Solid State Drives for Computers

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SteveHGraham
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Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by SteveHGraham »

I had to take over some of my dad's responsibilities, which meant using his computer to do some financial stuff. I decided to set it up with a second hard drive for backup, and while I was fooling with it, I learned about solid state hard drives.

If you haven't heard about these things, it's sort of a giant flash drive. There is no disk. It has no moving parts. The neat thing about them is that they access data incredibly quickly. If you replace your boot drive with one of these things, it may boot Windows 10 in 20 seconds instead of a minute or two.

I decided to try one out, because I use a few applications that suck a lot of stuff out of my hard drive. I stuck it in my PC today, and I'm really impressed. The system boots up in a hurry instead of making me wait all day. Applications load much faster. I guess the hard drive must have been involved in opening websites, because my computer was getting really slow on the Internet, and now sites that used to take a long time open right up.

Wondering if any of the rest of you have tried these things. It was the easiest boot drive installation I've ever done. They include migration software, so all you do is install the drive, run the software, unplug the old hard drive, and turn the PC back on. And so far I haven't gotten the irritating message that says I have to call Mama (Bill Gates) and tell him what I did to my computer. Took me less than an hour, and most of that time was waiting for the software.

Now I'm wondering what to do with my old boot drive. I have it disconnected. If I leave it that way, I can use it to reboot the PC if the SSD craps out. But it seems silly to leave 500 GB sitting around idle.
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BadDog
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by BadDog »

I use SSDs almost exclusively, for everything except bulk backup which uses a 3TB mechanical drive (can't afford SSD in that capacity). But i run a lot of Virtual Machines, and mechanical drives make that painfully slow. Some time ago I switched my laptop to SSD. It is a "desktop replacement" with lots of RAM and not cheap to replace, but even with repaving it didn't have the performance I needed. Then I put in an SSD and still use it to this day without any real interest in upgrading.
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Jawn
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by Jawn »

I have them in both my main computers... couple years ago I built a new desktop PC, stuck an Intel 335 SSD in it... wow! So when I bought a secondhand laptop a few months later, I chose one with an SSD (I forget what make/model that drive is). Neither machine is "latest greatest", but they pretty well blaze with normal web/media apps.
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neanderman
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by neanderman »

We use them a lot at my employer, but I've had no personal experience with them.

Steve, if there is room in the enclosure, you could stick the disk drive in and use it as a backup to the SSD. It's never a bad idea to have two copies of important files on separate devices.
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by SteveHGraham »

neanderman wrote:Steve, if there is room in the enclosure, you could stick the disk drive in and use it as a backup to the SSD. It's never a bad idea to have two copies of important files on separate devices.
Right now, the poor computer has three drives in it. I left the storage drive alone. I can't believe the difference the SSD makes. Seems like fast processors have been hyped to death, when memory is the real drag.
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oldvan
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by oldvan »

SteveHGraham wrote:... Seems like fast processors have been hyped to death, when memory is the real drag.
Storage is not the same as memory.
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juiceclone
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by juiceclone »

Supposedly, ss memory chips have a "limited" number of uses before data corruption sets in. Counter intuitive to me, but that's what the experts? say.
You could get a usb enclosure for your old drive and do backup with it, but large data transfer by usb is pitifully slow. :>)
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by SteveHGraham »

oldvan wrote:
SteveHGraham wrote:... Seems like fast processors have been hyped to death, when memory is the real drag.
Storage is not the same as memory.
Hard drives are considered "non-volatile memory."
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by SteveHGraham »

juiceclone wrote:Supposedly, ss memory chips have a "limited" number of uses before data corruption sets in. Counter intuitive to me, but that's what the experts? say.
You could get a usb enclosure for your old drive and do backup with it, but large data transfer by usb is pitifully slow. :>)
Hard drives also have a limited number of uses. The only things that don't wear out are things we wish would.
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BadDog
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by BadDog »

With most relatively new computers external transfer is not painful at all. eSATA and USB3 make baking up my ~30-60GB VMs to external drives relatively painless. And I have a compatible external dock that allows hot mounting of any SATA drive, mechanical or SSD. Drives have gotten so relatively cheap, I use them for general backup most of the time, rotating them through and storing them in a fire safe for catastrophic situations. I've found that I basically never care about anything over a year old anyway, so it's not been a problem. And by a year old I mean archived stuff "no longer needed but may need/want to look back some day". Pictures and tax type records are not in that category as they are always part of the aggregate "current" image.

Regarding lifespan of SSDs, I use Samsung drives almost exclusively and haven't had a single issue ever. And that covers some 10+ drives at this time. Some of the earlier SSDs had some long term stability issues, but updates to drivers and some hardware changes seem to have pretty much eliminated that. And I beat mine mercilessly running multiple VMs and software that produces ridiculous amounts of temporary files and writes that would completely eclipse most systems (particularly with my heavy use of VMs that are in turn running that software). At this point for me, running a computer without SSD would be about like trying to run a CGA monitor with floppy disks and a 10 MB MFM drive (anyone remember those? Was a hoss in it's day!).
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by SteveHGraham »

I think I'm going to get another one on my dad's credit card and put it in his computer. It's really something, sorting through hundreds of emails and misplaced files that have accumulated over several years. You really don't want a computer that searches slowly or takes forever to open Quickbooks.
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hammermill
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Re: Solid State Drives for Computers

Post by hammermill »

i have a 60 gig here on my desk a dumb question but where does it plug in?
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