wrote in message
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One thing I am considering is being able to run the OS and primary
programs from flash drives while sailing. 1 gig drives are common now
and I expect size will increase and cost will drop over the next year.

Make sure your OS is suitable for that. A normal windows installation will
wear out the flash disk in no time. You'll need XP Embedded to make sure it
does not write registry, log ans swapfiles files to the flashdisk
"millisecond".

Why have a spinning hard drive when it can be avoided for much of the
time? When dockside and doing my heavy duty work and surfing I have no
problem spinning up a hard drive.

A good solution is to mount a 2.5" laptop drive in a shock-absorbing frame
into a 3.5" drive bay. Indrustial computer suppliers carry these. Very
robust.

Meindert