I am installing it right now and I hope this $200 was worth it.

Just a thought relating to all the ranting on another thread about selling on an installable hard drive. I may do this just to see.... I have an old version on hard drive. I MAY just try to format the old one and install 2021 on that drive just to test the data throughput of this installation on my C:\ drive and the one that is running through a USB port. That may give some answers to that topic. Has anybody else tried that yet?

Also Simon's point that it isn't going to happen because of the number of laptop users, and Mario's counter that it could be an option, and not one or the other, deserves attention. What exactly is the objection with the installation process as it is? The hour it takes to install it? IF that is it, all I can say is "Huh?" It's 60 minutes of the 525,600 minutes that make up a year!

So... let's say they do it. They offer copies on a hard drive ready to be slipped into a drive slot on your computer. Point 1 is that it will only apply to desktops. So market research on desktop vs laptop users would drive that part of the decision. Point 2 is user level. Many (maybe even most) know how to install a drive. But now you factor in whether the computer can accept one more SATA device. Of the 4 desktops I have, only 1 has an open SATA power supply pigtail. 2 have 2 hard drives and 2 DVD drives. One has 3 hard drives and a DVD drive. What would it do to the price if PG was supplying a 2tb 10,000 rpm hard drive vs this semi disposable external they send now? The throughput of the SATA data bus vs the USB 3.1 is close, but now you are adding the variable of people with older computers without USB 3.1 ports who would see less than optimal speed, which I assume is the end game here, unless the earlier question about whether it's just about the ease of use.

Then how about this. If they order X number of these 2tb 10,000 drives, and X-Y sell, what did they accomplish? They need to task somebody to format all those Y drives and load them up for the next year's version.

So from a business standpoint, I would not expect them to ever do this.

Now, the 2021 installation is almost done. Then on to the experiment!

EDIT:

That idea died on the table. The old version hard drive I have isn't big enough to hold the installation. It's only 148gb. I think it's from like 1947 or something. It still has a micro USB on it if that helps date it. It must be the Everything Pak, because it has a sticker on it that says EP. Probably from back before USB 3 too. And I think I downloaded 2019 and didn't get a hard drive.

Now if the fine folks at PG would send me a blank USB drive that they use these days I could still experiment. Not that I'm hinting or anything...

Last edited by eddie1261; 12/10/20 11:41 AM.