SSD

[Keith Oates]

I'm looking at replacing my present laptop and quite like the look of the latest Sony Vaio VPCZ117GG . However it is not cheap so would like any comments from people who either have one or have used one. The SSD is reputed to be more robust and faster than a hard disc but is it worth the extra cost and are there any bugs yet to be sorted out with this drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Garz]

They have a finite amount of times they can be written to apparently. Depends if your a HDD thrasher or a normal person which means it will last long enough.

 

[Keith Oates]

Thanks for the reply and not being an HDD thrasher I guess it would be OK for me. It's expensive though so will need to give it some more thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[2Loose]

SSD's do have a finite number of writes to the drive, but they also use various algorithms to ensure that this is not a problem that will affect you for a number of years. We have just installed a load of SSD's into a server at work which is a good advert for their reliability nowadays.

They are amazingly fast, but as you know, they also cost an awful lot more per gigabyte than a 'normal' drive which is currently the major stumbling block for most people.

Their ability to take knocks make them ideal for laptops or other portable devices though.

 

[Keith Oates]

Thanks 2loose, you are making think the extra cost is worth paying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[GrasB]

Statistically speaking the workstations in my department through put around 0.7MB/s of data, that's reading & writing, let's call this approximately what your PC will deal with. Assuming that the load balancing is working properly a 1GB SSD would last around 46 years with the machine running 24/7 365 before its write life was exhausted! Though that's not that accurate it gives a good impression of how irrelevant the number of write cycle are on SSDs

 

[dodgy]

I'm using an SSD in my desktop, my SSD supports TRIM which means it can optimise the drive to counter various negative aspects of SSD (i.e. marking parts of the drive not to use again).
It as an absolute revelation in performance. The PC is virtually silent (actually, the SSD is silent obviously), boots up very quickly indeed (15 seconds from the BIOS to a fully loaded Windows 7 OS) and shuts down similarly quickly. Appllications launch instantly, so fast you couldn't manually time them anyway.
SSD is too pricey to use as pure storage, so I only have my OS and a few often used applications on the SSD, I have a standard SATA HDD for storage and large app installation like games etc. As soon as they're cheap enough I'll be buying a newer larger SSD so I can install some of my larger apps on it.
SSD is the way forward, particularly laptops (lower power consumption, more robust etc).

 

[Garz]

That is the best way (as dodgy states), SSD for the OS, old pata/sata for rarely accessed storage.