Computers and Woodworking

[Alan in Little Washington]

I do - the Intel X25M - and I love it. It cut the boot time by about 75%. I bought mine purely for performance - and I found the best performance is not available pre-installed from the manufacturer (likely due to the long lead-time for OEM orders and the rapid pace of evolution of SSDs). Instead, I bought my laptop (last June) with the smallest drive available. When I got it home, I pulled out the drive and popped in the SSD (from Amazon). This means I had to re-install Win7 from scratch, which is more work, but has the advantage of getting ride of all the bloatware installed by Dell. I'd do it again!

Everything I've read about the Intel is pretty good. It is better than most the others. Biggest negative affecting the CNET ratings (on all of them) is price. One mentioned read/write cycles and life. Intel claims 1.2 million hours MTBF- I ain't gonna live that long- while the CNET review says

"You should also keep in mind that because of the nature of flash memory technology, solid-state hard drives have a relatively well-defined time before failure. An article by Robert Hallock at Icrontic.com called "The Hows and Whys of SSDs" provides a more in-depth, but also accessible description of the issue. The gist is that you get about 100,000 read-write cycles before the memory will wear out. As Hallock puts it, "While 100,000 cycles seems slight, it's more than 100GiB of new information written to the disk every day for five years before approaching failure."

​

Intel has a free migration software download. I assume you need an external HDD which I have.

Anyone know if there is a Cyber discount day after XMAS or in January that is equivalent to Cyber Monday that follows Thanksgiving weekend's Black Friday?

 

[Glennbear]

Everything I've read about the Intel is pretty good. It is better than most the others. Biggest negative affecting the CNET ratings (on all of them) is price. One mentioned read/write cycles and life. Intel claims 1.2 million hours MTBF- I ain't gonna live that long- while the CNET review says

"You should also keep in mind that because of the nature of flash memory technology, solid-state hard drives have a relatively well-defined time before failure. An article by Robert Hallock at Icrontic.com called "The Hows and Whys of SSDs" provides a more in-depth, but also accessible description of the issue. The gist is that you get about 100,000 read-write cycles before the memory will wear out. As Hallock puts it, "While 100,000 cycles seems slight, it's more than 100GiB of new information written to the disk every day for five years before approaching failure." ​

Intel has a free migration software download. I assume you need an external HDD which I have.

Anyone know if there is a Cyber discount day after XMAS or in January that is equivalent to Cyber Monday that follows Thanksgiving weekend's Black Friday?

Thanks for sharing the link to Icrontic Alan :icon_thum That article is a thorough but easily digestible explanation of SSD's. :wsmile:

 

[buildintechie]

Alan-
I'd also recommend you look at Thinkpad laptops...They're pretty darn tough, and have a couple features most other companies don't have...one of which being integrated steel hinges. Most gateways, dells, acers, etc have hinges that are screwed onto the case and onto the screen...this allows the screens to become loose over time. Thinkpads have the bottom part of the hinge molded into the frame, so you don't have screws working loose stripping the threads.

If you want super rugged...get a toughbook. We use panasonic toughbooks at work, and had one get driven over by a fire truck (don't ask)...and it survived without a problem, just a couple scratches, well, gouges, on the case.

 

[merrill77]

Alan-
I'd also recommend you look at Thinkpad laptops...They're pretty darn tough, and have a couple features most other companies don't have...one of which being integrated steel hinges. Most gateways, dells, acers, etc have hinges that are screwed onto the case and onto the screen...this allows the screens to become loose over time. Thinkpads have the bottom part of the hinge molded into the frame, so you don't have screws working loose stripping the threads.

If you want super rugged...get a toughbook. We use panasonic toughbooks at work, and had one get driven over by a fire truck (don't ask)...and it survived without a problem, just a couple scratches, well, gouges, on the case.

If you want something that will last, you need to stay away from the consumer/home lines. Thinkpad and Dell Latitude, for example, are intended for heavy business/office use. Based solely on my experience with my last Thinkpad (post Lenovo buyout), Thinkpad quality has declined a bit. That was my 4th Thinkpad, and the only one I had significant problems with. My current and past Dell Latitudes have proven quite rugged (steel hinges, etc). I do try to take care of my stuff - but my laptops get 8-10 hours of use weekdays as well as a few hours on weekends. They go back and forth to work every day.

 

[Alan in Little Washington]

Anyone know if there is a Cyber discount day after XMAS or in January that is equivalent to Cyber Monday that follows Thanksgiving weekend's Black Friday?

I got a e-flyer from Newegg earlier today. They had this Acer, just like the one my wife has (yup, she had a better computer than I did?!?!?) on sale with free shipping. One is on the way and should be here Wednesday!

I'll wait to see if I'm happy with the performance and speed and to see if prices drop before I consider upgrading it with an SSD.