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Strange new drive



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 14th 19, 04:21 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Strange new drive

Just noticed yesterday a new drive in Disk management, Don't know how
long it has been there but only since 1903.

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.

I can't do anything to it as all options are greyed out except property's.

It only shows up there and not in "this PC" . It does not seem to do
anything and not causing any problems, Just wondering how and why it got
there.

Rene


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  #2  
Old June 14th 19, 05:11 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Andy Burns[_6_]
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Posts: 1,318
Default Strange new drive

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.


Have you installed sandbox for 1903?

  #3  
Old June 14th 19, 05:15 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Strange new drive

On 2019-06-14 11:11 a.m., Andy Burns wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.


Have you installed sandbox for 1903?


Yes, I installed and tried it, Not really needed in my case, Is it
relevant to that drive?

Rene


  #4  
Old June 14th 19, 06:10 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Andy Burns[_6_]
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Posts: 1,318
Default Strange new drive

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Have you installed sandbox for 1903?


Yes, I installed and tried it, Not really needed in my case, Is it
relevant to that drive?


yes, if you search for portablebaselayer, without the superfluous 'd'
you'll get results, seems if you're not using sandbox, you might as well
remove it as people are suggesting it gives a performance hit from
enabling a hypervisor.
  #5  
Old June 14th 19, 06:58 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Strange new drive

On 2019-06-14 12:10 p.m., Andy Burns wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Have you installed sandbox for 1903?


Yes, I installed and tried it, Not really needed in my case, Is it
relevant to that drive?


yes, if you search for portablebaselayer, without the superfluous 'd'
you'll get results, seems if you're not using sandbox, you might as well
remove it as people are suggesting it gives a performance hit from
enabling a hypervisor.


Guess I should have searched first, not thinking.
Anyway you're quite right, it is the virtual drive set up by Sandbox, I
uninstalled it and the drive has now disappeared, no sense keeping it
active if I don't use it and its taking up resources.
Thanks for the help.

Rene

  #6  
Old June 14th 19, 11:30 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Eric Stevens
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Posts: 911
Default Strange new drive

On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 10:21:14 -0500, Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

Just noticed yesterday a new drive in Disk management, Don't know how
long it has been there but only since 1903.

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.

I can't do anything to it as all options are greyed out except property's.

It only shows up there and not in "this PC" . It does not seem to do
anything and not causing any problems, Just wondering how and why it got
there.

I have just installed 1903 and I find I now have:

(Disk 1 partition 3) Simple Basic
(Disk 1 partition 5) Simple Basic NTFS
Recovery Simple Basic NTFS
Recovery (R Simple Basic NTFS
User Disk (D Simple Basic NTFS
Windows (C Simple Basic NTFS

(Disk 1 partition 3) is 100% free. There was a time when I could
understand what was going on ....


--

Regards,

Eric Stevens
  #7  
Old June 14th 19, 11:54 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default Strange new drive

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Just noticed yesterday a new drive in Disk management, Don't know how
long it has been there but only since 1903.

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.

I can't do anything to it as all options are greyed out except property's.

It only shows up there and not in "this PC" . It does not seem to do
anything and not causing any problems, Just wondering how and why it got
there.

Rene


Without a drive letter, it won't show up in File Explorer.

You did not mention how large is the disk in which the 8GB partition
exists. You did not mention if the disk is an SSD or HDD. For example,
if the disk is an SSD, a reserved area is allocated for overprovisioning
to allow the SSD to have a spare sector pool for remapping bad blocks of
sectors. The default spare pool size varies by the size of the SSD. I
recall seeing my 256GB SSD had about a 7% spare pool size. My 1 TB SSD
(an NVMe in an m.2 motherboard slot) has a lot bigger spare pool
partition, by default, so I didn't bother using Samsung's Magician to
increase the spare pool space. If I did want more overprovisioning
space (than the difference in terabytes and tibibytes), Magician would
resize my Win10 partition (make it smaller) to create unallocated space
for use as overprovisioning space.

If your SSD is 120GB in size then 8GB is about right for a 7% spare pool
partition; however, as I said, the spare pool size is variable, usually
depends on the size of the SSD, and users can use tools (like Samsung
Magician for Samsung SSDs) to change the overprovisioning. The larger
the overprovisioning, the longer the SSD will last. It mitigates write
amplification in SSDs.

Consumer-grade SSDs have a small overprovisioning than do SSDs in an
enterprise configuration. Longevity and reliability are more important
for enterprise usage.

View:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15wN8JC2L4
and read:
https://searchstorage.techtarget.com...erprovisioning
https://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/overprovisioning
https://www.seagate.com/tech-insight...its-master-ti/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

That's just a guess because you did not identify to us the brand and
model of the disk where is the mystery partition. I don't remember the
partition on my SSD having a partition name. The overprisioning uses
unallocated space on the disk.

However, when I added more overprovisioning space in my Win7 setup that
had a 256 GB SSD (which reduced the Win7 partition to create some
unallocated space on the SSD), I don't recall that the space had a name.
In fact, since it is unallocated space, it isn't in a partition, so it
cannot have a name. Only partitions get names.

Using the "portablebaselayer" string in a search found:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...ws-10-a-3.html

You didn't mention which edition of Windows 10 that you are using (Home,
Pro) or which build of it. I am using the Home edition of Windows 10.
When I went into Control Panel - Uninstall a program, and picked
Windows features in the left pane, I didn't see a feature named
"sandbox".

https://www.techrepublic.com/article...test-software/

I'm still back on the 1809 build. According to the article, the sandbox
is a new feature in the 1903 build; however, I just have the Home
edition and the sandbox feature is available only in the Pro editions,
and up.

You didn't say the brand and model of the disk with the mystery
partition, so one guess was it is an SSD and you increased its
overprovisioning size. Yet, that creates unallocated space on the disk,
not a partition. My next guess based on a lack of your Windows edition
and its build is that maybe it has to do with the new sandbox feature.
  #8  
Old June 14th 19, 11:58 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default Strange new drive

In article , VanguardLH
wrote:

if the disk is an SSD, a reserved area is allocated for overprovisioning
to allow the SSD to have a spare sector pool for remapping bad blocks of
sectors.


that's below the file system and will never show up as a separate
partition.
  #9  
Old June 15th 19, 12:21 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Strange new drive

On 2019-06-14 5:54 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Just noticed yesterday a new drive in Disk management, Don't know how
long it has been there but only since 1903.

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.

I can't do anything to it as all options are greyed out except property's.

It only shows up there and not in "this PC" . It does not seem to do
anything and not causing any problems, Just wondering how and why it got
there.

Rene


Without a drive letter, it won't show up in File Explorer.

You did not mention how large is the disk in which the 8GB partition
exists. You did not mention if the disk is an SSD or HDD. For example,
if the disk is an SSD, a reserved area is allocated for overprovisioning
to allow the SSD to have a spare sector pool for remapping bad blocks of
sectors. The default spare pool size varies by the size of the SSD. I
recall seeing my 256GB SSD had about a 7% spare pool size. My 1 TB SSD
(an NVMe in an m.2 motherboard slot) has a lot bigger spare pool
partition, by default, so I didn't bother using Samsung's Magician to
increase the spare pool space. If I did want more overprovisioning
space (than the difference in terabytes and tibibytes), Magician would
resize my Win10 partition (make it smaller) to create unallocated space
for use as overprovisioning space.

If your SSD is 120GB in size then 8GB is about right for a 7% spare pool
partition; however, as I said, the spare pool size is variable, usually
depends on the size of the SSD, and users can use tools (like Samsung
Magician for Samsung SSDs) to change the overprovisioning. The larger
the overprovisioning, the longer the SSD will last. It mitigates write
amplification in SSDs.

Consumer-grade SSDs have a small overprovisioning than do SSDs in an
enterprise configuration. Longevity and reliability are more important
for enterprise usage.

View:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15wN8JC2L4
and read:
https://searchstorage.techtarget.com...erprovisioning
https://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/overprovisioning
https://www.seagate.com/tech-insight...its-master-ti/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

That's just a guess because you did not identify to us the brand and
model of the disk where is the mystery partition. I don't remember the
partition on my SSD having a partition name. The overprisioning uses
unallocated space on the disk.

However, when I added more overprovisioning space in my Win7 setup that
had a 256 GB SSD (which reduced the Win7 partition to create some
unallocated space on the SSD), I don't recall that the space had a name.
In fact, since it is unallocated space, it isn't in a partition, so it
cannot have a name. Only partitions get names.

Using the "portablebaselayer" string in a search found:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...ws-10-a-3.html

You didn't mention which edition of Windows 10 that you are using (Home,
Pro) or which build of it. I am using the Home edition of Windows 10.
When I went into Control Panel - Uninstall a program, and picked
Windows features in the left pane, I didn't see a feature named
"sandbox".

https://www.techrepublic.com/article...test-software/

I'm still back on the 1809 build. According to the article, the sandbox
is a new feature in the 1903 build; however, I just have the Home
edition and the sandbox feature is available only in the Pro editions,
and up.

You didn't say the brand and model of the disk with the mystery
partition, so one guess was it is an SSD and you increased its
overprovisioning size. Yet, that creates unallocated space on the disk,
not a partition. My next guess based on a lack of your Windows edition
and its build is that maybe it has to do with the new sandbox feature.

Andy Burns solved all this at about 12:10 pm

Rene

  #10  
Old June 15th 19, 12:54 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Strange new drive

On 2019-06-14 6:21 p.m., Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-06-14 5:54 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Just noticed yesterday a new drive in Disk management, Don't know how
long it has been there but only since 1903.

It is called "portablebasedlayer" 8.00 GB NTFS healthy primary
partition, 400 MB used, it is *read only* and has no drive letter.

I can't do anything to it as all options are greyed out except
property's.

It only shows up there and not in "this PC" . It does not seem to do
anything and not causing any problems, Just wondering how and why it got
there.

Rene


Without a drive letter, it won't show up in File Explorer.


Correct


You did not mention how large is the disk in which the 8GB partition
exists.Â* You did not mention if the disk is an SSD or HDD.Â* For example,


It is not a partition, So does not reside on any disk.
It is a Virtual disk.

if the disk is an SSD, a reserved area is allocated for overprovisioning
to allow the SSD to have a spare sector pool for remapping bad blocks of
sectors.Â* The default spare pool size varies by the size of the SSD.Â* I
recall seeing my 256GB SSD had about a 7% spare pool size.Â* My 1 TB SSD
(an NVMe in an m.2 motherboard slot) has a lot bigger spare pool
partition, by default, so I didn't bother using Samsung's Magician to
increase the spare pool space.Â* If I did want more overprovisioning
space (than the difference in terabytes and tibibytes), Magician would
resize my Win10 partition (make it smaller) to create unallocated space
for use as overprovisioning space.


It has nothing to do with SSD overprovisioning.


If your SSD is 120GB in size then 8GB is about right for a 7% spare pool
partition; however, as I said, the spare pool size is variable, usually
depends on the size of the SSD, and users can use tools (like Samsung
Magician for Samsung SSDs) to change the overprovisioning.Â* The larger
the overprovisioning, the longer the SSD will last.Â* It mitigates write
amplification in SSDs.

Consumer-grade SSDs have a small overprovisioning than do SSDs in an
enterprise configuration.Â* Longevity and reliability are more important
for enterprise usage.

View:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15wN8JC2L4
and read:
https://searchstorage.techtarget.com...erprovisioning

https://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/overprovisioning
https://www.seagate.com/tech-insight...its-master-ti/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

That's just a guess because you did not identify to us the brand and
model of the disk where is the mystery partition.Â* I don't remember the
partition on my SSD having a partition name.Â* The overprisioning uses
unallocated space on the disk.

However, when I added more overprovisioning space in my Win7 setup that
had a 256 GB SSD (which reduced the Win7 partition to create some
unallocated space on the SSD), I don't recall that the space had a name.
In fact, since it is unallocated space, it isn't in a partition, so it
cannot have a name.Â* Only partitions get names.

Using the "portablebaselayer" string in a search found:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...ws-10-a-3.html


Again it has nothing to do with the above.



You didn't mention which edition of Windows 10 that you are using (Home,
Pro) or which build of it.Â* I am using the Home edition of Windows 10.
When I went into Control Panel - Uninstall a program, and picked
Windows features in the left pane, I didn't see a feature named
"sandbox".


Windows 10 VERSION 1903 18362 175


https://www.techrepublic.com/article...test-software/


I'm still back on the 1809 build.Â* According to the article, the sandbox
is a new feature in the 1903 build; however, I just have the Home
edition and the sandbox feature is available only in the Pro editions,
and up.

You didn't say the brand and model of the disk with the mystery
partition, so one guess was it is an SSD and you increased its
overprovisioning size.Â* Yet, that creates unallocated space on the disk,


Has nothing to do with the brand of SSD as it is not a partion, It is a
Virtual disk

not a partition.Â* My next guess based on a lack of your Windows edition
and its build is that maybe it has to do with the new sandbox feature.


Yes, it has everything to do with the Sandbox.

Â*Andy Burns solved all this at about 12:10 pm


Rene




  #11  
Old June 15th 19, 04:10 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default Strange new drive

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

My next guess based on a lack of your Windows edition and its build
is that maybe it has to do with the new sandbox feature.


Yes, it has everything to do with the Sandbox.


https://www.windowscentral.com/how-u...ay-2019-update

Sounded interesting until I got to:

Windows Sandbox is a virtual machine created on demand using
Microsoft's hypervisor using the same OS image as the one on your
machine.

"hypervisor" clued me in that a Pro, Enterprise, or Education edition is
required. The Home edition doesn't have HyperVisor, and that's what I
have.

Guess I'll have to keep using a long-time VMM (Virtual Machine Manager),
like VirtualBox or VMplayer, and run a guest OS' in a virtual machine.

https://ittutorials.net/microsoft/wi...ox-vs-hyper-v/

which says:

Sandbox is not a virtualization hypervisor like Hyper-v or VirtualBox
so there is no need to download VHD or ISO images to run Windows
Sandbox as its built-in in the host operating system using a container
so the resource utilization is very low compared to Hyper-V or
VirtualBox.

I have 64 GB system memory (RAM), oodles of free disk space, and 6
processor cores (12 with hyperthreading), so I'm not concerned that
VirtualBox has a bigger footprint. I also like that I can save the VHD
file at different stages of state, like when the OS is first installed
in a VM, after applying all available updates, after some particular app
configuration, etc. I can choose at which state is the VM for testing.
With the Win10 Sandbox, looks like it is a fresh start on every use.
Since some programs require additional setup, like installing
Ghostscript for many of the PDF emulated printers or some other
ancilliary software to get a program to work, starting fresh means a lot
more setup when starting to use a new instance of the Win10 Sandbox.

This seems another case of Microsoft adopting some technology too late.
HyperVisor has been around a long time and lets you run multiple OSes,
but this new Sandbox feature seems over a decade too late and is overly
crippled for features. Seems like a new feature that is, alas, geared
to the lowest common denominator of users (aka boobs).
  #12  
Old June 15th 19, 06:40 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Andy Burns[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,318
Default Strange new drive

VanguardLH wrote:

"hypervisor" clued me in that a Pro, Enterprise, or Education edition is
required. The Home edition doesn't have HyperVisor, and that's what I
have.


If you have a Win7 or Win8 Pro product key (e.g. from another machine
you no longer use) you can change the key on your Win10 Home machine and
re-activate, then you'll have a Win10 Pro machine ... I would make sure
you never boot the old Win7/8 machine after that point ... probably take
an image backup first.
  #13  
Old June 15th 19, 04:23 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Strange new drive

On 2019-06-15 12:40 a.m., Andy Burns wrote:
VanguardLH wrote:

"hypervisor" clued me in that a Pro, Enterprise, or Education edition is
required.Â* The Home edition doesn't have HyperVisor, and that's what I
have.


If you have a Win7 or Win8 Pro product key (e.g. from another machine
you no longer use) you can change the key on your Win10 Home machine and
re-activate, then you'll have a Win10 Pro machine ... I would make sure
you never boot the old Win7/8 machine after that point ... probably take
an image backup first.


I agree, That will work, I used it with an old OEM copy of Windows 7 to
Windows 10 Pro and changed keys and it activated without a whimper.

Rene

  #14  
Old June 16th 19, 06:10 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Lucifer
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Posts: 226
Default Strange new drive

On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 17:54:40 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Consumer-grade SSDs have a small overprovisioning than do SSDs in an
enterprise configuration. Longevity and reliability are more important
for enterprise usage.


Enterprise does not use SSD because they are unreliable.
  #15  
Old June 16th 19, 07:47 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Strange new drive

Lucifer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Consumer-grade SSDs have a small overprovisioning than do SSDs in an
enterprise configuration. Longevity and reliability are more
important for enterprise usage.


Enterprise does not use SSD because they are unreliable.


Wrong again. While the SSD already has some overprovisioning, it gets
or should get increased in an enterprise scenario.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-reliable-are-ssds/

which has a link to:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hdd-v...-data-centers/
In particular, see the "How Backblaze Uses SSDs" section.

COST is the restricting factor, not reliability. Also, with HDDs, even
when using the SMART attributes, catastrophic disaster is often an
unexpected and unplanned event. SSDs are measurable regarding remaining
longevity. HDDs were discarded in data centers are some usage threshold
to circumvent their catastrophic failures; i.e., preemptive replacement.
Replacement of SSDs can be planned based on write volume.

https://www.colocationamerica.com/bl...center-storage
"HDDs are by far the most used and maybe the most practical solution
for a data center. The reason for this comes down to price."
That's the past and now but is changing. Go hunt down the prices
for HDD storage and it had its slope of decreasing costs over time,
too.
"SSDs are the clear future of storage."

https://www.networkcomputing.com/dat...r-data-centers
"After all, flash drives are as much as 1,000x faster than hard-disk
drives for random I/O.

Partly, it has been a misunderstanding that overlooks systems, and
focuses instead on storage elements and CPUs. This led the industry to
focus on cost per terabyte, while the real focus should have been the
total cost of a solution with or without flash. Simply put, most
systems are I/O bound and the use of flash inevitably means needing
fewer systems for the same workload. This typically offsets the cost
difference."

and

"We are now seeing the rise of Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe),
which aims to replace SAS and SATA as the primary storage interface.
NVMe is a very fast, low-overhead protocol that can handle millions of
IOPS, far more than its predecessors. In the last year, NVMe pricing
has come close to SAS drive prices, making the solution even more
attractive."

A 1 TB NVMe SSD in a mobo m.2 slot is what I used in my latest build.
Was it cheaper than a 1 TB SSD attached to a mobo SATA slot? Nope, but
that's today's prices. Was it cheaper than a 1 TB HDD to a mobo SATA
port? Hell no, but I build my systems to last about 8 years, not just 2
or 3 years and then continually upgrade as prices fall.
 




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