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Flash Drive v. Hard Drive For New Laptop

Flash Drive v. Hard Drive For New Laptop

Old Jan 31, 2011, 9:43 pm
  #46  
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Originally Posted by ratatouille
Since SSD drives are still too expensive for me, I would rather spend the money on upgrading my Laptop with the MAX memory and the FASTEST 500gb harddrive
What is it that so many people need a 500gb drive on their laptop for? 500+ movies (or 50-100 if raw DVDs)? A huge number of huge video games with expansion packs?
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Old Jan 31, 2011, 10:05 pm
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Originally Posted by nkedel
What is it that so many people need a 500gb drive on their laptop for? 500+ movies (or 50-100 if raw DVDs)? A huge number of huge video games with expansion packs?
Well a 500gb drive does not cost that much more than a 250gb drive. Yes, DVD movies and Itunes and digital Pics. I also need to upload pics and HD movies from my camera during travel. You would be surprised how much space multimedia files chew up on your HD.

Another need is to allocate a Large swap space for windows due to the increase in MAX memory.

I also store a copy of my backup on a separate partition for the occasion when I need to recover specific files that were deleted by mistake.
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Old Jan 31, 2011, 10:08 pm
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Originally Posted by nkedel
What is it that so many people need a 500gb drive on their laptop for? 500+ movies (or 50-100 if raw DVDs)? A huge number of huge video games with expansion packs?
For me it is just a bunch of crap that I refuse to delete and refuse to archive to DVD etc. I could lie and say it is a bunch of very very important databases (whish is partially true) but honestly I keep everything.
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Old Jan 31, 2011, 11:08 pm
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Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel
Depends on the drive. Not all SSDs are equal--check the performance ratings. Make sure both the drive and the OS support the TRIM command or you'll find your machine slowing down over time. (I know XP doesn't support TRIM, 7 does, I don't know about Vista, I have no idea on Macs.)
I take it you didn't click through?

I linked to the OCZ Vertex 2 - probably one of the best on the market. And yes, it supports TRIM.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 3:34 pm
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Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel
The Achilles heel of SSDs is their terrible erase performance. They only can write fast if they are writing to a block (and their blocks are far bigger than a sector) that is completely zeroed.

What the TRIM command does is allows the OS to tell the drive what space can be zeroed even though it's part of the visible space. Without this the drive will in time get slow due to the need to erase blocks before writing. (This is *PARTIALLY* overcome by having a declared size smaller than the real size but TRIM does a far better job of handling this.)
Thanks. But does this work by itself or do you run it at will, like defragging? And if it is like defragging, how do you know when to run it?
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 4:10 pm
  #51  
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Originally Posted by Landing Gear
Thanks. But does this work by itself or do you run it at will, like defragging? And if it is like defragging, how do you know when to run it?
TRIM is a command on the drive; the OS has to support it - for an OS that supports it (Win7, Linux with the right file system) it works entirely automatically; when block is de-allocated (generally when a file is deleted or truncated) it is freed/discarded using the TRIM command.

The "toolkit" programs that use it on XP are run manually, like defragging. I'm not aware of any guidance on how often to run them.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 4:36 pm
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Originally Posted by nkedel
What is it that so many people need a 500gb drive on their laptop for? 500+ movies (or 50-100 if raw DVDs)? A huge number of huge video games with expansion packs?
I have 2 partitions, one with tons and tons of work documents. A second partition with my software, Acronis True Image back ups, a few movies, and other media.

500GB is not much space these days. Media and data are growing at an astonishing rate.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 5:07 pm
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Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel
If the numbers are to be believed this should allow a SSD to have a multi-decade lifespan no matter how abused.
Check out SSDlife Free. It tells you the anticipated lifespan of your drive based on usage levels.

Here's my laptop SSD in it:

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Old Feb 1, 2011, 5:28 pm
  #54  
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Originally Posted by UALOneKPlus
I have 2 partitions, one with tons and tons of work documents. A second partition with my software, Acronis True Image back ups, a few movies, and other media.
How much of that do you really need portably? How much of the subset that you need portably really needs to come everywhere the laptop does vs. a portable external drive that does occasionally?

500GB is not much space these days. Media and data are growing at an astonishing rate.
500gb is not a lot of space these days, in some senses; I've got a NAS setup with 10TB at home. I'm also fine with a 160gb SSD in my laptop, and a couple of externals in various sizes for the less frequent occasions when I need more space with me. That's increasingly rare: for documents and small-medium-sized files (up to about 50-100mb depending on the network I'm on), I can get anything I need off of the NAS remotely, so I don't see the need to keep all of my documents/photos/etc.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 6:34 pm
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Originally Posted by Braindrain
I take it you didn't click through?

I linked to the OCZ Vertex 2 - probably one of the best on the market. And yes, it supports TRIM.
I didn't--but note that I said both the drive and the OS.
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Old Feb 2, 2011, 11:32 am
  #56  
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Originally Posted by nkedel
How much of that do you really need portably? How much of the subset that you need portably really needs to come everywhere the laptop does vs. a portable external drive that does occasionally?



500gb is not a lot of space these days, in some senses; I've got a NAS setup with 10TB at home. I'm also fine with a 160gb SSD in my laptop, and a couple of externals in various sizes for the less frequent occasions when I need more space with me. That's increasingly rare: for documents and small-medium-sized files (up to about 50-100mb depending on the network I'm on), I can get anything I need off of the NAS remotely, so I don't see the need to keep all of my documents/photos/etc.
That's the point exactly. How often do I need it? Often enough to want it on the laptop, rather than carrying a spare USB drive (which I also do).

So the bottom line is, why should I pay 10X the cost for the same amount of storage, for a minor increase in speed? It makes no sense. For 1/10th the amount of money, I can have my pie and eat it too.

Hard drives work for me. SSDs do not, not right now from a storage or money standpoint. With SSDs you pay a lot more for a lot less.
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Old Feb 2, 2011, 3:58 pm
  #57  
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Originally Posted by UALOneKPlus
That's the point exactly. How often do I need it? Often enough to want it on the laptop, rather than carrying a spare USB drive (which I also do).
Well, in that case, don't get an SSD.

So the bottom line is, why should I pay 10X the cost for the same amount of storage, for a minor increase in speed? It makes no sense. For 1/10th the amount of money, I can have my pie and eat it too.
The increase in speed is minor for some uses and huge for others - the random-read performance is 2-3 orders of magnitude better - and IMO the durability is an even bigger motivator than speed (although I'm harder on my equipment than most people.) YMMV.

With SSDs you pay a lot more for a lot less.
Which only matters for those people who really need that much storage. You do, I'm sure many people do. There are also many other people just use it because it's there, and would do just fine with a lot less space.
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Old Feb 3, 2011, 6:16 am
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At work, my IT guys tried to talk me out of an SSD drive on the laptop I purchased last summer....they said it was too small and they also talked about speed slowdown over time (still on xp, so not trim support). My old laptop (3 1/2 years old) had an 80 gb hard drive (upgraded from 40 originally because the first drive failed), and I only had that half full. So now I have a 128 mb SSD that only has 40 gb. I didn't even request the 256 mb SSD because in my work environment it is not necessary.

I am a really happy camper at how much faster the computer boots, runs my backup program and responds to program launches. There is no contest between SSD (winner) and conventional hard drive (loser)

The new laptop also has an SD card slot which can add 32 gb for $50, or 64 gb for more $$. I expect that if I change my habits and need more memory that--with falling SD card prices and increasing capacities--in a year I could easily add SSD storage that exceeds my demands for a very reasonable amount of money.
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Old Feb 3, 2011, 12:07 pm
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This is an interesting review of SSD vs HDD. A bit dated at late 2009, but I think the points are still valid. Get SSD if you can afford it, and if storage isn't an issue. Otherwise go for the best performing HDD for the buck and keep waiting for SSD to come down in price.
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Old Feb 3, 2011, 5:15 pm
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The question is always price vs. performance

Yes, SSD's are significantly more expensive that HDD's on a price per GB basis. And one can always wait for the cost of SSD's to come down to some level that the price makes sense for that person. For me that point has come, and I am using a SSD for my boot and programs drive.
Others have brought up the reliability of SSD's in the consumer space the drives should last quite a long time, especially since they are using the same wear leveling routines as the most expensive drives. But, I do not store my data on the SSD, I have a 750GB HDD installed in my drive bay for all my data. I use a 5400 RPM drive since I found that the 7200 rpm drives to be quite hot and use much more power that the 5400.
In summary I get excellent performance launching my applications and starting windows, which I like.
Others have asked why so much storage my job requires it, currently on this trip I have 4-5 TB's with me.
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