New Laptop Advice

[mulhuzz]

This is something of my area...

SSD use cases are more limited than the marketing would have you believe.

Their price £/GB is enormous (although falling) and will be replaced anyway in the future with PCM chips and the cost cycle starts again.

If you're storing a lot of work on the laptop you'll likely want more space than SSD can provide at a non-mental cost, which leaves you with either a two drive, an SSD + external or hybrid solution.

Best of both worlds (or Jack of all trades but master of none) would be a caching or hybrid drive which has a traditional moving head reading the platter but also a smaller 'flash' part which learns (algorithmic) what you access the most and stores that there. They are about £20 more expensive than a traditional HDD of same size, but don't often come as standard.

My own personal solution is a laptop with SSD and then a 12TB NAS system on the network where I can save the actual stuff I use (RAID 1 if that means anything to you) and back that up onto external usb drives.

Your mileage may vary, personal views not those of company I work for, etc.

[mulhuzz]

If your laptop's a half decent spec I'd seriously suggest just swapping out the hard drive for an SSD.

I bought a 1TB Samsung SSD for about £350 because my laptop had gotten a bit slow. From switching on to being able to use outlook was about 3 minutes and I just can't wait that long.

The best 1TB HDD on the market (consumer) will run you £50 and a hybrid about £70 for comparison.

For most use cases the extra money doesn't make sense.

[Longines]

Mulhuzz, you not think £70 for a 256GB SSD would be a better choice for many workers/consumers? I'm running W8.1/Office/Project/Visio plus a 5GB pst file, 5 years worth of documents, 20GB of video, 25GB of pictures, 8GB of music and still have 60GB free.

Not tempted to try RAID0+1 with 12TB?

[Graham C]

480gb SSD for £99

http://www.ebuyer.com/665519-sandisk-ultra-ii-480gb-2-5inch-sata-iii-ssd-sdssdhii-480g-g25


Use code SANDISK for £20 off.

[bobAlike]

Mulhuzz, you not think £70 for a 256GB SSD would be a better choice for many workers/consumers? I'm running W8.1/Office/Project/Visio plus a 5GB pst file, 5 years worth of documents, 20GB of video, 25GB of pictures, 8GB of music and still have 60GB free.

Not tempted to try RAID0+1 with 12TB?

Please tell me you're not using this PST everyday? Asking for trouble IMO if you are.

[mulhuzz]

Mulhuzz, you not think £70 for a 256GB SSD would be a better choice for many workers/consumers? I'm running W8.1/Office/Project/Visio plus a 5GB pst file, 5 years worth of documents, 20GB of video, 25GB of pictures, 8GB of music and still have 60GB free.

Not tempted to try RAID0+1 with 12TB?

The answer of course is 'it depends'

It depends on how much storage you need and what you're doing with it. For some people it can be a decent option obviously, but if you need more storage than that, then the question is, is it really £70 anymore? (By the time you buy an external, etc)

And as to Raid0+1 I would definitely (though raid 5 would be a small performance pref), but my NAS box is only two bay so doesn't support it. Can't complain though, it was free

[Longines]

Mulhuzz, you not think £70 for a 256GB SSD would be a better choice for many workers/consumers? I'm running W8.1/Office/Project/Visio plus a 5GB pst file, 5 years worth of documents, 20GB of video, 25GB of pictures, 8GB of music and still have 60GB free.

Not tempted to try RAID0+1 with 12TB?

Please tell me you're not using this PST everyday? Asking for trouble IMO if you are.

Probably my misunderstanding. My corporate Exchange mailbox is 5GB and there is an offline copy on my laptop for working remotely. Backed up locally and centrally every day.

[Longines]

And as to Raid0+1 I would definitely (though raid 5 would be a small performance pref), but my NAS box is only two bay so doesn't support it. Can't complain though, it was free

I'm obviously behind the times, had no idea 6TB disks were available. Saw 12TB and assumed it was a 6 or 12 bay NAS.

[EvilPie]

If your laptop's a half decent spec I'd seriously suggest just swapping out the hard drive for an SSD.

I bought a 1TB Samsung SSD for about £350 because my laptop had gotten a bit slow. From switching on to being able to use outlook was about 3 minutes and I just can't wait that long.

The best 1TB HDD on the market (consumer) will run you £50 and a hybrid about £70 for comparison.

For most use cases the extra money doesn't make sense.

But would they make any significant difference to the laptop's performance if you swapped them?

The OP is talking about buying a new laptop. I suggested changing his existing hard drive to get the same effect. Would a £50 HDD be like having a new laptop?

[RedFox]

Thanks guys for the info.

Im still confused as to what will suit me but gonna mull over your advice.

I currently have an Aspire 5542 with 500gb HDD and still have 360gb free, so feel a SDD would be suitable.

The machine is tired and I plan to give it to a family member who will appreciate it.

Cheers

[mulhuzz]

Thanks guys for the info.

Im still confused as to what will suit me but gonna mull over your advice.

I currently have an Aspire 5542 with 500gb HDD and still have 360gb free, so feel a SDD would be suitable.

The machine is tired and I plan to give it to a family member who will appreciate it.

Cheers

ssd looks very suitable for you then.

wouldn't just replace hdd in current laptop without also upgrading the ram as well and by that point you're into the 'cheaper to get new laptop' sort of area.

I've had some very good experience with Lenovo, particularly Thinkpads. Would recommend.

[StuartHopkin]

If your laptop's a half decent spec I'd seriously suggest just swapping out the hard drive for an SSD.

I bought a 1TB Samsung SSD for about £350 because my laptop had gotten a bit slow. From switching on to being able to use outlook was about 3 minutes and I just can't wait that long.

Swapped the drive and it's down to about 25 seconds and is basically like having a new laptop but without the hassle of having to back stuff up. I would happily have forked out £1k+ for a new laptop like the one I now have.

There's probably nothing wrong with your processor, DVD Drive, graphics card, keyboard, track pad, chassis etc. A bit of extra RAM never hurts if you've got less than 4GB but that's about £35 for a matched pair of 4GB upgrades. If you buy a new laptop you're buying all this perfectly good stuff again.

They usually come with (or you can purchase) a cloning kit so you literally make an exact copy of your existing drive. Once it's copied you swap them over and switch on and away you go. Depending on how deep your hard drive's buried (some of them require keyboard removal!!) you could have it done in a couple of hours.

Ha ha

Cant wait 3 mins, because that equates to 2.5% of your working day?