Feature Articles

Windows To Go - All You Need to Know About It

By Vijay Anand - 2 Jul 2012

Host System Requirements + Hardware Specs of a WTG Device

Host System Requirements for WTG to Work Effectively

Here are the system requirements to use WTG devices according to Microsoft:-

  • Works best with Windows 7 and Windows 8 logo program certified systems for best experience.
  • Systems configured for USB booting at the BIOS level. And for ease of use, it should be set as the top priority in the boot order preference.
  • Works with UEFI or legacy BIOS equipped system firmware.
  • Works with USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 ports (conditions apply)

While Microsoft states that it works best with systems certified by them, what we can grasp from this point is that its hardware requirements aren’t any different from running existing Windows operating systems.

Officially (at this point of time), they won’t be supporting systems that aren’t in the logo certified program. If you read this note carefully, it doesn’t mean that it will not run on non-certified systems. Rather, it just means if something goes wrong, they are not liable to extend you support - that’s all.

We bet, your next query would be if it will run on Apple systems. Needless to say, they are not able to comment on this point. However, as many online users have found, the developer preview edition worked just fine on several Apple systems. We can’t be sure if this will hold true (for better or worse) after the final release of the OS is out, so do wait for our update on this later this year.

 

Hardware Specs of a WTG Device

For the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft has partnered with both Kingston and Super Talent to seed the market with appropriate Windows To Go compliant drives.

To preserve the usage experience for the user, WTG certified devices would require more stringent hardware requirements than normal thumb drives or external storage drives for that matter. Here are the recommendations from Microsoft:-

  • First and foremost, WTG compliant drives should use SSD flash memory. Normal inexpensive thumb drives uses much cheaper flash and controller components that are geared for sequential read throughput. To provide the performance of a local machine, the WTG drives require high random read/write throughput speeds with an appropriate controller akin to those used on SSD drives. As such, we don’t expect WTG devices to be affordable initially.
     
  • WTG devices require high endurance memory.
     
  • To be recognized as a fixed media unit, rather than a removable drive to support multi-partitions like a regular fixed drive.
     
  • Minimum capacity of 32GB. With the OS itself occupying slightly over half of that capacity, this leaves a bit of space to store data and a couple of big applications if required. Other capacity points of 64GB and 128GB will be available in the future.
     
  • It should preferably be a USB 3.0 device, though USB 2.0 works just as well. Considering SSD flash performance, USB 2.0 should be decently fast as well.

Now, the above are just recommendations laid out by Microsoft for best experience, though it doesn’t stop anyone from using other USB media such as an external 1TB portable drive to setup a WTG device. We’ll find out in due time how much of an experience impact would such devices have on WTG usability. With regards to devices that are WTG certified, Microsoft has yet to publish this at the point of writing. It will be made known closer to the availability of the final OS.

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