Windows XP: Dead By 2011?

Mar 10 2010, 8:22am CST | by Robert Evans

Windows XP we...knew ye way too damn long. I continued to use this venerable operating system for my desktop until about two months ago. I'd be willing to bet a substantial number of you are still using XP right now. It's a solid, simple, bare-bones OS that lacks many of the issues later versions of Windows ended up with.

Sadly, we're getting to the point where XP is just Too Damned Old to keep using. Fudzilla reports that, in early 2011, all new hard drives entering the market will be incompatible with XP. The reason? XP can only handle hard drives formatted into 512 MB blocks.

This creates a substantial space drain in larger hard drives. Every block must devote some space for storing error correction codes, as well as a small gap between each sector. This 'wasted space' is why a 1 TB HDD only gives you like 980 GB of actual storage space. New hard drives, though, will be split into 4k blocks. That means less wasted space.

Unfortunately, the march of progress seems destined to leave poor XP behind. We'll miss you old friend, but no one can stop the future.

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Robert Evans
The excitement about new smartphones, tablets and anything mobile drive Robert to unearth the latest rumors and developments in this fast moving space. He adopted 4G as soon as it become available and knows where the mobile market is going.
Robert can be contacted directly at robert@i4u.com.