Ask HN: How do those eMMC Windows laptops work?
I was just shopping around for a low-end Windows laptop and discovered a new trend: machines that have 64gb or 128gb internal storage on "eMMC", which research suggests is similar to what's used in phones, and then they have a micro SD card slot for expansion (also like phones).
I take it the OS lives on the eMMC and not something even weirder like a ROM chip? Do user programs and files go there too or can they only go on the SD? How does it all affect things like partitioning?
Presumably this is a response to the Chromebook-pocalypse but it still feels very strange and mysterious to me for now
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[ 0.33 ms ] story [ 74.8 ms ] threadIt was a corporate laptop, so maybe the problem exacerbated itself to that level due to frequent patches the employer was pushing.
Windows starts bloating when you apply updates. It keeps a lot around to facilitate rolling back updates if needed; this gets cleaned up over time but it can be an issue on a small disk. There’s ways to get the size back down (while sacrificing the ability to roll back updates that you’ve applied), but you don’t regain all the space.
I get the feeling the Windows Update mechanism is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. Microsoft are improving it; I think it’s just a really big engineering task that they’re having to slowly work through. I vaguely remember something about the way Windows handles overwriting open files in-place which makes this worse, but I can’t remember the specifics off the top of my head.
I get the feeling that Windows itself is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. Of course this facilitates its impressive degree of backwards-compatibility (one of its most desirable features), but still.
I really think the amount they've improved Windows under-the-hood over time is impressive, especially taking into account the constraints they've had to work within.
On a related (though somewhat tangential) note I must say that I think MS tying WinRT (which as I understand it is the clean rewrite of the Windows API) to the Microsoft Store initially was a massive mistake. I still don't have a clear, confident impression of where I can or should use WinRT, even after all these years.
It was a corporate laptop, so maybe the problem exacerbated itself to that level due to frequent patches the employer was pushing.
I distinguish by the way between an update that could happen with little fanfare vs the upgrade that would be named after a year, season and user role (e.g. 2017 Fall Creators update). The latter take more resources.
https://www.howtogeek.com/196541/emmc-vs.-ssd-not-all-solid-...
They're slow, (comparatively) unreliable and small. Because they're on the board a bad one means a new mobo which is generally not cost effective so it's done. I hate them and the cheap shitty hardware that they come with.
I'd like to point out that these came before Chromebooks but Chromebooks are also using them because they use the same shitty hardware as the cheapest Windows devices.
The devil is in the details, as with other kinds of SSD.
It is flash based but it isn't a SSD. The read/write performance is less and the rated write lifetime is much lower as well.
i did a fresh win 10 install and it works amazing fast but I have just around 5 gigs left after updating and i want to work with linux as well
does somebody has some tips for slim it down and get the most out of it?
Yes it’s EMMC (think SDcard but without a socket, it’s not super fast) and most OSes let you use that as a block device (and most of the firmware will let you boot from it.) Mine had an SDcard socket that I used for really big stuff (anything closed source, any builds so I didn’t burn the EMMC out, and anything I needed to run in wine.)
You mean just because there isn't enough space? Some of them go up to 64gb or even 128gb, but a lack of OS updates would be a non-starter.
Any specifics you care to know?
I wouldn’t expect the heavier windows managers (and Windows) to perform at an acceptable level. Gnome sure didn’t. Tiling windows managers and mate/xfce have been great. It handles light web dev pretty fair as well.
The main issue is limited storage space. Some low-end laptops sell with 32GB space, and it's so low, you can't even update Windows properly on that one. Having at least 64GB gives you some breathing room.