Install Windows XP on a memory stick

Hi all Was just thinking. Harddrives to today is the weakest link in the chain of a computer, why not install and run the OS from a memorystick? If its possible everything should work much faster. Today you can get usbstick that are up to 8GB or even more so there's pleanty of room for an OS to be installed. Anyone tried or is it even possible? Have a nice day

Harddrives to today is the weakest link in the chain of a computer

Not sure what you mean by that. Weak? Ummm, I have hard drives that have been running virtually non-stop for 7 years!

If you mean hard drives are a bottle neck when it comes to a performance, than yes. But a memory stick is definitely not the answer if looking to improve performance.

If its possible everything should work much faster

Ummm, no. Windows may boot up faster but once that happens and everything Windows needs quickly is loaded into extremely fast (compared to memory sticks or HDs) RAM, then the memory stick will be of little use. Having enough RAM is still the answer, then a graphics solution powerful enough to relieve the CPU of graphics processing duties, then finally, the CPU itself. Note that Vista will use a memory stick to boost performance using ReadyBoost.

That said, getting XP to boot from a memory stick is an interesting technical challenge, but it has been done and documented in many places. Here's a good one: Running Windows from USB Stick.

I suggest you look into SSDs (solid-state drives).

Hello, Flash drives have a limited read/write life. If you where using the flash drive as your "C" drive it would fail long before a hard drive would. As the big D said, there are solid state hard drives.

Thanks for all the answers, its really interesting how to make XP or any OS work faster. I've read about solid-state-drives and they seem to be the future in the hard drive business. Apple's macbookair has but it's far to expensive to make us poor students want to buy it.