What's new

Set Surface 3 in raid?

irogos

Member
Here is my question...

With the Surface 3, we all know the limiting factor is the emmc hard drive vs the SSD of the Surface Pro.

Could you possibly purchase a 128gb Surface 3 and then 128gb micro sd card and install the sd card and setup the Surface 3 in a raid setup? It could be amazing! You would just have to make sure that no one removes that sd card lol.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
No, the Micros-SD card is much to slow to keep up even with the eMMC, the Micro-SD card will burst to faster but typically can't sustain the speeds needed, also if the SD Card dies all of your data is lost.

Honestly if the eMMC is an issue I don't believe the S3 is a good choice, this is targeted as a companion device....
 
OP
I

irogos

Member
No, the Micros-SD card is much to slow to keep up even with the eMMC, the Micro-SD card will burst to faster but typically can't sustain the speeds needed, also if the SD Card dies all of your data is lost.

Honestly if the eMMC is an issue I don't believe the S3 is a good choice, this is targeted as a companion device....

The emmc is not an issue. I just like to improve things where possible. I have an Alienware Alpha and the first thing I did when I got it was remove the hard drive and replace it with an SSD.
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
The emmc is not an issue. I just like to improve things where possible. I have an Alienware Alpha and the first thing I did when I got it was remove the hard drive and replace it with an SSD.
Bottom line, you're barking up the wrong tree. This is not an Alienware computer.
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Think of the surface as you would any other tablet. You get what you get and that's the end of the story.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
You might find a USB attached SSD to be pretty performant. In previous testing I saw about 50+% of the native SSD performance when the same drive was attached via USB 3.0. We will see how it does on an S3 soon. I haven't benched an SSD USB stick yet but will get to that eventually.
 
OP
I

irogos

Member
You might find a USB attached SSD to be pretty performant. In previous testing I saw about 50+% of the native SSD performance when the same drive was attached via USB 3.0. We will see how it does on an S3 soon. I haven't benched an SSD USB stick yet but will get to that eventually.

Thanks Greyfox! Some of the other responses have been less than positive. Funny thing is I am very excited about the Surface 3 and I am not expecting it to be a powerful machine. I was just curious if there were things that could be done as far as a raid setup is concerned.

I was surprised to see people get all huffy and be like "A tablet is a tablet and thats what you get"

We are in the age of doing amazing things with technology. Like the fact that you can stream Xbox one games to your Surface when windows 10 comes out. That is amazing!!!
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Thanks Greyfox! Some of the other responses have been less than positive. Funny thing is I am very excited about the Surface 3 and I am not expecting it to be a powerful machine. I was just curious if there were things that could be done as far as a raid setup is concerned.

I was surprised to see people get all huffy and be like "A tablet is a tablet and thats what you get"

We are in the age of doing amazing things with technology. Like the fact that you can stream Xbox one games to your Surface when windows 10 comes out. That is amazing!!!

You seem to get me wrong. I'm simply saying that a tablet is a tablet. It is not something that the typical user can just take apart and upgrade. I'm not being huffy, just saying, like leeshor states, that this is not a laptop where you just swap out a harddrive, you're largely stuck with what you have.
 
OP
I

irogos

Member
You seem to get me wrong. I'm simply saying that a tablet is a tablet. It is not something that the typical user can just take apart and upgrade. I'm not being huffy, just saying, like leeshor states, that this is not a laptop where you just swap out a harddrive, you're largely stuck with what you have.

I never intended to take the device apart. I was simply curious if you could use the sd card slot to create a raid setup. Greyfox offers a better option, utilizing the USB 3.0 slot. There was a kickstarter a while back where these people created a flash drive that fits flush in your laptop and acts as an expansion drive rather than a removable drive.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
In chasing benchmark data I came across a Z8700 in the Passmark Overclocked Database. I've been wondering about boosting the base clock rate a bit. I know the Z8700 has a lower max temp than the Core series but it might be pushable. We will see how the thermals look on this puppy and it there's any headroom. :)
 
Top