HDD or SDD

UffDa

UffDa

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Sep 11, 1999
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I am thinking of buying a new laptop and have been considering one with solid state storage instead of a hard disk.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
I'd love to have one in my desktop personally. In a laptop I think it would be great considering the hard drive is always one of the biggest weak links in a laptop. The price per MB is kinda expensive but I think it is worth it. They say the load time for apps and such is practically nonexistent with the SSD also.
 
For me they're still too expensive and I really don't need the super fast boot up or application loading speed. That's pretty much what they're good at. If you don't shut down/start up your computer constantly there's not much point in getting a solid state drive. They cost way more per gb of storage and I'm not sure how they'll fare for longevity (lots of disk writing/erasing).

What they're good for is using them as a dedicated OS/app drive while you maintain a normal hdd as the storage drive.
 
I use a SSD for the boot drive on my laptop. Get one, you will be blown away. They are so much faster than an HDD and they also create almost no heat. While true they are expensive you can get a 64G drive for around $125 and that will get windows on with about 40G to spare. I have the HDD that came with my laptop set up as a data drive so I can keep things like music and movies stored.
 
I have a 512GB SSD in my MacBook Pro. It's much better than a mechanical drive. It's silent, has zero vibrations, and gets better battery life.

It boots in under 20 seconds, and my Adobe applications open in less than 5 seconds, when they used to take 30-45 seconds.
 
I work in the computer industry. Take a look at the ruggadized models from Dell, Panasonic and Getronics. The higher end models use the SSD as they are bullet proof and much faster than anything spinning. Issue is they are 5 X more expensive than a regular drive. First responders are big users of these models and beat them up and yet they last. You get what you pay for ......
 
RE: The expense. It's all relative. The HDD in my first PC cost $1 per mb. That's $500 for 500 mb disk drive. Now, 2 gb thumb drives are given away as party favors.

From what I have read, a SDD should be good for about 12 to 40 years depending on how much it's used.
 
I LOVE my SSD. LOVE.

Installing Windows XP? 13 minutes total. Microsoft Office 2007? 4 minutes. Most everything else? Don't bother getting up. It'll be ready for you to click "Finish" before you can shove your chair back from the desk. Purchased it May, 2010, and I have noticed no problems of any sort.

Keep my money and guns when I croak, just bury me with my SSD:p
 
If you can afford and SSD it's noticeable jump in performance. Plus, as noted above, it is more energy efficient and resistant to physical shocks & vibrations. All bonuses in a laptop that gets carried around a lot. If your laptop will be permanently parked on your desk tethered to an AC adapter and you just use it for e-mail and web browsing the advantages are less compelling (IMHO). But they are still cool :). There were some issues with the firmware in some of the controllers but if you are buying your laptop & SSD as a package it's probably o.k.
 
When i was building my PC 2 years ago i considered using one for my boot disc (OS, software, etc).

However, one of the primary concerns by Techs was when (not *if*) the SDD failed all data/programs would be irretreivable/inaccessable.

I'm not a computer expert so I don't know how truly accurate that is, but the arguments were compelling enough for me to avoid them - despite their attractive attributes. Honestly, the cost wasn't among the deterrents for me - strictly data/program integrity in the event of a catastrophic loss. I am aware that all discs can experience an absolute failure (destroyed/irretrievable sectors, etc), but i'm not willing to gamble.

Yes i do regular back-ups so my exposure to loss is limited, but all the same i don't want to waste time in data recovery.
 
Hi, IOM go for a SSD and back-up all your information to the cloud. Something like 'dropbox' or 'evernote'. Even if you PC or lap top fails or you are away from it you can access the information.
 
Another recommendation for the SSD boot drive here. I have a 128GB SSD in my Thinkpad X201 and wouldn't switch it for an HDD no matter how much more space it provides. It's not even so much about start-up speed for me as it is noise, heat and energy usage, I get about 16 hours in max battery mode vs. 10-12 when I still had a HDD. I have zero noise, can run SC2 for about 8 straight hours before it starts to feel warm, and did I mention I can use it as a frisbee or drop it down a flight of stairs without interrupting my movie? Get an external for your multimedia and backup needs, wait for a newegg deal and you could get a 2.0TB USB external for under $100.00
 
fmajor007 said:
When i was building my PC 2 years ago i considered using one for my boot disc (OS, software, etc).

However, one of the primary concerns by Techs was when (not *if*) the SDD failed all data/programs would be irretreivable/inaccessable.

I'm not a computer expert so I don't know how truly accurate that is, but the arguments were compelling enough for me to avoid them - despite their attractive attributes. Honestly, the cost wasn't among the deterrents for me - strictly data/program integrity in the event of a catastrophic loss. I am aware that all discs can experience an absolute failure (destroyed/irretrievable sectors, etc), but i'm not willing to gamble.

Yes i do regular back-ups so my exposure to loss is limited, but all the same i don't want to waste time in data recovery.
Click to expand...

Yes if a SSD fails you will most likely not be able to get your data back. With HDD you sometimes can depending on what kind of crash it was. It might cost thousands of dollars to pay someone to get the data back though. Either way you should be backing up your data so it shouldn't matter.

I have a 64 GB drive that I have windows installed in, and a 1 TB HDD for music and pictures and such in my desktop. It takes Windows between 15-20 seconds to boot up. And everything runs quite nicely in it. Of course I do have a sandybridge i7 in it so that could help also ;)
 
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