Windows should require SSD as a minimum *spawn

[davis.anthony]

Most people are likely smart enough to know that an OS doesn’t “need” an SSD. It makes perfect sense that an OS needs less powerful hardware than a 3D game. There’s nothing stopping game developers though from requiring an SSD, 16GB RAM and 4 core CPU as a minimum requirement.

Not the way windows currently works doesn't need an SSD.

They could have added quick resume to PC if they had and god knows what others features and improvements.

And again, imagine what performance and features Windows could offer if 4 cores were a minimum.

Imagine using those two extra cores to preload shaders for games while you're browsing the desktop. Many possibilities.

Stop thinking backwards and think forwards.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Not the way windows currently works doesn't need an SSD.

They could have added quick resume to PC if they had and god knows what others features and improvements.

And again, imagine what performance and features Windows could offer if 4 cores were a minimum.

Imagine using those two extra cores to preload shaders for games while you're browsing the desktop. Many possibilities.

Stop thinking backwards and think forwards.

None of that means Windows would ever need an SSD. It's still at it's heart a general purpose OS, it's not a gaming OS. If it was a gaming OS, then it would likely fail in the marketplace and Windows would be dead. Windows is successful because it is a general purpose OS. PC gaming is possible because a PC is often used for more than just games. Remove the general purpose nature of the OS and suddenly why bother gaming on PC if you can game on a much cheaper console?

Sure, some people would still game on PC, but the PC gaming market would in turn shrink considerably as people can no longer justify the cost of a PC by using it for more general purpose tasks. Sure that would still be possible if MS upped the requirements so that developer's would be more likely to use more advanced hardware features, but then you lose a large chunk of the Windows OS user base which then means MS would likely put even less resources into the Windows OS, which again, eventually leads to Windows becoming a marginal OS that in time as less and less people would use it as the cost of a PC becomes increasingly more expensive due to the increased hardware requirements.

Windows greatest strength (its general purpose nature that allows for freedom of choice WRT hardware and software) is also its greatest weakness.

Regards,
SB

 

[davis.anthony]

None of that means Windows would ever need an SSD. It's still at it's heart a general purpose OS, it's not a gaming OS. If it was a gaming OS, then it would likely fail in the marketplace and Windows would be dead. Windows is successful because it is a general purpose OS. PC gaming is possible because a PC is often used for more than just games. Remove the general purpose nature of the OS and suddenly why bother gaming on PC if you can game on a much cheaper console?

Regards,
SB

Even as a general purpose OS it would still benefit from an mandatory SSD imo, especially as the price different between an SSD and HDD is nothing now.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Even as a general purpose OS it would still benefit from an mandatory SSD imo, especially as the price different between an SSD and HDD is nothing now.

Nothing? Hmmm, let's see.

4 TB ssd from the best value brand, IMO, Crucial. You can get cheaper but they'll be worse quality using Amazon Pricing.

3.5" - 239.99 USD
NVME gen 3 - 249.99 USD
NVME gen 4 - 299.99 USD

What kind of HDD can you get with that going with a good brand?

16 TB drives starting at 249.99 USD for a Seagate
18 TB drives starting at 299.99 USD for a Seagate

Obviously you can get cheaper drives both SSD and HDD by going with lesser brands with worse reliability. So SSDs are "closer" but that's still a massive 4x price difference which is certainly not "nothing".

Most general purpose tasks will be fine on a small SSD paired with a larger HDD, and that's still common enough. A 256 GB SSD to hold the OS partition isn't much. You could even make an argument for a 1 TB SSD. But if people are going to be using the machine for work and play that obviously doesn't leave a lot of room for other things, like games.

I'm absolutely 100% on board with game developers requiring an SSD for their game. However, it just makes almost no sense for Windows to require an SSD for anything except the OS itself, and even then I question the suitability of that requirement.

Keep in mind I've been using SSDs since they first appeared on the consumer market (when they were absolute crap with incredibly bad write times - seconds long pauses, but fantastic read times and were incredibly expensive 500+ USD for 32 GB) and have been urging friends and family to start using them as they became somewhat affordable. I still know people who don't use one because they don't mind waiting for Windows to boot up while they grab their morning coffee and storage speed isn't essential to what they do. Thus for them an SSD is considered wasted money. I've even gone so far as to have them use my PC so they can see how much faster and snappier it is in even general tasks, but it's still not enough to convince them that the expense is worth it.

Regards,
SB

 

[arandomguy]

The OS requiring an SSD would only apply to the system drive. A boot drive doesn't need to be that large. Even for high end productivity purposes the system drive does not need to be that large in the multiple TBs.

HDDs have somewhat a higher cost floor and so the per/GB is less advantageous as you go down in size to 1TB hard drives. While SSDs, especially consumer, have poorer $/GB scaling as you move up to higher capacities (won't go into all the reasons).

I'm struggling also to see what kind of (non very niche maybe) usage and budget case these days that even for a "work" machine would not be able (or afford) to pair a SSD for system/applications with HDD(s) for bulk storage if needed or non local storage.

Ultimately Windows going SSD only would be dependent on Microsoft and the OEMs. The cost/supply for OEMs is also different than the retail DIY segment (including what "brand" the drives/NAND is). Retail DIY is a non factor in this decision making. It's reported that Microsoft has already been negotiating with OEMs to switch to new a mandatory SSD requirement. The OEM push back that exists is still based around the 1 TB size mark that they want to be able to put into budget/low end builds, but that price gap is shrinking.

Another thing to consider is that consumer computing nowadays is already on SSDs for the vast majority. Why? All tablets and smartphones use SSDs.

 

[davis.anthony]

Nothing? Hmmm, let's see.

4 TB ssd from the best value brand, IMO, Crucial. You can get cheaper but they'll be worse quality using Amazon Pricing.

3.5" - 239.99 USD
NVME gen 3 - 249.99 USD
NVME gen 4 - 299.99 USD

What kind of HDD can you get with that going with a good brand?

16 TB drives starting at 249.99 USD for a Seagate
18 TB drives starting at 299.99 USD for a Seagate

Obviously you can get cheaper drives both SSD and HDD by going with lesser brands with worse reliability. So SSDs are "closer" but that's still a massive 4x price difference which is certainly not "nothing".

Imagine having to use unrealistic drive sizes that are not used in pretty much any office, home and pretty much any gaming PC to try and prove a point.

And then subjectively labelling a brand as 'reliable'

A 1TB SSD can be bought for nearly the same price as a 1TB HDD and these 1TB drives are what's contained in office machines and pre-build's, not 4TB NVME drives.

Most general purpose tasks will be fine on a small SSD paired with a larger HDD, and that's still common enough.

Do you have data for how common it is?

A 256 GB SSD to hold the OS partition isn't much. You could even make an argument for a 1 TB SSD. But if people are going to be using the machine for work and play that obviously doesn't leave a lot of room for other things, like games.

I game happily on 1TB worth of storage as do many others.

Keep in mind I've been using SSDs since they first appeared on the consumer market

That's cute, I had OCZ 64GB SSD's in RAID 0 back in 2008.

But you stated that like it gives you some level of authority on SSD's, it doesn't.

I still know people who don't use one because they don't mind waiting for Windows to boot up while they grab their morning coffee and storage speed isn't essential to what they do.

Let them use a PC with an SSD for a month and see if they're happy to go back waiting for Windows to load.

Thus for them an SSD is considered wasted money. I've even gone so far as to have them use my PC so they can see how much faster and snappier it is in even general tasks, but it's still not enough to convince them that the expense is worth it.

Borrow them your PC for a month and then see how they feel.

 

[davis.anthony]

Another thing to consider is that consumer computing nowadays is already on SSDs for the vast majority. Why? All tablets and smartphones use SSDs.

You make a very good point there, SSD's are mandatory now in all but name.

I've just checked a massive supplier of home PC's (PC World and Currys) and every single cheap pre-built home PC they sell has an SSD.

 

[hoom]

I don't know the original context this is spawned off so may be misunderstanding.

In my work (school IT) these days most school staff have laptops setup with a 2-300 GB SSD that they don't even have direct access to, its just OS, App installs & local profile/cache, Home folders & bulk storage on User/Shared Onedrive or Google Drive.
Students are either BYOD Windows devices or Chromebooks with their classwork on Onedrive/Google Drive too.
A bunch of schools even don't have onsite servers anymore.

A lot of home/consumer users don't need any real bulk storage either: bulk stuff like personal photos/videos are on their phones &/or synced to cloud storage/social media, music & video streamed.

So for a very big number of users a 250-500GB of SSD would cost sod-all and be more than most people actually need.
I've been thinking there could be some kind of open-standard done where Mobos would be built with an onboard OS SSD with some min-standard (M.2 PCIE3/4 interface but onboard & say 250GB would be only a few chips) & would be able to have Win/Linux/SteamOS/ChromeOS etc installed on it.
I also imagine a high-end version where its phase-change/magnetic NVM and some new interface so that the OS actually directly runs off it without using RAM.
Then for ppl who do actually need/want local bulk storage you have normal M.2/SATA etc & its important that this stuff remains available.

I'm a bit weird and don't really trust cloud stuff to still be available indefinitely/when I really need it, so having run out of SATA ports (including a PCIE addon-card) I've just bought a 4TB SATA SSD (all the games! ) , another double-digit TB spinny disk & a small home NAS to put 'retired' spinny drives in