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Is anyone using a computer with an SS (solid state) hard drive? Samsung has a low cost SSD laptop using Google Chrome on the market and the claim is that it loads the OS in ten seconds. Problem with SSDs apparently is that their data fades after about five years; the number of times they can have their data re-written is limited. I’m not sure how much data I’ll be able to have re-written into my soft drive in five years time, but the SS limitation is probably a consideration for somebody younger. The article I just read mentioned computer changes in five years making a five year old machine obsolete. But the machine I’m using at the moment is over ten years old. There are some problems.
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
PS: How will this limitation affect those people who are trying to build up a library on their readers?
My MacBook Air has an SSD drive. The ten second book claim is accurate — maybe quicker than that, I haven’t had time to count. It also closes down very quickly.
I’ve been more concerned with the claims that data can’t ever really be erased from them, but it would make sense that it would have limited rewrite ability. Most laptops are built around a three to five year refresh cycle and have been for some time. If you are buying at the lower end, they tend to become too slow or too limited in memory or hard drive space (or all three) to keep many users satisfied beyond a couple of years.
I bought a top of the line Sony laptop in 2004, and it still works fine — except for a terrible hard drive size limitation that makes it challenging to use, it still works great. I retired it from active use for the MacBook Air two years ago. The MacBook Air (baseline model then) is too limited on SSD space, so I’m replacing it this week. I had planned to get a couple more years out of it, so I went with a top of the line model that I anticipate will hold up for about five years.
That’s a long way of saying, depending upon your usage and the equipment purchased, useful life of a machine will vary with the user. I do keep copious backups.
That’s a good question about the readers, but remember, if your reader fails, you usually have a backup of your library at the source — Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, or the other sources where, once you’ve purchased your books, you can re-download them to a new device. The challenge, of course, comes when versions are changed and become incompatible, which it going to become a problem at some point.
I noticed this challenge when I was exporting manuscripts from yWriter yesterday. And I considered the challenge I’ll have since I’ve heavily invested in Scrivener and some companion apps. In some respects, working in Word is much easier over time.
I can’t speak for the specific Samsung laptop you mentioned, but I do love the speedy boot and response time of my SSD drive machine.
Future Shop is now offering three makes (Samsung: HP; Acer.) with similar (what?). Google Chrome apparently offers integrated free anti-virus. I don’t think they have disk drives.
Go for the best of both worlds. Get a PC with a SSD to run your system, and then buy an external USB disk to store all your backups/longterm data. The SSD will probably be small (compared to size) and will be fast for running your OS and software, then you can save everything out to the USB attached disk which can still be cheap but large. (I’ve seen inexpensive, small 1TB drives out there in the stores.)
temporus wrote:Go for the best of both worlds. Get a PC with a SSD to run your system, and then buy an external USB disk to store all your backups/longterm data. The SSD will probably be small (compared to size) and will be fast for running your OS and software, then you can save everything out to the USB attached disk which can still be cheap but large. (I’ve seen inexpensive, small 1TB drives out there in the stores.)Sounds like a good idea. Thanks.
I was just talking with a coworker about something new on the market these days, and he said he had one for home. It’s a single COMBO SSD and traditional HDD in one. This is aimed at the laptop market where space and slots are a premium. And they are new, so expect the kinks to get worked out of such deices in the near future. But it’s something along those lines that I plan for my next laptop.
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