vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-30, 10:55:

HDD: In this thread two solutions emerged, a 500GB HDD with multiple partitions and dualboot, or two SSDs, 120GB for Windows 98 and 240GB for XP. SSDs would be nice, no patch needed and no bootloader (right?) but I won’t be able to add later a traditional HDD for games and ISOs (is it needed?) unless I use a SATA to IDE since the motherboard has two sata ports.

Some say don't run WinXP on SSD due to lack of TRIM. Neither does Win98 but creates much less write load. I prefer SSHD for WinXP.

And I am not sure if you can set up a boot manager too dual boot Win98 and XP if they are on different hard drives.

kolderman wrote on 2021-10-30, 17:43:

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-30, 10:55:

HDD: In this thread two solutions emerged, a 500GB HDD with multiple partitions and dualboot, or two SSDs, 120GB for Windows 98 and 240GB for XP. SSDs would be nice, no patch needed and no bootloader (right?) but I won’t be able to add later a traditional HDD for games and ISOs (is it needed?) unless I use a SATA to IDE since the motherboard has two sata ports.

Some say don't run WinXP on SSD due to lack of TRIM. Neither does Win98 but creates much less write load. I prefer SSHD for WinXP.

And I am not sure if you can set up a boot manager too dual boot Win98 and XP if they are on different hard drives.

IIRC newer SSD's make this a non-issue with TRIM built into the firmware of said drives.

ODwilly wrote on 2021-10-30, 18:19:

kolderman wrote on 2021-10-30, 17:43:

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-30, 10:55:

HDD: In this thread two solutions emerged, a 500GB HDD with multiple partitions and dualboot, or two SSDs, 120GB for Windows 98 and 240GB for XP. SSDs would be nice, no patch needed and no bootloader (right?) but I won’t be able to add later a traditional HDD for games and ISOs (is it needed?) unless I use a SATA to IDE since the motherboard has two sata ports.

Some say don't run WinXP on SSD due to lack of TRIM. Neither does Win98 but creates much less write load. I prefer SSHD for WinXP.

And I am not sure if you can set up a boot manager too dual boot Win98 and XP if they are on different hard drives.

IIRC newer SSD's make this a non-issue with TRIM built into the firmware of said drives.

TRIM can't be built into firmware by definition, I think you are thinking about garage collection and compacting, which TRIM greatly assists. Modern SSDs are probably durable enough to host WinXP, but I still prefer SSHDs as they are still cheaper than SSDs for the capacity I want for XP (1TB).

kolderman wrote on 2021-10-30, 17:43:

And I am not sure if you can set up a boot manager too dual boot Win98 and XP if they are on different hard drives.

If the BIOS support some sort of "Boot selector" with F8 or something like that, that could be the bootloader. I could set the default boot drive to the first SSD (Windows 98) and choose the other one with the F8 when needed.

About the TRIM absence from both OSes I read a lot in this forum, some people say that the SSD will slow overtime and make the system unstable, others say that this won't be noticed in Windows 98, other say to simply ignore because a 128 GB SSD is cheap.
I don't know what to do. About the cost, a 500GB HDD costs like a 128GB SSD.

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-30, 20:37:

If the BIOS support some sort of "Boot selector" with F8 or something like that, that could be the bootloader. I could set the d […]
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kolderman wrote on 2021-10-30, 17:43:

And I am not sure if you can set up a boot manager too dual boot Win98 and XP if they are on different hard drives.

If the BIOS support some sort of "Boot selector" with F8 or something like that, that could be the bootloader. I could set the default boot drive to the first SSD (Windows 98) and choose the other one with the F8 when needed.

About the TRIM absence from both OSes I read a lot in this forum, some people say that the SSD will slow overtime and make the system unstable, others say that this won't be noticed in Windows 98, other say to simply ignore because a 128 GB SSD is cheap.
I don't know what to do. About the cost, a 500GB HDD costs like a 128GB SSD.

Thats true for Win98, but WinXP you probably want a bigger drive, and it will have much more impact on SSD.

If you have both drives inserted and enabled while you install both OS-es, of course win98 first, when you install winXP after that it will pick up the win98 boot loader and replace it, and give you the boot menu where you pick which windows to load... Basically the same thing that happens with two partitions on one HDD, also happens with two HDDs. if you don't wish for this to happen for some reason, you have to disconnect the win98 hdd while you install winXP on the other, then each will have its own boot loader and you'll have to use the mobo bios to pick which is primary. A third option would be to install a custom boot loader such as System Commander, probably the ideal solution for such a dualboot

On the question of hard drives, some SSDs have software that you can install on winXP and manually run TRIM from there... Samsung SSDs for example have Samsung Magician... but I'm too lazy for that, so I just use a 10k-15k rpm HDD to boot winXP, and a separate larger 5400-7200rpm hdd (or a few) for game installs. An SSD can actually work quite nice for Win98, because there's a hidden variable you can set for win9x, to make it minimize disk writes unless strictly necessary

As mentioned before, some manufacturers publicly state that their SSDs don't need TRIM:
https://www.crucial.com/articles/about-ssd/what-is-trim

With modern SSDs, it's enough to occasionally leave the computer to idle in the BIOS for 8 hours, so that garbage collection can do its thing. I do this about once per month and haven't noticed any performance degradation on WinXP and Win98SE. This isn't something I invented, it's what the manufacturer recommends:
https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq- … has-slowed-down

They can't garbage collect what they don't know is garbage.

kolderman wrote on 2021-10-31, 02:54:

They can't garbage collect what they don't know is garbage.

As Crucial states, Active Garbage Collection works without TRIM, it just takes longer. Hence their 8 hours of idling recommendation.

Crucial wrote:

An SSD that is not receiving Trim commands, and where Active Garbage Collection never runs properly, will never have the cells on the drive cleaned out after data is deleted. Over time, this will lead to an accumulation of 'junk' data, which will reduce performance and can cause system freezing.

If you notice performance decreasing on the SSD, you might need to force Active Garbage Collection to run by powering the SSD on and leaving it idle for 6 to 8 hours. After that, your drive’s functionality and performance should be restored.

There are other articles which explain this in more detail, like this one:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/ask-a … eed-trim-right/

Ars Technica wrote:

And you don’t need TRIM for garbage collection to work—but TRIM makes an SSD’s garbage collection more efficient.

In 2019 Kingston wrote this:

Kingston SSDs with SandForce controllers are optimized to conduct foreground GC when data is received, and minimize performance or response time impacts. Foreground GC also extends the life of SSDs by not Garbage Collecting files until they are deleted by the user or the system; Background GC can increase SSD wear by processing files that are subsequently deleted by the user or the system. In addition, by avoiding unnecessary GC, Foreground Garbage Collection allows the SSD to enter idle mode faster and more often after the SSD is accessed for typical reads, which account of about 80% of typical Client workloads; this results in longer battery life for mobile platforms.

https://www.kingston.com/italy/en/solutions/s … bage-collection

https://media.kingston.com/images/ssd/technic … onTechBrief.pdf

It doesn’t seem to need that BIOS 8 hours idle to do that either.

While Crucial seems to say that every SSD has that, Kingston says that is present in once with LSI Sandforce, but there is no mention of it in A400 page.

I'm also reading in various threads that people leave 25% of the space not partitioned and forget everything.

But besides power consumption, heat and noise, is there any advantage for Win98? Let's also think about that there would be 2x SSDs, so 2x heat + 2x cables + 2x power consumption.

2x 120GB A400 SSDs cost 45€, 480GB SSD is 48€, 1TB 3.5" HDD is 35€, 500GB 3.5" is 33€, 500GB 2.5" is 50€ (!!).

Does an SSD require SATA II? Because the ASRock motherboard has 2x SATA 1.5Gb/s.

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 09:28:

I'm also reading in various threads that people leave 25% of the space not partitioned and forget everything.

That is generally a good idea on operating systems without TRIM. Most modern SSDs come with some overprovisioning but having even more unallocated space can further help with garbage collection.

But besides power consumption, heat and noise, is there any advantage for Win98?

Silent operation mostly. Classic, spinning HDDs are generally noisy. Access times are also better on SSDs and the whole system tends to feel more "snappy".

Does an SSD require SATA II? Because the ASRock motherboard has 2x SATA 1.5Gb/s.

SATA III SSDs are generally backwards compatible with SATA I interfaces. But it might be best to double check with the manufacturer beforehand. For example, Sandisk SSDs specifically state this.

BTW, when using an SSD for WinXP, be sure to format it on a modern system (Win7 and up) in order to properly align the partitions.

While I think it's possible to have multiple partitions using different file systems on a single SSD, and still have them be aligned correctly, it's simpler not to mess with all that and just use two separate disks. Win98 needs a FAT32 formatted partition, while you generally want NTFS for WinXP.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-10-31, 10:48:

SATA III SSDs are generally backwards compatible with SATA I interfaces. But it might be best to double check with the manufacturer beforehand. For example, Sandisk SSDs specifically state this.

Kingston in the A400 page says only "SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0 (3Gb/s)".
Crucial doesn't seem to mention any backward compatibility.

But basically we should be surprised if a product page specification in 2021 would mention SATA I from 2002, right? Anyway I don't think that all the Win98 builds here uses SATAII or III and those three are reputable companies.

Am I lazy or rude if I say that all these partitions, TRIM, 25% free, "align the partition", "SATA I? are you there?", "slow? leave the system idle 6-8 hours in the BIOS" are a bit too complicated for an occasionally retro-gaming system?

Note on TRIM with Windows 98SE, assuming you have actual SATA ports: with R. Loew's SATA patch (might be optional, but running things in 'native' sata mode is nice), you can run his TRIM program either manually or via AUTOEXEC assuming everything plays well. Windows XP has a program or two to run TRIM manually and might have some more hands-free options. While not as good as the OS handling it, it's definitely better than not having it. Anyways, it's how I used to run 98se when I had it on a P4 build

By spec SATA is supposed to be fully backwards compatible (SSD or not) with all previous versions, you just lose speed as you go further back.

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

Am I lazy or rude if I say that all these partitions, TRIM, 25% free, "align the partition", "SATA I? are you there?", "slow? leave the system idle 6-8 hours in the BIOS" are a bit too complicated for an occasionally retro-gaming system?

As always, this is up to personal preference.

For me, the benefits of an SSD greatly outweigh the downside of having to leave the system to idle overnight once per month, but to each their own.

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

partitions

You're going to create partitions and format them anyway during install, no extra work involved

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

TRIM

Use a HDD instead of SSD, or let the garbage collection do its thing, or plug the ssd to a modern PC and run TRIM manually there or use a suitable Linux live cd to do the same

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

25% free

Requires leaving 25% extra space while partitioning, that's it

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

align the partition

Requires formatting the partition on a modern(ish) PC, that's it

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

SATA I? are you there?

SATA is backwards compatible, though I guess it comes down to how well the motherboard can do IDE mode with it and/or how solid the drivers are. By the way, unless someone has already mentioned this note that neiher Win98 or XP come with SATA drivers out of the box so you need to set SATA to IDE mode, or make a floppy disk with the drivers and use that during install, or add the drivers directly to the windows install media

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 11:06:

slow? leave the system idle 6-8 hours in the BIOS

Requires doing absolutely nothing else than letting the PC idle, or you could again plug the SSD to a modern PC or use a Linux live CD

Are you sure getting into retro systems is what you actually want to do 😀
They WILL require tinkering and figuring out all kinds of technical oddities. There are wrappers, patches and things of that nature if you just want to play old games without the hassle and having to pay overpriced to outrageous sums for stuff that could die any day due to their age.

Sombrero wrote on 2021-10-31, 14:04:

Are you sure getting into retro systems is what you actually want to do 😀
They WILL require tinkering and figuring out all kinds of technical oddities. There are wrappers, patches and things of that nature if you just want to play old games without the hassle and having to pay overpriced to outrageous sums for stuff that could die any day due to their age.

I see your point and thank you for your suggestions. I already used GOG, Dosbox, source ports, patches, wrapper and so on but I definitely wanted a Windows 98 build.

The fact is that even in Windows 98 era we didn't have to worry about those SDD "things" 🤣, that's why I asked that "ironic question" since I will already be "going through" other default things.
But I understood your helpful suggestions.

About the money, the Pentium 4/Core2Duo is really a cheap solution that I suggest to everybody who doesn't want to spend a fortune. I could have spent about 20-30€ for motherboard, CPU and RAM. Basically the GPU is the most expensive thing in this project right now.

vinxi2 wrote on 2021-10-31, 14:15:

The fact is that even in Windows 98 era we didn't have to worry about those SDD "things" 🤣, that's why I asked that "ironic question" since I will already be "going through" other default things.
But I understood your helpful suggestions.

Back then we had to deal with windows taking a minute or two to fully load because the HDD was so slow. It was also noisy. And it needed to be defragged every once in a while just like SSD needs to be trimmed, with the exception that trimming takes seconds while defragging could take several minutes or even hours.

And if your case wasn't solidly built, the vibrating mechanical hard disk could make the entire case resonate and make absolutely hellish racket, I sure had one case that seemed to try to drill itself through the floor when the HDD was going to town 🤣

its starting to look like a computer built for windows 10 with ssd 🤣
SSD on 98se is nothing to brag about.
You can access quicker but throughut is just the same so therefore I'd only recommend SSD as secondary to a mechanical boot drive to use for game cache (install games to SSD and store cdrom iso'sto load on windows mechanical therefore less trim if at all)
Swapfile can't thrash the SSD that way too.
Heck I have a 98se box now with 4 x SATA mechanical disks in raid 0 on PCI that allows windows to boot from post
displays in windows 98SE as a SCSI but it blows away my kingston SSD and costs half the price for the disks card and cables all together if savvy enough shopping.
notebook SATA disk don't vibrate BTW.

Sombrero wrote on 2021-10-31, 16:09:

I sure had one case that seemed to try to drill itself through the floor when the HDD was going to town 🤣

Me too 🤣 You're definitely right. Ok, I'm sold when you said no defrag, SSD.

120 GB or 240 GB for Windows 98? (let's count that I will "lose" 25%)
Kingston or Crucial?

About the cooler I can't find a new Intel stock one, so I'm thinking about Arctic Freezer 11 LP. I wish I could find an "horizontal" heatsink to mount a Noctua fan, but I can't find it.

its starting to look like a computer built for windows 10 for 98se 🤣

A Windows 98 SE build that winks to Windows XP/10. 🤣

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-10-31, 16:42:

SSD on 98se is nothing to brag about.

Ok, now I'm undecided again.

Anyway since I'm targeting a 5900XT here (at a decent price when I'll get old) I'm also starting to think that the old and trusty config that I'm going to replace "soon", i7 4700K + GTX 770, could be the "ultimate" miniITX Windows XP build, and so leave this as Windows 98 alone.