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An SSD for Your Current Computer May Save the Cost of a New One (Video)
Obviously, the first performance enhancement you do on any computer you own is max out the RAM. RAM has gotten cheap, and adding more of it to almost any computer will make it faster without requiring any other modification (or any great skill). The next thing you need to do, says Larry O'Connor, the founder and CEO of Other World Computing (OWC), is move from a "platter" hard drive to a Solid State Drive (SSD). Larry's horse in this race is that his company sells SSDs, mostly for Macs. But he's a real evangelist about SSDs and computer mods in general, even if you buy them from NewEgg, Amazon or another vendor.
A big (vendor-neutral) thing Larry points out is that just because you have a Terabyte drive in your computer now doesn't mean you need a Terabyte SSD, which can easily cost $500. Rather, he says, all you need is a large enough SSD to contain your OS and software and whatever data you're working with at the moment, so you might be able to get by with a 120 GB SSD that costs well under $100. Clone your current main drive, stick in the new SSD, and if your need more storage, get another hard drive (or use your old one). Simple. Efficient. And a lot cheaper than buying a new computer, whether we're talking about home, business or even enterprise use. (Alternate video link.)
A big (vendor-neutral) thing Larry points out is that just because you have a Terabyte drive in your computer now doesn't mean you need a Terabyte SSD, which can easily cost $500. Rather, he says, all you need is a large enough SSD to contain your OS and software and whatever data you're working with at the moment, so you might be able to get by with a 120 GB SSD that costs well under $100. Clone your current main drive, stick in the new SSD, and if your need more storage, get another hard drive (or use your old one). Simple. Efficient. And a lot cheaper than buying a new computer, whether we're talking about home, business or even enterprise use. (Alternate video link.)
YEAH WE KNOW
Soo this is Slashdot, not "Mom Computer Consumer Weekly".
Almost every failing of a computer can be related to where the OS sits. I have replaced/installed over 50 new/used computer platters with SSDs as the primary and a platter as the storage. Not only does boot time vanish, but just about everything under the sun is improved. I could ramble on but I think that's what the video does. Basically it's just smarter regardless of whether you use Win/Mac/Linux etc.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Hyper-Duo! It's not a comic book! It's a nifty technology that allows one or more SSDs to be coupled to a standard HDD and treated as a single drive! Hi! I'm Troy McClure....
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
Use it as a ramdisk for what, though?
If you want general OS and application usage, you'll have to copy over all the data from your main disk first, which is going to take some time, and if anything changes, you'd need to sync it back to your main disk, which will take more time, and you're at risk of losing data if you have an unexpected shutdown. An SSD is way better for that kind of task.
It's completely unsuitable for any kind of long-term storage, of course.
You could use it for temporary files for applications like Photoshop... which is a good use of it, but very situational.
Using it as a swap disk would just be silly when you could just deactivate the ramdisk and have all that RAM again.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I'm posting through a time portal from 2035. Windows 22 requires 128 terabytes but you're an idiot if you try with less than 512. All I use the computer for is posting cat holograms and running porn programs on my holodeck. It's ridiculous.
This is a non-issue. It takes a lot more than a new harddrive to make it re-activate. And even then, it will almost always let you re-activate using the original key. And on the rare chance that it doesn't calling the 800 number has always got me back in business.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
"Obviously, the first performance enhancement you do on any computer you own is max out the RAM"
What kind of clueless moron wrote that nonsense?
Well, you're wrong. 4GB is enough for almost every average user. Gamers need 8GB but no game I've ever heard of uses more than 5GB of total space while running. 16GB is basically video editing only. So no, don't max out the RAM just for the fun of it. Going from 4GB to 8GB won't do a thing for you if all you do is web browse. It would have absolutely zero impact on performance at all.
This post probably deserves an off-topic mod. I know. With that out of the way...
I'll admit, since my comment on the last video, I've been curious what the next would be like. Roblimo, I don't know if you saw or cared about my comment, but I notice that this story is far better. As of this writing, there is not a single comment complaining about advertising, even though there's still only a single company directly involved. The focus is more general, and that makes the whole thing much more appealing. Kudos to you. It makes me happy to think that I might be improving Slashdot in some small way.
Granted, the subject is a bit under the typical Slashdotter's level of expertise, but that's beside the point. This would have been really nice when I was explaining to a former boss how SSDs should properly be used. He thought I was crazy for suggesting that the documents he wanted to have instant access to should be on the slower drive.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
+4 insightful. Only on Slashdot. Let's analyze this...
You know every computer has a built in RAM disk. It's called cache. You should read how it works. Then you'll see why no one does this.