apps & data partitions. I installed a 16GB SDHC card into the left slot, locked it to a specific drive letter, and am using it as an image backup drive for my boot partition. That way if I ever run into problems with the boot partition, and "System Restore" doesn't work, I can revert to the most recently reliable image of the partition.

 

Have been testing things out with the pagefile moved to the SDHC card. I have a 50meg pagefile on the C: drive (as an emergency backup) and 2gig pagefile on the SD. Had to install the Hitachi SD driver to make the SD a "non-removeable drive", but it works like a champ.

The AAO is so brisk now! Switching between applications and windows is instantaneous and icon caching in particular is much faster.

Haven't tried eBoostr yet, but so far I'm happy with the "boost" that this has given me.

 

My left sd card slot is my 'program files' folder. I have modified the driver to make Windows to see it as a fixed drive with a permanent drive letter.
The only programs actually installed are the firewall and the antivirus on the ssd. The ssd also has a ramdrive for the Temp & TMP folders and the Firefox and IE cache. Everything else is a large set of portable apps (games included) all placed on a 8gb sdhc card in the left slot - complete with a nifty custom-made desktop shortcut that opens the list of portable apps in a menu.
I shut down the pc by clicking on the CCleaner autoshutdown icon on my desktop: it cleans then shuts down. That also means that CCleaner (which is a portable app of course) does not need to load at startup. I also have a desktop shortcut to open my list of portable games in a different menu on the other side of the screen. Lastly, the sdhc has the page file. I made a backup of the whole program files folder of that sdhc (it has Sunbird: calendar; Thunderbird: emails; Kurlo: address book; Keepass: all of my web passwords...) as a self-extracting rar file stored on my main pc.
The right sd slot has a 8gb sd card that is only used for file storage and is encrypted with Truecrypt.

I am quite chuffed with my settings.

 

I use it for eboostr with 1 Gig card like most others.. Does make a difference...


regards
Andrew

 

so has anyone managed to put a decent sized SD card in there and install and run windows from the card?

 

Left reader: 8GB SDHC card mounted as a fixed drive. I currently have a few games installed on it, and I also store the desktop folder, my documents, videos, pictures etc. plus all temp folders on it.

Right reader: 8GB SDHC card with movies, music and other media. I also exchange it for the SD card in my digi cam sometimes when I want to view or edit photos and I'm away from my desktop rig.

 

I've got a 160 GB AA1, and I'm using that left-hand SD slot for backups. I've got a 16 GB SDHC card in there permanently ($30), and every couple of days I do a backup to it of my documents and other stuff. I could just do this over the network at home or by simply hooking up a USB HD but this seemed more convenient (even if the backup itself runs slightly slower)... 'Specially when traveling.

I've been burned by enough dead hard drives in the past to never underestimate the value of frequent backups. Didn't really need anywhere near 16GB for this either, but it was so cheap I figured what the heck, why pay $10-15 for 4GB when I can pay 2-3x for 7.5x the capacity, heh. I use the right hand slot a lot to off-load pics off my camera/phone so it's nice to have that left hand slot and not have to ever handle or swap out my backups card.

Right now I've just been doing file-level backups to it (I've only had the AA1 for a month-ish), but I might try doing a Ghost image backup to the SDHC card and see how long it takes.

 

If you have say, an 8gb sd card with eboostr, do you have to use the full capacity of the card or can you allocate part of its capacity to eboostr and keep the rest for file storage? I am tempted by the technology but not ready to fully loose a sd slot for that.

 

You can decide how big the cache file is for eboostr... from 128meg to full card. What ever space you don't use is extra storage. I would recommend formatting to NTFS first as the card seems to run faster. And also if you wish to have a cache file for ebooster bigger than 2gig it needs to be formatted in ntsf..Hope that helps

regards
Andrew

 

I wasn't aware that the "One" had 2 SD slots (I don't get mine until Christmas--boo hoo). At least that's what Ms Santa Claus tell me.

I'm hoping to be able to install a SD Bluetooth card for use with a BT mouse. Anyone know if this is possible with my XP unit?

 

I can't remember which slot, but one of them does take SDIO cards (bluetooth/gps sd cards etc.) If you find one that comes with drivers for XP then it should work perfectly.

 

I am wondering this also