Originally Posted by
Efrem
The real issue isn't usually the data, unless you work with video, large graphics files, big music libraries, or things like that. Typical business data in databases is tiny by the standards of any modern storage device, including those discussed in this thread. Formatted data in word processor files, spreadsheets, presentations and e-mail is bigger, but shouldn't be a problem either unless you have a heck of a lot of it. The storage concern with small drives tends to be the OS and application software, as the previous post suggests.
Precisely. Biggest database I've worked with yet was about 7 years worth of individual sales transactions and even that only came to ~750-800MB and was a veritable mountain of data.
Good timing on this thread. I have an LG A1 subnotebook and just swapped the 80GB HDD for a 32GB SSD. Smaller Sony, LG and Toshiba notebooks use 1.8" hard drives as opposed to the more standard 2.5" size. At 4200 RPM the drives are SLOW. I'm used to 7200 RPM drives (I put 'em in every notebook I buy as soon as possible) and there's definitely a significant performance delta with the smaller, slower, drives.
The SSD makes a significant difference. Writes do seem a bit slower, however read performance is SO much faster. The sluggishness complaints I had are totally gone. 32GB is very small, but it's still workable. There's just not room for the iTunes library, the huge games and a bunch of DVDrips. But I have 7gb left over and have quite a lot on it (a 7gb game, MAME and a few hundred ROMsets, Office 2k7, about 2gb worth of work files, and so on).
VS a standard notebook drive, I wouldn't recommend it. A 7200RPM drive will be faster overall. But for subnotebooks that use a 1.8" drive (Sony TR, TX, UX and TZ, Fujitsu 7230, LG A1, C1 and T1, Dell 430, and so on), the SSD is a significant improvement in performance. ZERO clue on longevity or reliability. I will find out the hard way!