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Notebook Storage SSDs and HDs Compared

Posted by kdawson on from the now-what-would-you-pay dept.

The Raindog sends us a particularly timely showdown article comparing seven 2.5" mobile hard drives, four of them HDs and three SSDs, across a wide range of application, file-copy, power-consumption, and noise-level tests. Tom's Hardware was recently forced to issue a correction to a claim, which we discussed here, that SSDs aren't actually much more power-thrifty than HDs. The Tech Report's in-depth comparison provides some data points on the question of whether solid-state storage is ready to supplant traditional mechanical hard drives, but notes that the price disparity is still substantial.

149 comments

  1. It's not the power efficiency... by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's the lack of moving parts. Try dropping both types repeatedly and see which one stops working first.

    --
    http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
    1. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by MagdJTK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fair enough, but is this particularly relevant to the market? Sure, it would be nice, but would you rather pay a couple of hundred quid or just look after the computer in the first place?

      The way I see it is that geeks would replace their laptop early enough that the HD will probably last long enough and that casual users won't want the extra expense. I think to be honest, the performance difference is the only real advantage and as soon as the prices come down, I'm getting one!

    2. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Depends on what you're doing. If you have a laptop that just travels between home, the office and maybe a cafe or two, then no. You don't need a solid state hard drive. If, however, you do a lot of traveling with your laptop, you may very well drop it once or twice, especially if you're hurried at an airport or some other such situation. Are SSDs for everyone? No, but for power users who are on the go a lot, they make your data a lot safer.

      --
      http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
    3. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by MagdJTK · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fair enough --- I can see how they would be very useful in the kind of environment the Panasonic Toughbook was designed for.

    4. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by kesuki · · Score: 4, Interesting

      flash based drives simplify mil spec laptops, though. imagine having to design a laptop with a conventional HDD knowing that it has to survive being thrown into the back of a jeep carelessly, or be able to still work after a soldier pile dived on top of it trying to avoid machine gun fire, or even expected to still work if it had taken a pretty big shock as a result of nearby artillery or grenade blasts.

      they used to have really good shock absorbing cages to protect the drive...

      --
      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
    5. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sure, it would be nice, but would you rather pay a couple of hundred quid or just look after the computer in the first place?

      It's not really a matter of looking after the computer in the first place. There is demand for a rugged computer that can be manhandled without it breaking apart. When I come home I want to toss my computer on my desk like I do with my keys and wallet. After I've surfed a while I want to toss my computer on the coffee table like I do with magazines. The whole "holy laptop" approach where you have to carry it around on a silk cushion and press the keys one at a time so as not to hurt its feelings is the reason I've never bothered buying one.

    6. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Phybertekie · · Score: 0

      Drop a laptop harddrive once on a corner and odds are it won't work very long. To paraphrase Rush from the song Xanadu: They're made equal by hatchet, hammer and rock - squashed

    7. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by ozamosi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was babysitting my mother's new puppy a few months back.

      I was happily IRC:ing away from the couch, when I heard the puppy standing by the door.

      For those of you that don't know, the thing about puppies is that they do prefer to pee outside, but their bladder system isn't really that good, so when they decide they want to go out, you only have a few seconds to avoid an accident.

      So, I quickly put my laptop on the table, throw my headset away, and start to quickly move towards the door. Unfortunately, I didn't really put the computer down very good - half of it was hanging outside the table. As I tried to move past it, my knee touched it, and that was enough to throw the computer of the table, letting it fall for 4-5 decimeters before it hit the floor. It gave up a faint "peeep!" before it died.

      My hard drive only kindof worked after that - booting was fine, but there were lots of broken clusters that sent the computer into a (seemingly) infinite loop, forcing the computer to use all CPU resources waiting for the hard drive, in effect freezing it. Slowly but surely, more and more clusters broke down, more and more files got damaged, until I finally bought a new drive. Trust me - at that point, I really, really wanted to buy a SSD.

      Oh well, at least the puppy got out in time...

    8. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by schnikies79 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Of the two times I've seen a laptop dropped (to the point of something breaking), the screen broke, not the hard drive.

      SSD's do nothing for this.

      --
      Gone!
    9. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by pthisis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For me the selling points is noise. Most of the time whatever machines I'm near are plugged in, but having a nearly silent media pc in the living room, having a silent instant-on music player in the bedroom, and having a whir-less office would increase my happiness for many hours out of the day.

      Power savings would be pretty nice, too, but much less often.

      --
      rage, rage against the dying of the light
    10. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 2, Informative

      On warm sea-level areas (such as a caribbean beach), high RPM harddrives tend to fail rather quickly. SSDs would operate just fine.

    11. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The one component which I replace most often in other people's laptops is the hard disk. I don't know how they handle their computers to cause these failure rates, but there you are: People need more reliable and robust storage. Data is usually more valuable than the computer hardware. It's a bigger PITA to lose a hard disk than a display.

    12. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by v1 · · Score: 1

      but if you drop them enough don't all the bits fall out?

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    13. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by nko321 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have kids and it isn't an option for me to simply stop using the laptop when the two year olds are around. I need zilch for storage capacity and love longevity. $200 more for a notebook that lasts a year longer, speculatively speaking? Sign me up!

    14. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by TriggerFin · · Score: 1

      Very loosely paraphrased, indeed. Looks more like The Trees, which were "all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw."

      --
      Here's your sig.
    15. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Mex · · Score: 1

      I just dropped a new 160 gb laptop and I lost all the data. I-m very interested in these new SSD drives.

    16. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jeez, excluded middle much?

    17. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by keytoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When I come home I want to toss my computer on my desk like I do with my keys and wallet. After I've surfed a while I want to toss my computer on the coffee table like I do with magazines. The whole "holy laptop" approach where you have to carry it around on a silk cushion and press the keys one at a time so as not to hurt its feelings is the reason I've never bothered buying one.

      You know, there are degrees of ruggedness between carrying it on a pillow and beating the shit out of it. I've had a laptop at my side pretty much constantly for upwards of 10 years now. At no time have I ever treated it as anything other than a tool. I don't baby my tools. I don't coo to it wistfully at the end of the day. I don't 'press the keys one at a time'. I also don't fling it across the house - but I don't do that to my socket wrenches either.

      In all those 10 years of laptop lugging, I have never required any repairs or replacement due to mishaps. If you truly haven't bought a laptop because you picture them as fragile, I highly recommend you pick one up and give it a try. There is something to be said for carrying around a fully functional workstation wherever you go. Just remember that there is a continuum between 'holy laptop' and 'throw it across the room' - it's not a quantum step.

      --

      Culture is more than commerce

    18. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by billcopc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In my experience, it's not so much shock as it is heat that kills the drive. When you encase a high-performance hard drive in a cheap plastic coffin, it can't withstand much sustained usage. Now if only laptop makers would turn that drive caddy into a semi-decent heatsink, things would probably be different.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    19. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by jomiolto · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, the packaging is designed to keep the bits in, even if you drop the drive. However, the force of the impact can clutter all the bits in one corner of the drive, giving them no space to move and change their state, so you should give the drive a good solid shake if you happen to drop it. That way the bits will be spread evenly inside the drive again, and they may happily continue their data storing existence, without the fear of bumping to their grumpy neighbour.

    20. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Millenniumman · · Score: 3, Informative

      HDDs are really not the main thing to worry about when a laptop is dropped or damaged. Screens are much more expensive than HDs, and much harder to replace. Now, data on HDDs is another story, potentially very valuable or important and impossible to replace, but it can be backed up.

      Also, for the same price as a single SSD you could buy literally dozens of HDDs with more than double the storage as the SSD, so in terms of price, even if you pretend SSDs are super reliable and don't even need backup they are still more expensive than dealing with the unreliability of HDs. Obviously, it is much more convient when your hardware doesn't fail, even if it can be replaced fairly easily and cheaply, with minimal data loss, but HDDs are only one compontent of several that can be damaged and make your computer unusable, and with their incredibly limited storage SSDs are much more inconvient. You won't lose your data even if the thing is destroyed, because it won't fit on there in the first place.

      Obviously, SSDs have some places where they excel, but at current prices and storage levels they are way over-hyped and over-used. The eee is an especially glaring example of this, putting a ridiculously high end component into a low end machine, forcing a incredibly low amount of storage.

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
    21. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Glonoinha · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Take the hard drive out of the broken screen unit and put it in a new unit.
      Sixty seconds later you are back in business.

      The cost of the hardware is immaterial compared to the contents on the drive.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    22. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

      Who "tosses" their keys or wallet around, let alone a laptop? That's ridiculous.

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
    23. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've never had to repair anything due to mishaps, and I treat my laptop with reasonable care. However, I have had to replace two laptop hard drives on three occasions due to drive failures in the last ten years. Actually, make that two in the past five years, and none prior to that. One was an acoustic failure (loud, whining drive, but worked perfectly for the better part of a year in that state before I bothered to get it replaced). The other one... I put the machine to sleep, woke it up a minute later, and the drive wouldn't spin up, making a click-of-death "can't find track zero" noise. My suspicion is that it was a failure of the head due to abrasion as it drags across the ramp when parking.

      Mechanical failures don't just happen to people who abuse their machines. Yes, they happen much more frequently to people who treat their machines like excrement, but they also happen randomly for no apparent reason... usually due to flaws in the mechanical design. Some drives have bad ramps that put too much stress on the heads when they park. Some drives have bearings that eventually start to leak oil all over the disk surface. And so on. I'd be much happier if I never had to deal with a Winchester drive again... particularly in laptops.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    24. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by cheater512 · · Score: 0

      People have coped with normal hard drives for years without any problems.

      If you have money floating around then sure, but for the vast majority of users, the money is better spent elsewhere.

    25. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by billcopc · · Score: 1

      Noise ?

      A decently built PC should be practically noiseless, if you choose the right parts. An SSD does eliminate one spindle, but the HDD should already be the quietest spindle in the system - the CPU/GPU/PSU fans are the troublemakers here.

      If your hard drive is noticeably chatty, either insulate it with grommets/rubber bands, or just stop buying Maxtor.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    26. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 1

      Without ANY problems? I guess all those data recovery companies are going broke.

      --
      http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
    27. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by moderatorrater · · Score: 1

      I also don't fling it across the house - but I don't do that to my socket wrenches either.

      Yes, I don't fling my "socket wrenches" across the house either, at that point I refer to them as "what happens when dinner's not ready on time" or simply "reminders".

    28. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Nightspirit · · Score: 5, Funny

      I dropped my fujitsu laptop multiple times this year and it styiklkl worklsd fklaweklersdsdklerty

    29. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by schnikies79 · · Score: 1

      Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

      --
      Gone!
    30. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by jomiolto · · Score: 1

      Noise ?

      A decently built PC should be practically noiseless, if you choose the right parts. An SSD does eliminate one spindle, but the HDD should already be the quietest spindle in the system - the CPU/GPU/PSU fans are the troublemakers here.

      Note that we are talking mainly about laptops here. Most of the time the fan(s?) on my laptop are almost completely silent, and the noisiest part of the computer is the hard drive. Not that it's a problem, though, since I don't usually even notice the sound it makes, unless it is really quiet (like now, 4am in the morning ;).

    31. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by v1 · · Score: 1

      does that address the problem of bit clumping?

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    32. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      And they arent afraid of losing business due to SSDs.

    33. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      My hard drive only kindof worked after that - booting was fine, but there were lots of broken clusters that sent the computer into a (seemingly) infinite loop, forcing the computer to use all CPU resources waiting for the hard drive, in effect freezing it. Slowly but surely, more and more clusters broke down, more and more files got damaged, until I finally bought a new drive.

      FYI your drive suffered a "head crash" in which the read/write head literally smacked the platter causing a minor abrasion to the media.

      Your lucky that incident wasn't fatal to the drive. You did make a full backup ASAP right? Or did you just ride it out?

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    34. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      However it is a very important example of exactly why SSD drives a important for portable computers, drop factor and, that is especially important for UMPC's especially in school use, where drops will be a expected now add OLED displays and you have significant improvements in reliable and battery life. So all you have to do is wait out patent greed because the obviously simpler construction method of SSD drives versus spinning platters means they will eventually end up being cheaper.

      Not to be too picky on Toms hardware, but they are a well known cash for comment web site (ie. vista has 'nearly' the same performance as xp) and, that article is about as wishy washy as can be and implies a whole lot without saying anything at all.

      Gees don't you know, V8s and tiny 4 cylinders use about much the same fuel 'er' when a car is rolling down a hill and your foot is off the accelerator or when in 'er' 'energy saving mode' and the engine is like switched off.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    35. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After I've surfed a while I just want to toss off.

    36. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You waited until more and more files got damaged before finally buying a new drive? Why not buy a new drive as soon as you were aware of any problems? BTW, that puppy is going to cost you far more than the cost of a new laptop over the course of its life. :)

    37. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by ArtistFrmrlyKnwnAsAC · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wrote another comment recently about building my own flash drive with a couple of 16gb CF chips and an adapter from Addonics. I left out *why* I did this. I'm very rough with my tablet PC, and a spill earlier this year killed the mechanical drive. That was the 3rd drive to die for various reasons relating to rough use over the previous four years in this particular tablet. Six months of very rough use later, I've had absolutely no problems with the flash chips. The notebook is as fast with my homemade drive as the old 7200rpm that died, but now it runs cooler and completely silent, and gets about 25 more minutes of battery life at full load. The performance is a nice side-effect (compilers and IDEs like a fast drive), but my original intent was to have something that could survive my daily bike commute in a padded saddle bag over 20mi of bumpy roads + random dropping/banging around. Couldn't be happier so far.

    38. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Heather+D · · Score: 1

      This is what I'm interested in from SSDs I still do a lot of work on the road in places where I need to do data gathering while driving over roads that sometimes aren't really so much roads as widened animal paths. Big rocks and/or potholes have cost me days worth of data on several occasions.

      The Eee, for instance, looks like it would be ideal for my needs.

    39. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by afidel · · Score: 1

      Um, most people. I toss my keys and wallet onto the kitchen table or nightstand all the time. I also toss my laptop onto my bed all the time, of course it's a water bed and it's almost always powered off when I do it, but it would be nice to not have to worry about whether it was or not.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    40. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seagate and others make drives that senses fall and parks head before it hits ground. Not SSD rugged but might have survived this fall.

    41. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by pthisis · · Score: 1

      GPUs almost never have fans unless you're using very recent accelerated 3d cards--way overkill even for most video playback machines. If you put together gaming machines a lot, you'll think all
      GPUs have fans, but if you put together more general machines fans in the GPU are still pretty uncommon.

      Likewise, most CPUs don't need fans unless you're going with very recent models.

      Fanless PSUs are less common, but always fairly easily available.

      I've been putting together quiet PCs for a decade now, and the HD is the only component that hasn't been easily silenced with cheap, common, off-the-shelf components until the recent availability of SSDs. Almost always, you can put together something that was nearly top-peak performance 2 years ago and have the hard drive as the only noisy component.

      --
      rage, rage against the dying of the light
    42. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by dimension6 · · Score: 1

      I'm typing this now on a (business-rugged) Toughbook Y7. Panasonic is generally very hesistant to put cutting-edge technology such as SSD in their notebooks (their laptops are in precisely the market SSD would be most suitable for). As far as I know, none of Panasonic's notebook models even have SSD as an option at the moment (I don't believe even their new UMPC model will have it). Although Panasonic's chipset specs change incrementally, the basic design of the notebooks rarely changes. I would argue this is a good thing when it comes down to serious reliability in the field.

    43. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by phoenix321 · · Score: 1

      Many people will value their data more than the monetary value of damaged equipment. That's one of the main reason that data rescue companies continue to thrive.

      Especially for people that have important data for work on their laptops can have a greater loss from a single damaged cluster than from the entire hardware.

    44. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by GDI+Lord · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh well, at least the puppy got out in time...

      What a relief!

      --
      You know its love when you memorize her IP address to skip DNS overhead.
    45. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      I also don't fling it across the house - but I don't do that to my socket wrenches either.

      You don't know what you are missing - a well flung socket wrench can inflict major damage to any household environment!

      1 Fling socket wrench

      2 ...

      3 Profiteroles

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    46. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by fbjon · · Score: 1

      Yes, but be careful that the bits don't slide too far on the platter. Incidentally, this is why some sites seem to disappear completely when they grow old. As the Great Internet Drive spins, older sites tend to creep toward the edges, until they eventually just fall off the edge of the world.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    47. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by AioKits · · Score: 3, Informative

      Out of curiosity, have you ever seen actual 'ruggedized' military equipment?

      Take a peek at these: http://www.amrel.com/federal_military_computer/rocky_patriot_rugged_notebook.html

      This isn't even going into the fire systems equipment that is ruggedized.

      --
      "Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
    48. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by mgblst · · Score: 1

      Why didn't you stand up and put it on the couch? A much safer option, as long as you aren't stupid enough to just sit on it.

    49. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      letting it fall for 4-5 decimeters before it hit the floor

      I've never seen anyone use that word before, why not just say half a metre or 50cm? (Or, ideally, a foot and a half).

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    50. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. That's a real testament to the solid mouse and networking capabilities of said laptop.

      Sir, I salute your tenacity for putting up with a defective keyboard.

      p.s. Do you have a news letter?

    51. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by adisakp · · Score: 1

      FWIW, your screen is just as likely (if not more likely) to break / crack than the HD fail if you're dropping the laptop repeatedly unless you've paid a couple thousand extra for a ruggedized laptop.

    52. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by nko321 · · Score: 1

      Very true! I'd mod you up if I could mod in this thread.

      On that topic, my son has nearly turned my MacBook into a tablet. Had he fallen on it with just a little more twisting action, I'd have a Mac Tablet. Screen wouldn't work, but still... As it is, the hinges are loose so the screen falls if you bump it. Not as bad as it could've been...

      But ah, flash. The screen can go as long as my data is safe.

    53. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by jdgeorge · · Score: 1

      Curiously, this real world ruggedized example using HDD storage doesn't really seem relevant to the question of whether SSDs are suitable from a reliability perspective.... This example is existing equipment that meets requirements, and probably very sensitive to price (as there are undoubtedly other vendors who compete for similar business).

      Adding $200 or more to the cost of the device would likely price it out of most government bids if the reliability characteristics meet requirements.

    54. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Malkin · · Score: 1

      I've had a laptop fall a meter onto a hardwood floor in a foreign country, simply due to a mishap involving a large lacy doily on the top of the dresser in the room I was staying in. Humorously, the fall fixed more things than it broke. Years later, however, I had a laptop as my primary (and only) machine while living abroad, and it went everywhere with me. That was the one that had the hard drive failure, and THAT, above all else, is what makes me long for a hard drive without the moving parts.

    55. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by mischi_amnesiac · · Score: 1

      Because maybe the grandparent lives in (continental) europe? We are not very good with your non-SI units.

      --
      "Die endgueltige Teilung Deutschlands - das ist unser Auftrag." - Chlodwig Poth
    56. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

      Again, backup. Far, far cheaper than an SSD and much, much more reliable. In fact, if your data is at all valuable you still need backup for your SSD. It only provides extra protection against drops (and maybe magnets, I am not sure how they affect SSDs if at all). It does nothing for other forms of physical damage or simple rm -rf destruction or corruption of data.

      If the data is so valuable that it is worth thousands to slightly lessen the chances of loss of whatever amount of data is collected between backups, then it probably shouldn't be stored on a laptop, certainly a laptop being treated roughly.

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
    57. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

      Drop, or toss?

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
    58. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by phoenix321 · · Score: 1

      It's not worth thousands, but hundreds and that's enough for me. And while it's probably not the best solution to carry valuable data on a laptop, I've yet to see someone come up with a different solution.

      A solution that allows an instant start when arriving at the client site, that has little to none drawbacks compared to a stationary machine and with everything under my control including admin rights and network access.

      Carrying around an industrial workstation is not feasible, I don't like using a client's machine and connect over VPN because of security and control reasons. And USB sticks can hold my data, but not the entire work environment including a configured OS and several ready-to-launch applications.

      You could argue to store everything on a large USB stick, but these things tend to get lost and of course need a host computer to work. If I carry the host computer around, I'm prone to mechanical HDD failures - and if I use a client's machine as a host, I'm bound to have security concerns and at least some minor hassles getting access to the network, as some companies even deactivate the USB ports with no chance to enable them.

      All that is unpredictable and doesn't allow me to send a few emails while back at the hotel in the evening. I like to be independent and I like to work on a known computer with the same keyboard layout every time. When you've had to switch to/from a Toshiba keyboard layout once in a while, you know what I mean.

    59. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by torkus · · Score: 1

      Depends on how it's hit. A drive mid-access is much more likely to take damage from a minor to moderate fall than a LCD.

      But besides that, the value of the data of many laptops is far greater than the cost of a screen replacement and SSD's are at least on price-parity with the cost of basic data recovery fees for platter-based hard drives.

      Oh, and you have the benefit of significantly faster data access in many/most cases.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    60. Re:It's not the power efficiency... by torkus · · Score: 1

      Ideally we'd stop using silly measurements like feet and miles.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
  2. How about a link? by digitac · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think someone forgot a critical link... try this for the Tech Report article:

    http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079

    1. Re:How about a link? by The+Ancients · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think someone forgot a critical link...

      I think someone forgot they're on /.

      --
      The Mothership
    2. Re:How about a link? by MBCook · · Score: 5, Informative

      How about the link to the just published (today) update on Tom's that not only has useful methodologies, but shows a new OCZ drive that wipes the floor with the rest of the drives in both power draw and performance?

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    3. Re:How about a link? by Paranatural · · Score: 1

      And I thought I couldn't find the link because I was a damn retard or something.

  3. Obviously the goggles do work by OzPeter · · Score: 1

    I can't see where the actual article is

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:Obviously the goggles do work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      That's because the /. editor left it out when they moved this post from the Firehose to the front page. Quality, eh? Go figure. But here it is.

    2. Re:Obviously the goggles do work by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nobody reads them anyway, so apparently the editors have decided not to bother including links anymore.

    3. Re:Obviously the goggles do work by Andrzej+Sawicki · · Score: 1

      So? It's not like anyone will read it.

  4. What about recovery? by allaunjsilverfox2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've read that the algorithms used in SSD's are usually proprietary. The problem with SSD's is that they DIDN'T fix the wear leveling problem. It exists, just a lot slower now due to the algorithms referenced above. If my drive dies, I'll have to find a service that can recover my files, but they will have to be certified in samsung, seagate, white label, etc. I really feel uncomfortable with that idea.

    --
    Restore the madness of youth's lechery
    1. Re:What about recovery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've read that the algorithms used in SSD's are usually proprietary. The problem with SSD's is that they DIDN'T fix the wear leveling problem. It exists, just a lot slower now due to the algorithms referenced above. If my drive dies, I'll have to find a service that can recover my files, but they will have to be certified in samsung, seagate, white label, etc. I really feel uncomfortable with that idea.

      You could just backup your files...

    2. Re:What about recovery? by Ortega-Starfire · · Score: 2, Funny

      Backup your files? Now that's just silly.

      --
      ---- Liquid was a patriot ----
    3. Re:What about recovery? by MagdJTK · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I mean no disrespect, but I think this attitude is a bit damaging. A lot of people seem to think that a recovery service is a replacement for a backup regime rather than a last resort if an absolute disaster has occured.

    4. Re:What about recovery? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Informative

      TFA says for a 60G disk, with 50G written daily, the drive will last for 33 years in respect to wear.

      --
      It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
      Be yourself no matter what they say
    5. Re:What about recovery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who writes just 50G daily?

      I write several terabytes daily, with frequent flushes. Lots of my programs use postgresql as their data store or berkdb with write ahead logs and frequent fsync() calls.

      Many of my programs also do their I/O in chunks smaller than 128kb or whatever the native block size is on SSDs.

      Try this experiment: Get a normal thumb drive (a high quality brand so you know it has good wear levelling), and put run mkswap and swapon on it, and just run your system for a few hours. Doing this on my machine kills any 4gb thumb drive within a few days. The longest one has lasted is around a month. I have tried all brands.

      Lots of I/O means flash dies a horrible death. Simple as that. Sadly SSDs are simply not viable replacements for harddisks yet even though the capacity is now less of a problem.

    6. Re:What about recovery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? I thought modern, high density flash memory had only a ~3000 cycle life. The old, single bit/gate memory was good for 100,000 write cycles, but I think those parts topped out at a few megabytes.

    7. Re:What about recovery? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The larger the drive, the more space to spread the wear.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    8. Re:What about recovery? by the_humeister · · Score: 1

      Does this also apply to Compactflash cards that are used as harddrives? I was thinking of doing that instead of buying these more expensive SSD devices.

    9. Re:What about recovery? by owlstead · · Score: 1

      Nah, about ten thousand, and - as far as I know - that's the guaranteed number of write cycles. And the Samsung drive reviewed uses 64 GB of single bit memory, so it's not old. What it is is expensive. Both of these things are in the freakin' article by the way (and they seem to be correct if I must believe my internet sources).

    10. Re:What about recovery? by IkeTo · · Score: 1

      > Try this experiment: Get a normal thumb drive (a high quality brand so you know it has good wear levelling), and put run mkswap and swapon on it, and just run your system for a few hours.

      For me it would do nothing. My swap is nearly never used except for hibernation.

    11. Re:What about recovery? by owlstead · · Score: 1

      Hmm, lets see.

      (60 / 50 * 10000) / 365 = 32.something years. 33 years if you work for marketing.

      Well, I don't know, but that's *really* efficient write leveling.

      What do these drives do if you always write to the oldest data still in use, e.g. when doing round robin logging over the full size of the drive? Or are there other use cases that would mean a shorter life-span?

      It's a manufacturers claim. I suspect the actual lifetime for casual notebook users will be pretty high. But if you continuously watch movies and remove the oldest ones, you might not be so lucky. Even then I would probably rather trust these things above a hard drive in a laptop.

      Don't forget that 2/3 year warranty for a (mainly) portable product is still pretty high. It's new technology as well, so they'll try and be on the conservative side.

    12. Re:What about recovery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I have yet to find a laptop with more than 4GB of ram available for a reasonable price. I can easily exhaust my memory and often do. Also, I run many programs which mmap() many large files, and for some reason the VFS often decides to swap out inactive dirty pages rather than drop (clean) data from the page cache.

      These behaviours alone can explain my active swap files, but in fact I sometimes also run a lot of my own code which happens to allocate 100s of GBs of address space and write a few values here and there (essentially using the MMU to manipulate really really fast a sparse vectors).

    13. Re:What about recovery? by allaunjsilverfox2 · · Score: 1

      Backup your files? Now that's just silly.

      Back it up to what? Another ssd if they become standard? Tape drive? Pshh. Not a chance. Look long term. The only other option would be to pay someone to store my crap and frankly, I value my security/privacy far to much for that.

      --
      Restore the madness of youth's lechery
    14. Re:What about recovery? by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      Who writes just 50G daily?

      Probably 99.999% of laptop users. Remember, these are notebook drives.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    15. Re:What about recovery? by supertux · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is my understanding (I read it on the internet somewhere) that every flash device has some form of wear leveling built in, except for the actual raw flash chips. So if you solder flash chips onto some device, you'll need to format those flash chips with jffs2 or similar because jffs2 will perform its own wear leveling.

      As for compact flash as a hard drive, I have been using an 8GB Transcend 266x CF connected to an addonics CF->Sata adapter for use as the OS drive in my gentoo based mythtv system. Man, it really kicks butt.

      I've only been running it for about 10 or 11 months now, but so far I've had no problems. The mysql database mythtv uses gets updated all the time. Since it is a gentoo system and I like to keep it up to date, the CF sees a lot of compiling action.

      Speaking of which, having portage run off the flash has sped up my compiles way more than distc or ccache ever did for me. Or put another way, for compiling from, the flash drive is a godsend.

      Performance is good as I get a consistent 40MB a second for sequential reads, and a consistent 34MB a second for sequential writes.

    16. Re:What about recovery? by Ortega-Starfire · · Score: 1

      Then use Mozy and add an encryption key. Face it, the NSA has better things to look at then whatever is squirreled away on your hard drive. They'll use the supercomputing crackers on those things first, and your porn collection later.

      For more fun, encrypt it beforehand as well, use steganography, AND

      --
      ---- Liquid was a patriot ----
    17. Re:What about recovery? by owlstead · · Score: 1

      Not only that, I think there are multiple ways to do wear leveling and I don't see even the highest quality thumb drives use the best ones. There is no need for that - they are not produced for this kind of scenario the GP is describing.

      I'm trying a 8 GB USB drive with high data rate and low seek time as a drive for my fanless PC. Since I have 1 GB RAM and not much memory intensive applications, I do expect even that drive to last forever.

    18. Re:What about recovery? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      I'd also wager two 128 GiB SSDs in a Series1 TiVo will easily last at least until February 2009, if they were to make some with PATA interfaces

      Seriously though, I think it would last even longer than that. A Series2 with dual tuners and a typical load of TiVoToGo pulling and video podcast downloads should have no problems either.

      I haven't run any numbers on a Series3 with two CableCards constantly recording 1080i HD programming, but I'd want one 1 TiB SATA SSD and one 1 TiB eSATA SSD on it for the test.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    19. Re:What about recovery? by coolsnowmen · · Score: 1

      ...Also, I run many programs which mmap() many large files, and for some reason the VFS often decides to swap out inactive dirty pages rather than drop (clean) data from the page cache.

      Have you tried changing the swapiness?
      (/proc/sys/vm/swappiness)
      or the dirty_ratio?

    20. Re:What about recovery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried your suggestions, and lowering swappiness did reduce the disk activity somewhat.

      Lowering dirty_ratio and dirty_background_ratio however significantly reduced performance for most of my workloads (all except gaming and other stuff that benefits from slightly lower i/o latency).

      I haven't tried playing with vfs_cache_pressure yet, I will let you know when I try it out later.

      Thanks for your suggestions. I will experiment with the sysctls and the tunables in /sys and see how it goes.

    21. Re:What about recovery? by Isao · · Score: 1

      If your drive dies, you go to your backup, not a recovery service. If you have to go to a service, either your data backup plan failed, or you have a specific forensic need.

    22. Re:What about recovery? by allaunjsilverfox2 · · Score: 1

      The point being that at some point, there has to be a question about open formats, thats all I'm say.

      --
      Restore the madness of youth's lechery
    23. Re:What about recovery? by torkus · · Score: 1

      Wear leveling will dynamically move around clusters as needed.

      Look at it a different way: What emerging technology will stay standard enough for 5 years (much less 30) that it will still be in vaugely common use? C'mon. These brand new SSD's are great but in a few years they'll be the early adopter junk that no one wants. Will you really care about a 32GB SSD when your average SSD is 500GB?

      I sure don't pay any mind to the pile of 40GB hard drives i have laying around my house.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    24. Re:What about recovery? by torkus · · Score: 1

      Virtually all notebook users write 50GB to their drive a day? I somehow greatly doubt that.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    25. Re:What about recovery? by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      Yeah me too. I mistyped. My post was supposed to be the opposite of that. I guess I didn't preview it.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
  5. LINK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079

  6. How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    be $160 and a 32gb SSD cost 3x that....am I missing something? transfer speed?

    1. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're missing SLC vs. MLC and high-performance controllers.

    2. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by owlstead · · Score: 2, Informative

      And high quality tested parts. At least that was what I read in an article by someone that checked if the SSD drives were ready for deployment in his server farm. These guys like to do rigorous testing and good information, at least the professional ones.

      Don't forget that these controllers are brand spanking new, and they are not in their 1000th revision like the controllers used on the hard drives. I'm really looking forward to the Intel designed drives. I presume that they will use their own controllers - the first showings seem to be very positive (no numbers posted yet).

    3. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by billcopc · · Score: 4, Informative

      The thumb drive will die young if you use it as a hard drive, they're typically only designed for 10-15k write cycles (per cell). They also use MLC cells, which store two bits each - that doubles the capacity, but quadruples the error rate. Errors are usually corrected via parity/ECC, but obviously if you have more errors, you're more likely to exceed the ECC threshold.

      There's also the issue with performance. A thumb drive might get 10-15mb/sec on a good day, 20 if you pay way too much money for a "dual channel" unit. Hard drives are expected to deliver 40mb/sec minimum these days, else your apps will take forever to load.

      If you really want to be a wacko, you could try RAID-0 across a bunch of thumb drives. You'll get the performance back, but good god you're playing with fire.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    4. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Taibhsear · · Score: 1

      am I missing something?

      About $60
      Can't vouch for the speed on that one though. As far as the difference between that and SSD there is probably a difference in speed, number of writes per life of drive, and the type of controller.

    5. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you really want to be a wacko, you could try RAID-0 across a bunch of thumb drives. You'll get the performance back, but good god you're playing with fire.

      Replace RAID-0 with something like ZFS (with enough redundancy) and you've got just about the most reliable live storage in existence. Now if there was an adapter that would let me insert 32-128 microsdhc's in a nice grid and access them simultaneously..

    6. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what RAID10 was invented for.

    7. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Doppler00 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And how many users will write over 320 terrabytes to their hard drive during it's lifetime? That's 190 days of continuous writing at 20MByte/sec. I wish people would stop citing write cycle limits, I have yet to hear from anyone who's actually failed a drive this way.

      It's called... wear leveling algorithms.

      The future is actually probably going to be a hybrid of SLC and MLC. I read a paper recently on this. They got about the same performance as SLC only, using only a small amount of SLC.

    8. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by knarf · · Score: 1

      And how many users will write over 320 terrabytes

      No one at all. None. Zilch. 320 bytes of earth will do in any drive for good.

      320 terabytes on the other hand...

      --
      --frank[at]unternet.org
    9. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by uassholes · · Score: 1
      Once apon a time we had "hard disc drives". Easy to understand: it was a drive that spun a hard disc platter or two.

      Then someone wanted to shorten the term, but instead of "disc drive", they chose "hard drive", and unfortunately it stuck.

      Now we have drives that spin hards, thumbs, and solid states.

      Doesn't anybody think about whether the terminology they're babbling makes any sense?

    10. Re:How can a 32gb Thumb Drive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The higher density Intel drives (which aren't that high compared to HDs), do use their own controller.

  7. Practical observations by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Boils down to a couple of things: Reliability = Good, Speed = Good, Space = Fair , Cost = Why can't I pirate this! Damn, but that would be "stealing". When the cost goes down and the size comes up a bit, Ill be ready to buy one.

    --
    "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
    1. Re:Practical observations by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Informative

      Reliability = Good, Speed = Good, Space = Awful , Cost = Not this decade, Charlie Brown.

      And for all those saying "no moving parts - what if I drop my laptop?" - If you drop your lappy hard enough to break a modern drive, you'll probably be shopping for a replacement. Unlike those "tests", laptops don't land flat and square.

      (queue all the "but I dropped my laptop and the only thing that broke was the hard drive" posts)

    2. Re:Practical observations by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, I have a funny story. For Marines in Iraq movies get passed around on HD's alot. Me and some buddies had a 320g external hd at the time. Well, one day theyre watching Lost and we get attacked, I jump down and kick the cord. We all watched in Tivo slomo while the poor thing went all the 3 feet from desk to floor. It even had the entire album of some of my fancy themselves rappers friends. They blamed me, I blamed them for stringing a 10 foot usb to the laptop (which was hooked to a projector, its funny what you can get in the middle of nowhere when you know the supply officer)and the terrorist blamed the hard-drive. We lost over 200 movies, and SSD just might have stopped the whole thing, and now im ranting, but theres one of my war stories, buy me beer/scotch if you want more/better ones.

      --
      "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
    3. Re:Practical observations by MikeUW · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I dropped my laptop once - actually, it kind of cartwheeled up into the air as I pulled it out of my backpack, then crashed on the ground.

      No my hard drive didn't break - but it landed square on the end with the wireless card sticking out of it, and crushed the card. Fortunately the rest of it was fine.

      In fact, I've never had a notebook drive die in any way (though maybe by saying so I've jinxed myself). Lots of desktop drives have died on me though...and I never dropped any of those.

    4. Re:Practical observations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know this decade is almost over, right?

      Slow down, cowboy! It's been 8 years since you last successfully posted a comment

    5. Re:Practical observations by Pebby · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, while your laptop is off, your HDD is as likely to break as anything, but while it is ON and accessing data, that sucker is spinning. A big jostle can seriously damage it. Panasonic Toughbooks even had shock-mounted HDDs in them to stop this. Solid state drives completely eliminate the worry about spinning - this is why we can manhandle our cellphones without worry while they're ON. It's not like with a spinning CD in a Discman - the optical lens is nowhere near as close to the CD as the parts in a HDD are crammed together.

    6. Re:Practical observations by vivin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Us Army guys had one of those in Iraq too - we called it the "Whore"-Drive. I destroyed my laptop drive there, but it was mainly intentional. I was trying to connect it to the crappy wireless we had, and I got so frustrated that I punch my laptop. Repeatedly. The HD didn't like that.

      --
      Vivin Suresh Paliath
      http://vivin.net

      I like
    7. Re:Practical observations by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

      The storage space is not "fair" at all, and in many ways the reliability isn't either.

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
    8. Re:Practical observations by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Yep. That's why I said "Not this decade". Maybe sometime in the next ...

    9. Re:Practical observations by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe you need a modern laptop hard drive

      * SecurePark - WD's SecurePark technology parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved shock tolerance.

      * ShockGuard - WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks during shipping and handling and in daily operation.

      * Free-fall Sensor - As an added layer of protection, if the drive (or the system it's in) is dropped while in use, WD's free-fall sensor detects that the drive is falling and, in less than 200 milliseconds, parks the head off the disks to help prevent damage and data loss.

      * WhisperDrive - WD's exclusive WhisperDrive technology combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms that result in one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market.

      I've got 2 x 320-gb WD drives in my laptop - VERY quiet, very good performance - can you even BUY 320gig SSDs?

    10. Re:Practical observations by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I got so frustrated that I punch my laptop

      Never punch inanimate objects. You cannot win. Something will probably break, and both options are bad. I found this out when I got cross and punched a monitor. It was a while ago, so it was a CRT.

      I never punched a computer again.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    11. Re:Practical observations by SylvesterTheCat · · Score: 1

      > buy me beer/scotch if you want more/better ones.

      I would buy you beer/scotch regardless... assuming you are will tolerate the company of an Army artilleryman....

      I even promise to bore you with only 1 of my Afghanistan stories for 2 of your Iraq ones...

      You didn't say how long you have been back, however... Welcome home.

    12. Re:Practical observations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about you die from a horribly painful death you fucking military drone? And then we feed your corpse to pigs. Iraqi Pigs. Like we want to hear your 'war stories' about ohh ah hard drive falling, sir! we have a hard drive falling!! fire in the hole!! tango romeo! You dipshit.

    13. Re:Practical observations by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      now im ranting, but theres one of my war stories, buy me beer/scotch if you want more/better ones.

      No offence, you being an ex-Marine and probably able to rip off my head over the internet and everything, but that is about the most uninvolving war story I've ever heard, and I had an uncle who did two years National Service in the catering corps.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    14. Re:Practical observations by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      And then we feed your corpse to pigs. Iraqi Pigs.

      They have pigs in Iraq? Glad to see they've relaxed a bit.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  8. benchmarks by postmortem · · Score: 0

    DVD playback: 1.8 Watts vs. 2.2 Watts, it doesn't get more useless than that.

    What to do with extra .4W?

  9. All those design points are incongruous by gelfling · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would love an SSD for r/w performance that blows a mechanical drive out of the water.

    I would love an SSD that doesn't use much power.
    I would love an SSD that's shockproof.
    I would love an SSD that runs cool.
    I would love an SSD that's silent.
    I would love an SSD that roughly the same price performance of a mechanical drive.

    The problem is, it can't be all of those things. It can't even be most of those things. So pick the ones you need.

    1. Re:All those design points are incongruous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it can't be all of those things

      Why not?

    2. Re:All those design points are incongruous by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 1

      I would love an SSD for r/w performance that blows a mechanical drive out of the water.

      It looks like the OCZ drive does this.

      I would love an SSD that doesn't use much power.

      It looks like the OCZ drive does this, too.

      I would love an SSD that's shockproof.

      Isn't this a natural result of the "solid state" part of "solid state disk"?

      I would love an SSD that runs cool.

      Direct result of "doesn't use much power".

      I would love an SSD that's silent.

      Isn't this a natural result of the "solid state" thing, again?

      I would love an SSD that roughly the same price performance of a mechanical drive.

      Newegg lists an out-of-stock OCZ drive (maybe the same one?) for $450 for 32GB. The cheapest laptop drive they have is $50 (60 GB). So the OCZ drive costs around 9x as much as a cheap HDD for performance 2-4 times better than the HDDs in the article, which gives 2-5x worse price/performance. (It also has 6-12x better performance/watt or 2-3x better performance/watt/dollar, but you didn't ask about that).

      The problem is, it can't be all of those things. It can't even be most of those things. So pick the ones you need.

      It looks to me like an on-the-market SSD already is all except the last one, and it's fairly close there.

    3. Re:All those design points are incongruous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apart from some wheezing from Darth Vader's chokings I believe the Executor runs pretty silent!

    4. Re:All those design points are incongruous by tahpot · · Score: 1

      Maybe I missed the sarcasm of this post, but TFA mentions that SSD *is* all of those things, just not at the same price as traditional HDD's.

    5. Re:All those design points are incongruous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently, the best one Tom's tested had the performance and low power consumption, and I'd be surprised if any modern SSD wasn't cool, silent and shockproof.

      Which does of course leave the price/performance ratio, but that should hopefully get better with time.

  10. SLC vs. MLC flash by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    I thought modern, high density flash memory had only a ~3000 cycle life. The old, single bit/gate memory was good for 100,000 write cycles, but I think those parts topped out at a few megabytes.

    Single-level-cell NAND flash is still produced, for use in the faster, (slightly) more expensive drives with longer warranties. And multi-level-cell NAND flash is usually guaranteed for 10,000 writes, not 3,000. And the number quoted on the data sheet is the minimum longevity for each sector; more writes than that are possible. The CF controller doesn't retire a sector until it starts returning too many just-barely-correctable errors.

  11. Good Vibrations by Browzer · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I love the colorful clothes she wears
    And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair
    I hear the sound of a gentle word
    On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air

    Im pickin up good vibrations
    Shes giving me excitations
    Im pickin up good vibrations
    (oom bop bop good vibrations)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop excitations)
    Good good good good vibrations
    (oom bop bop)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop excitations)
    Good good good good vibrations
    (oom bop bop)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop excitations)

    Close my eyes
    Shes somehow closer now
    Softly smile, I know she must be kind
    When I look in her eyes
    She goes with me to a blossom world

    Im pickin up good vibrations
    Shes giving me excitations
    Im pickin up good vibrations
    (oom bop bop good vibrations)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop excitations)
    Good good good good vibrations
    (oom bop bop)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop excitations)
    Good good good good vibrations
    (oom bop bop)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop excitations)

    (ahhhhhhh)
    (ah my my what elation)
    I dont know where but she sends me there
    (ah my my what a sensation)
    (ah my my what elations)
    (ah my my what)

    Gotta keep those lovin good vibrations
    A happenin with her
    Gotta keep those lovin good vibrations
    A happenin with her
    Gotta keep those lovin good vibrations
    A happenin

    Ahhhhhhhh
    Good good good good vibrations
    (oom bop bop)
    (Im pickin up good vibrations)
    Shes giving me excitations
    (oom bop bop)
    (excitations)
    Good good good good vibrations
    (oom bop bop)
    Shes na na...

    Na na na na na
    Na na na
    Na na na na na
    Na na na
    Do do do do do
    Do do do
    Do do do do do
    Do do do

  12. Drive spins up, drive spins down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It drives me crazy. I've tried laptop-mode-tools and various hdparm settings; but here I am doing nothing more than browse the web or work on the VPN in screen or RDP sessions; and I hear the drive spin up, and a few minutes later, spin down. And again... and again. The palm-rest gets nice 'n toasty, and hddtemp says 50 degrees C. Aaaaaarrghhh. Even running Firefox entirely from memory (cache and the entire profile directory); still the same thing. It wastes energy and slowly toasts itself to death. That's why SSDs.

    Of course, I'm using a CF->IDE adapter, 'cause I dont' need server-grade performance; just something like a 5400 rpm notebook drive; and something that doesn't generate heat.

  13. Dropped 2.5" HDD onto cement repeatedly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FWIW, my Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 has been dropped from carrying height onto asphalt or cement at least three or four times. It has a 20 GB 2.5" HDD which I've never replaced in... I dunno... six? eight?... years. Amazingly, the LCD is also perfectly fine. I still use it to listen to music every day during my commute and at work. Fuck the ipod.

    1. Re:Dropped 2.5" HDD onto cement repeatedly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FWIW, my Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 has been dropped from carrying height onto asphalt or cement at least three or four times. It has a 20 GB 2.5" HDD which I've never replaced in... I dunno... six? eight?... years. Amazingly, the LCD is also perfectly fine. I still use it to listen to music every day during my commute and at work. Fuck the ipod.

      (It's either a Hitachi or a Toshiba drive... can't recall exactly, right now. For the iPod defenders, I say it half tongue-in-cheek... I know the Nomad's comparatively huge, but it's still working, so I've just never had a reason to buy an iPod. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.)

  14. The best thing since the MOUSE by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    SSDs are the best thing to happen to PCs since the invention of the mouse.

    I have had a MemoRight GT for 3 months now, and my laptop feels amazing. I am disappointed Tom didn't include one in his review.

    Because the seek speed is 40x + than an HDD, data access is blazing fast on even the cheaper SSDs. The hangup is in the slow read/write speeds and problems with random access. MemoRight GT is the first SSD I saw that was faster than HDDs in all of these areas, and hence it not only outperforms I/O wise, you get the full benefit of fast access... And this will make your PC feel 4x faster.

    Everything becomes faster. Web pages load faster. Email arrives faster. Windows moves faster. No more HDD cache writing lag or "what is my HDD doing" moments.

    I don't care that much for battery life, though I am sure some do. As Tom concludes, that is pretty much a spec you just need to look out for, so if you want it, look for a drive that has it.

    What I do love though is the silence. Anyone who has gone through an HDD failure is sensitive to HDD sounds probably more than they know, or would like.

    SSDs make no sound, and there are no strange vibrations.

    I spent close to 2K on the drive, but it was worth every penny. If I buy a new SSD when the 3rd generation drives arrive, my Memoright will still always have a place in one of my notebooks.

    1. Re:The best thing since the MOUSE by dargaud · · Score: 1

      Because the seek speed is 40x + than an HDD, data access is blazing fast on even the cheaper SSDs. The hangup is in the slow read/write speeds and problems with random access.

      Does the operating system knows about this ? I mean, can the OS adjust its internal parameters to optimize the global speed. I'd guess with a slow write you'd want to avoid swapping or saving temp files as much as possible. If the read is fast, you don't need to pre-fetch files/programs in memory. Is there some kind of load balancing between memory speed/size, HDD speed/size, SSD, etc...?

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    2. Re:The best thing since the MOUSE by hey! · · Score: 1

      SSDs are the best thing to happen to PCs since the invention of the mouse.

      Since the mouse was invented in 1970, this means that the mouse was the best thing to happen to PCs ever. Since the compact, self contained disk units became available with ST506 in 1980, several years after the first personal computers, I'd have to vote for hard disks as the best thing ever.

      And since you had to assemble the very first PC yourself (the Altair 8800 -- gad how I wanted one of these, even though I had access to much, much better minicomputers), many people would vote for preassembly as the best thing to happen to PCs ever.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:The best thing since the MOUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Web pages load faster. Email arrives faster.

      Did your ssd speed up your internet connection? Or you're trying to convince yourself that the 2K you spent were justified?

    4. Re:The best thing since the MOUSE by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 1

      The OS can't tell the difference, but memory is still fastest, so I wouldn't say much needs to change as far as caching and swapping behavior. What is gone though are the drive caches... the caches on board the hard drives that pre-load data in an attempt to be faster. I am sure it improves performance overall, but sometimes the drives need to deal with whatever is queued in their caches before dealing with what you've told them to do, and hence a delay. Of course, the OS doesn't know about these either, so you could say the OS is not very aware of much to begin with (unless maybe you perform the surgeries yourself).

  15. SSD and my EEE. by CFBMoo1 · · Score: 1

    Quite, boots fast with Linux on there. I love it and part of me does wish I had one on my desktop. It just seems to work so much nicer then a regular hard drive from the use I got out of it.

    --
    ~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
    1. Re:SSD and my EEE. by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unfortunately, they're not very _big_. 32 Gig for a hard drive is fairly pitiful these days: the hard drives stacked against SSD in Tom's Hardware's article were typically 10 times the disk size. So our soldier boy in the story above, where they had 200 movies they lost in an attack on their campsite, would have had to have 10 times as many drives. The power savings and stability are great for small scenarios and high availability resources, such as laptop drives or small, encrypted filesystems. But for overall storage, having to pay the power, cooling, and space cost of _10_ drives rather than a single hard drive makes no sense.

      But my goodness, that OCZ brand drive blew the others out of the water in the tests, didn't it? I'm very glad they added it to their tests so that I know about it for reference on future projects. _WOW_, that's a good drive!

    2. Re:SSD and my EEE. by Phurge · · Score: 1

      Samsung are now mass producing 128gb SSDs
      http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/09/samsungs-low-power-128gb-ssds-go-mass-production-on-the-cheap/

      --
      I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
  16. Thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I always wondered what a post would look like written by someone after a full brainectamy. And now I know: exactly like a digg user posting on slashdot.

  17. Some quick observations re power by Fallen+Andy · · Score: 1
    I have an old notebook with one USB port, and an unpowered USB Hub with an external 300GB HD (+ power brick) + optical mouse.

    When I add a 512MB Kingston mem stick, I can copy from the big HD fine.

    When I put my newer 1GB MiniTraveller (Kingston) and try to write the HD goes offline - too much power draw from the Hub.

    Had the same problem with an Exigo 4GB.

    Also have a 6GB WD Pocketdrive (real hard disk, tiny). Never have any problem doing copies from the big disk to that.

    So, my guess is that SSD's are fine, but may pull more juice for write ops.

    Andy

  18. Reason given for Macbook Air SSD by foniksonik · · Score: 1

    I seem to recall the big selling point on the Macbook Air was instant on.... as in it didn't need to spin up to access the drive. Is this still a big feature for SSDs?

    I still like the idea of not waiting for my drive to spin up when starting, waking from sleep, etc. Especially as I tend to max out my drives no matter how big they are.... so swapping happens and everything is just a little slower in general.

    --
    A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
  19. Never admit fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    What's wrong with people these days that they work so hard to avoid admitting they were wrong.

    As already pointed out, the power disadvantages originate from old Flash SSD designs using inefficient SATA bridges, and even though the Flash SSD Hoax article was saddled by a mistake in the battery runtime test procedure, for which we apologize, the conclusions were not far off.

    No, they were way off and the tests in this article are carefully designed to avoid showing the benefits of SSD. All they had to do was run the same number of benchmarks over the same time period to compare the two, but no they didn't.