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
I bought one and used it for a year in college and ran a custom Linux ramdisk OS with a few different chroots on the EMMC. A lot of these things can’t really run Windows (I never tried but I’m told they can boot into the copy they ship with a few times but probably don’t last and certainly can’t update.) setting up Linux on them requires a lot of care (I had to build a custom kernel to get graphics on mine to work at all.) It’s better to think of them like a weird embedded device that happens to be mostly compatible with desktop computers.
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.)
eMMC is just another name for soldered on flash storage. Its no different than a SSD.
It shows up to the PC just like any hard drive.
It's not bad. It's slower than SSD, but much faster than a HDD.
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.
I bought a very cheap one with 32 gigs a few years ago. I love it. It's fast , light and runs windows 10. It's good for email and browser stuff. My problem now is that i can't update the OS. It doesn't have enough memory. It still functions but i run the risk of not getting the security updates. It gave me about 3 years of great use. I would definitely buy another one.
You are super overthinking this. It's a lower tech ssd. It's nand storage just like a sata ssd would be. It's rw just the same.
In the mid-2000s I once tried installing Windows XP to a 16GB eMMC drive that was in a PCI slot adapter on my main PC. It did install successfully, just as it would on a normal hard drive. It did boot. The only problem (besides it being only 16GB) is it took forever. The PCI slot transfer speeds were slow. The eMMC card itself was slow. I can't recommend doing it, but it does work.
Picked up an Asus E203MA last month. I treat the eMMC just like I would any SSD/HDD and slap Arch on it all the same.
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.
I bought a HP stream with 128GB internal storage for 199 € and it's serving me well because of weight (1 kg) and purpose (writing, connect to remote servers via ssh). Being a Celeron you can't do fancy things but it's ok. You can extend the storage capacity with microSD cards.
funny, I could rescue an small laptop with 32GB eMMC and 2GB RAM from been thrown away just a day ago
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?
If you are careful/lucky, some of them have an unused SATA port and then you can add a separate SSD to it.
Windows has bad filesystem support, let alone trying to efficiently run eMMC. f2fs has many advantages.
It’s very slow. Think of SD RaM access speed. Avoid.