SSD or HDD prefered ??

Hy,


I'm planning to buy a netbook soon , and I'm thinking what kind of a hard drive should I pick. I can go for the SSD drive which is like a stick (no mechanican parts so it can't be damaged easily) or I can take a HDD version (bigger capacity but easier to damage as it contains mechanical parts in it).

Which one would be better on the go ??


So are there any suggestions or maybe you got some kind of an experience ??

Thank You very much for your help


--regards
Matt

Hi,

since netbooks are made for low price tags, the performance of SSDs used there is rather poor, and capacity is very low.
I'd go for a HDD here.

Michael

Thank you for a prompt reply

ok, so a HDD... what about the shock resistance ?? As its going to be a mechanical part. Or I'm to worried about it ??

Just poping in.

MateuszMiX, when on move go for SSD.
We have two notebooks in our family, one Asus and a Acer One. Both upgraded with cheap RunCore SSD's.
They are faster then any HDD notebook and yes, you can drop them in 200G ie. free fall from 13k M.

BTW, my Asus SSD with mobile broadband is with me everywhere, even in my sailplane.
Running Linux ofcourse.

well, if you drop your netbook, the HDD isn't the only part that will break. It depends on the way you want to treat your netbook.
Aftermarket SSDs might be much faster than those that are factory installed in netbooks, but they are pricey.

Michael

I'm not planning to smash my netbook like a brick !! I'm planning to use it normally like everyday use - putting it into my bad and going to school (hopefully I will not have to worry that some of the day to day shocks will damage it). I know that if i will drop it from 3 meters it will not survive but thats not the case


Thank you for help !!

--regards

Safety costs ofcourse , but not that much as if you drop a notebook HDD just a few inches when drive is writing and you have to consult expertize ($$$$$) to recover your data.
(Note, in above post I was talking about 13k M = ~40000 feets)

BTW, I don't care if my notebook goes into peaces if I crash with my sailplane, (I can buy a new one the very same day). My precious data though is always safe on notebooks SSD.

If you treat anything well it will last as long as you do defrag and cleanup and maintenance on your HDD and laptop it will last until the motherboard or components themselves die. I would say go for HDD they are larger capacity and cheaper to buy and replace. You can save that money for the software which will benefit you more. I also read you shouldn't defrag SSD devices as this will cause lost data since it isn't the same device as a HDD. I think I read it in PCWorld or MaximumPC. Until SSD comes down in price to match a 1TB HDD I don't see myself buying anything like that soon. Flash stick on the other hand I will buy but that is the extend of my SSD devices.

SSD doesn't require defragging, because:
1) Access times & read speeds are approximately the same across the entire ... capacity.
2) You can't even be sure where the SSD is writing any particular file to. It may have redirected a suspect sector to another address in the backup. So there's no real point in reading out a file & *apparently* rewriting it to the low addresses on the SSD, because it might end up in the far addresses of the SSD's capacity anyway

At any rate, a quick look in Oz suggests that the $600-$1000 difference between a standard HDD laptop, and the OEM SSD could very well be something that a dodgy chinese company has had lying around it's warehouse for 10yrs .... that price difference doesn't make it worthwhile.

A quick look at staticice (pricegrabber like website) suggests that you can choose a decent capacity, high speed, and well reviewed SSD for the same/lesser price than the OEM is charging for the SSD "upgrade".

For an extra $10, you can get a cheap 2.5" case to put the removed HDD in .. and so you can have your cake, and eat it too

Local prices at danawa.co.kr markets:

120GB MLC = US$200
500GB 2.5-inch HDD = US$70
2GB DDR 2 = US$20

Intelligent distributions among RAM, SLC/MLC SSD's and HDD's should make almost any Netbook fast and durable enough.

Don't gloat ....
120GB SSD here is >$300US.
500GB HDD 2.5" is about $90US
2GB DDR2 Sodimm is about $28.

Dell seems to be charging approximately $280 to replace the 500GB HDD with a 128GB SSD of unknown brand & model ... but they assure you it's high quality

Somehow, for the extra $20us, I'd rather get the 500GB HDD, and spend 2hr's imaging the partitions across to the SSD ....

SSD hasn't proven itself for price or capacity yet until then that well see when that time comes. As for putting your 2.5" into case ... I see a flawed logic in that when your wanting your laptop to be portable without lugging extra or more hardware then you have to bring along defeats the purpose of laptop.

If you can't fit a few movies, even entire 50GB blurary rips (which most netbooks couldn't play anyway) onto a 120GB storage device along with your work files & OS, you might as well give up now.

And assuming you are going on holiday and really need to take your movie/music collection with you, a small 0.25KG portable USB 2.5" HDD really isn't that much hassle to haul in your hand luggage.

I quoted the lowest used prices of the cheapest models (excluding those from Intel/OCZ/Mtron/Samsung at one of the largest computer sites in South Korea. In Seoul, cheapest Intel/Samsung SSD costs US$400 and 500GB Samsung costs 20% more than WD equivalents. It can't be that hard for portable computer designers to fit both SSD and HDD into a 500-gram or 900-gram body. When 500GB 2.5-inch HDD costs less than 32GB SSD, it's cruel not to have both at once.

I don't know why but somehow I prefer an SSD drive in a portable device like a netbook... As I don't know to bother when I'm on the go if the HDD drive will get damaged by the shock that it will get from me running to catch the bus, or when I will take my bag from my back in a very energetic way. Maybe the SSDs are not the most durable drives but I think it will be a better solution for me. And I don't need much space on my netbook - 8/12/16 GB will b ok. I just need some kind of a linux OS and basicly few word, excel, powerpoint files and that is it. Maybe few mp3 file. I'm not greedy for space. I found a really cool netbook - the new Samsung NC20 - its has a HDD and has some problems with Ubuntu running on it - i would love to get an SSD version of that netbook , or I could replace the HDD with an SSD drive... Will see how it will go

That defeats the purpose of portable laptop...I have yet to see a really good review that BR is worth having considering all the extras are mostly extras that are interviews and directors comments or extra cuts. That defeats the purpose of just to watch to enjoy the movie. The quality only works if your hardware is uber expensive setups but if not then it's not worth it. That is true cost buyers of BR forget to take into account if you want to have BR experience you better be ready to spend money for it. Also you can get larger HDD not your 120 HDD so you can fit more movies on it. Might not be hassle but if loose it then its your loss. But never hurts to have a portable drive but then again that what my desktop is for watching movie.

If your that rough with your laptop then it's time to invest in Desktop. You should also remember SSD laptop are a expensive item right now. That 8/12/16 GB won't take long to fill up that small of space is asking for trouble. If your using linux, I don't think M$ office will work on Linux without using Wine emulator. Also if our use M$ office it takes up space. If your having that much problem with your Samsung then you should contact Samsung help. There is currently no way you can switch HDD with a SSD drive.

I got a desktop already - but I need a netbook on the move - so I don't have to worry that I have it with me (in terms of hdd damage).

Thats fine - I'm a working student

I not gonna use M$ Office - I'm using OO! And an installation of ubuntu is about 3 GB with all the software I need... so if its a 8 GB SSD I'm still fine - 5 GB for documents ?? thats a lot as for me !!



I don't have a samsung... I've liked the acer aspire one 751 now... But I would love to have an SSD drive in it. Isn't it possible to swap the drive ??

At first, SSD cost looked so prohibitively high that there were even 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB SSD products in the market, but now there are various Taiwanese 32GB SSD offerings that cost merely a little over US$100. A very popular maker, Transcend is one. At the moment, the cost of a single 128GB MLC SSD is typically lower than the combined cost of four 32GB MLC SSD's. 8GB seems rather unrealistic. It'll be USB 3 adoption that'll at last enable SSD to take over most of the portable storage marketshare.

8GB of SSD would do fine as for me. I got a question : would this do the job if I would like to manually replace the HDD :


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SSD-Adapter-8G...3%3A1|294%3A50

I have an 8GB Transcend SSD in my DELL M1330 I fitted myself and put Ubuntu on it. I've had it a while and it's only 70% full. I use 32GB OCZ USB key for big stuff and then dump it on the desktop when it's full. Ubuntu flies along on the SSD it's excellent!

I prefer SSD for nettop. They are silent (except for the fan) and lighter and you don't need to worry at all about you laptop slipping off your hands on the table.

If you use applications that do not require a lot of data movement, SSD is good enough.
By the way, Windows 7 will include support for SSD.

One thing worth noting is that using an SSD does not make a powered off laptop/netbook any more rugged than another identical model which uses a hard disk. Sure if a laptop is running, a model using a hard disk will likely suffer a crash or damage if dropped while the HDD is spinning. But once the laptop is powered off, the most likely thing to break on a laptop is the screen from my experience as a PC technician.

In nearly every case where I recovered a hard disk from a laptop that has been ruined from dropping or physical abuse, the hard disk was fully readable and didn't appear to suffer any damage. The only case where I seen the hard disk ruined after abuse was when someone accidentally reversed over their laptop, not realising they left the laptop bag behind the car. The next most common failure with everyday abuse is the power connection breaking as a result of tripping over the cord.

As far as failure rates go between the two, I don't have experience yet of dealing with SSD failures. But after seeing various flash memory cards and USB pen drives fail, having your data on flash storage (such as an SSD) does not make it any more safe than storing your data on a hard disk. Another thing I noticed with failing flash storage is that when these things fail, they tend to most often fail without any warning in which one is working flawlessly up one moment and then totally dead where the flash storage is not even recognised by what it is used in. It was scary seeing this happen with one of my SD cards and thankfully I was just using it to store MP3s for an MP3 player and not holding photos from a holiday! In the majority of cases with hard disk failures, I have been able to recover most files, if not everyone after a few retries.

Most newer laptop HDD's come with free fall sensors so they park the heads as soon as they notice the drop.

There are only Seagate, WD, Samsung, and Hitachi that make desktop hard disk drives and they are all very large, very experienced. I've been personally to Samsung's South Korean Suwon plants and many others been to Samsung's other places that produce HDD drives. They spend much and try hard to ensure pleasing end-user experiences with their products. Quality control for flash products is far more difficult as flash technology itself is relatively new and it's too easy for small startups to make and distribute flash products. It's all too easy for hardly known (outside those familiar with trade secrets and local industrial investment and employment statistics and such) owners and managers of facilities in some parts of Guangdong and Shanghai to assemble inexpensive audio players and simple storage-only purpose devices with NAND chips imported from Taiwan and then export to still more unknown traders. I have a friend around Seoul who imported some thousands of MP3 players from China. The unit cost was practically like US$10 to US$50. The very first time he had anything to do with computers was 2006 and he had less than one million USD's or the equilvalent amount in KRW then. Before that, he was selling imported food for dogs and cats at his own hospital for pets. Not only he, but there were lots of importers like him. Compare SD/USB flash products with SSD products from Intel and OCZ. You can't say gasoline cars are not reliable on the basis that some college students have resulted in failed experients at their garages trying to assemble cars. Nobody can control who can make DVD/CD disks just as nobody can control who can make flash drives and LCD monitors. Does the fact flash is not always reliable mean Apple's iPhones and iTouch players and Amazon Kindle ebook readers will sometimes fail often? Or what about the hundreds of millions of phones with internal flash chips that record music and video files and even text messages and phone numbers? There are now check cards and credit cards with flash chips as well and I'm sure there are going to be "social security" or any other identity cards to have such built-in chips too. Of course, it's far more difficult to make HDD drives on a 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factor basis, and require some more experiences and quality control, and hence the average quality for Toshiba and Fujitsu hard disk drives used in portable computers must exceed that for desktop drives.

In 2001, I imported some Micron DDR modules from the USA via Crucial. The number of units was only about 100, and I did it on behalf of some domestic enthusiasts because most South Korean users still had great fear over buying from overseas directly. What impressed all of us was not just that Crucial DDR prices were one third of local Samsung prices found in Seoul's Yongsan markets where everything is supposed to be ridiculously cheap, but also Crucial had "lifetime" warranty policy compared to Samsung's 1-year warranty. The only major technology products that affect end user experiences on a very planetary scale other than RAM modules from Crucial, OCZ, etc. that offer lifetime warranty are also the only ones that can compete with them for faster access times: FLASH.