What class SD card is it? "disk" access times may be slow.

16Gb hard drive space is minimum according to Windows 7 spec. You could probably trim that down by removing what wont be used if it come to it. ARC isn't a huge installation, 40Mb or something around there.

That leaves about 15Gb for sound files, that'll be plenty.

I've not used a sata to sd adaptor but cannot see why it wouldn't work. Provided the ITX board is high enough spec to run Windows 7 it should be fine.

I've heard USB sticks make awesome fast drives now that they're larger also. I haven't tried it yet, but I think it's pretty straight forward. At least, from what I've read.

ive run win7 ubuntu and win xp all with grub boot loader, running all off usb stick was 80g, think boot from usb key type bio is needed but with plenty of ram win 7 ran great....

You'll be very unlucky if the bios doesn't support boot from USB, any mobo worth using has the option, any which don't probably wouldn't be up to the task of running W7.

And even then, there are boot cds which help get around the problem, slimline ODDs aren't expensive and are pretty lightweight.

A 32Gb USB stick will be plenty of space to run a robot (Windows 7 & ARC don't take up that much space) you may possibly fit it on a 16Gb but Windows 7 would need slimming down.

usb stick not a very fast,you really SSD with higher read and write times,they cost more but worth it try newegg they have many also try amazon i bought a very cool flash drive with built-wifi for my PRO SLR digital camera might try it to use on robots here is a link to make a bootable flash drive it says its for windows xp ,but windows 7 should work too says to use PEBUILDER ,but can use others

making a bootable flash drive there many many webites on how to make a bootable flash drive i made a few and fairly easy

Once loaded the data transfer speed should not pose an issue, depending on the USB flash drive will depend on the speed. Typically USB2.0 flash drives are slower than SataII.

The problem with SSD drives are the price for the space available. It's a balancing act between price and size (and the increase in speed is rarely worth it, all mine really does is enables the PC to boot in 32 seconds - not worth the extra IMO). Also, some of the cheaper SSDs aren't that much faster so be careful when buying (and stay away from Hybrids).

There have been tests on Sata vs USB2.0, below is an extract from one test I found with a quick google search;

Okay, I did a couple of tests tonight: 
Test 1: Copying a single 5.7GB avi file between the Lacie and my internal Raptor comparing eSATA with USB2 both reading and writing to the Lacie. 

Test 2: Copying 811 smaller files in 2 directories, totalling 4.07GB between the Lacie Drive and my internal Raptor comparing eSATA with USB both reading and writing to the Lacie. 

Test 1 - eSATA Write 1m 32sec, Read 1m 31sec 
Test 1 - USB2 Write 3m 10sec, Read 3m 39sec 

Test 2 - eSATA Write 1m 00sec, Read 1m 20sec 
Test 2 - USB2 Write 2m 57sec, Read 1m 51sec 

For running an OS, once it's running it wont be that big a deal that it's slower accessing the data however it will pay to go for the flash memory with faster read/write times.

You'll find that the Raspberry Pi only runs from an SD card or USB, the Raspberry Pi Foundation weren't all that bothered by the drop in speed.

Hey all just wanted to update you on my experience with the Sata to SD Card adapter. A total headache ! Would not wish to EVER go through that EVER again.

ITX Board with 1.6 dual core and 8 GB's of ram. SD Card was a Corsair 32GB Class 10 card. I believe that class 10 is the fastest, I could be wrong though.

It took over 2 hours just to load Windows 7. Every driver took FOREVER to load. My graphic drivers for instance took 20 minutes. It was a total nightmare trying to get everything up and running. Boot time took almost 3 minutes and shut down even worse. I felt the system could handle ARC but wondered if it could run the video camera ... NOT! Finally just got so discussed, it wasn't worth all the headaches.

Looked into a large USB flash drive but decided to put in a few more bucks and went SSD. (Don't tell my wife I spent the money.) First SSD i ever worked with and WOW are they great. All I can say is fast,fast,fast. Like MR2 says, you have to look at the times on the SSD as there can be a big difference in access time.

Anyways just wanted others to know about my experience and think twice before going that route.

Has anyone else been able to make it work?

Herr

i got mine to work awhile back using a stripped WINDOWS XP and using a different software Need to find my data and info on,since i will be using it in my robot designs

you do need a very fast access and read times With windows 7 i guess it may or maynot work ,i havent tried it ,so cant say it does

Also i had a link to a website,that has a lot of info on using SATA TO SD with testing a lot of flash cards,and SATA TO SD conveters and witch ones are the best,plus on how to load them,will need to find the link (i guess i have over 1000 ) to find it

@Herr Ball, it'll also pay to google SSD "dos and don'ts" which will greatly increase the life of the drive and, in some cases, get even more speed out of it.

SSD is the way to go, the speed increase on my PC which runs an SSD is insane (both boot speed and access speed, download speeds are greatly increased too) but there are things that should be avoided with SSDs (i.e. don't defrag it ever, move the temporary file location off of it to a different drive if possible, check TRIM functions...)

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/12-ssd-tips-to-optimise-your-drives-performance-943984

Thanks Rich. I saved that link for future reference.

I seem to like SSD better too.faster acess times and read times consair is the brand i like a lot and 32gb or higher is your best bet

BEST to go with the highest you can get newegg is great place to find them and amazon,last one i got was from amazon,same type as neweegg was sellling only $51 cheaper

Agreed, mine is a Corsair Force GT, only 60Gb as it just holds the OS and program files and I cannot fault it, had the best read/write times I could find at the time I bought it too (Read 555MB/s Write 495MB/s & 80k IOPS). Plus it's red so looks awesome (despite being hidden in a big black metal case).

It works out at around 1 per Gb but it's worth it.

Those on a tighter budget, from what I've seen the fastest USB sticks are Corsair too, Sandisk have good reviews too.

SD Card wise, you want a class 10, Transcend, Kingston or Sandisk are all pretty reliable. Class isn't too important if you find a good deal on a decent name brand SD card like a class 4 Kingston should be OK... but remember it wont be as fast as SSD, Sata or even Pata. There are a lot of sites out there with tests on these things, specifically the Raspberry Pi community, it's always worth a quick google before you buy.

same one i bought,found at amazoin had the best proce on 60GB at $63 shipped,now price gone up,lucky i bought 4 of them

update now its $89 at amazon and $85 at newegg