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Tech News Weekly: Edition 30-09

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f0dder:
Keep in mind that just about all SSDs have had those physical fragmentation issues, and that intel is one of the few manufacturers that has been active about it. I haven't looked at the SSD market for some months (having something to do with getting an X25-E), but back then you basically had two choices: Intel or OCZ Vertex (specifically only the Vertex) - EVERYTHING else sucked (the short story: manufacturers optimizing for high linear speeds ending up with performance lower than harddrives once random read/writes were used).

Cost is still pretty high on SSDs, but once you've had one in your workstation you really don't want to go back. It's not about those ludicrious hundreds-of-megs-per-second linear rates, it's all about the low latency. Couple with a traditional fast HDD for bulk storage and you're flying. I'm considering replacing the 120GB disk in my laptop with a somewhat smaller SSD; I could live with ~60gig there for better speed and no mechanical parts making "hi, I'm about to die" sounds :)

PS: SSD doesn't necessarily mean lower power consumption; conventional laptop drives are quick to go into standby modes, many SSDs don't have standby mode (not because they can't, but because the manufacturers are silly and lazy).

jgpaiva:
I'm considering replacing the 120GB disk in my laptop with a somewhat smaller SSD; I could live with ~60gig there for better speed and no mechanical parts making "hi, I'm about to die" sounds :)

PS: SSD doesn't necessarily mean lower power consumption; conventional laptop drives are quick to go into standby modes, many SSDs don't have standby mode (not because they can't, but because the manufacturers are silly and lazy).
-f0dder (August 25, 2009, 12:42 AM)
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It's the "i'm about to die" sounds in disks that scare me... In the recent years, I have lost quite a few disks, and even though I did have backups, I ended up losing loads of time reinstalling the OS and all.

I suppose they'll eventually do something about the standby mode, as soon as they start selling more and the competition rises!
Now that I think of it.. How about temperature? Do SSDs heat more than conventional disks?

f0dder:
Well, the standby power consumption issues might already have been fixed, I haven't read about the issue for a while :). Also, I don't know what amount of write (or rather, erase) cycles the current SSDs can handle; there doesn't seem to be much conclusive data, and people are quick to shout off their mouths without anything to back up their claims. Iirc AnandTech has said that even MLC-based drives with heavy usage should last 3+ years, which is good enough for me... especially if, as I've understood, a "failling" drive simply blocks sectors go read-only (compare that to a failing harddrive where all bets are off).

As far as heat is concerned, I suppose SSDs should run a lot cooler than mechanical drives. Haven't tested my own SSD, but it feels ambient case temperature to the touch :)

jgpaiva:
I didn't know about that "bad sectors go read-only" thing! That's just great :D
Having a temperature-efficient disk would also be great, my laptop heats a lot :(

f0dder:
I didn't know about that "bad sectors go read-only" thing! That's just great :D
Having a temperature-efficient disk would also be great, my laptop heats a lot :(
-jgpaiva (August 25, 2009, 01:08 PM)
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Well, I think that's what happens to bad sectors on SSDs, but I could very well be wrong - and I suppose they could be more sensitive to power surges than mechanical drives.

As for temperature-efficient, I bet the CPU and GPU are going to be the hottest parts of the laptop, not the disk :)

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