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Dead Laptop!


AndyB01

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14 hours ago, Bapu said:

I make every effort to replace HDDs after 5 years (to be safe). So I guess 4 years for an SSD would be about right. That means next year my DAW SSD should be be replaced.

You shouldn't worry too much about it. You'd have to transfer hundreds of Gygabytes at once every few days to bring that SSD closer to exhausting all write read cycles. When that happens, the flash drive can no longer write data, becoming read only and "forgeting" any new data written into it. Only downside with flash data is that fails happen when they do. On a HDD, you start seeing signs of failure before it happens.

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23 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

I've had great luck with ThinkPads. Almost bulletproof.

Any business grade laptop runs circles around any enthusiast, gamer or high end consumer product in terms of lifespan and reliability. These have to reliably last and deliver performance for at least 5 years, if not more. Or, as The Onion says: "The world where people use computers for actual work and not just dicking around."

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15 hours ago, Bapu said:

I make every effort to replace HDDs after 5 years (to be safe). So I guess 4 years for an SSD would be about right. That means next year my DAW SSD should be be replaced.

So SSD's are not only a lot more expensive, but also expected to only last 80% as long?

Remind me again why we're all supposed to lust after them.......

 

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18 minutes ago, paulo said:

So SSD's are not only a lot more expensive, but also expected to only last 80% as long?

Remind me again why we're all supposed to lust after them.......

I can't find the video now but I remember seeing an A/B/C comparison of SSD vs HDD by Linus Tech Tips on YouTube. He set up 3 gaming rigs side by side and didn't tell his staff what type of drive was in each one and had them try them all. They all said the one with the HDD was faster and more responsive. I tried to find the video but he's done several SSD vs HDD comparisons and I couldn't find the specific one I was looking for.

What I took away from it was yeah they are fast for large file transfers and installations but in real world applications like gaming HDD actually performed better. I'm not sure how that translates to the DAW domain.

I'm running 2 250GB SSD's in my DAW (See sig). Previously on my old i5 750 I had 2 HDD's and one died. I ended up running off of external USB memory cards from an old camera. The roughly inch long rectangular ones. I saw no difference in performance with the exception of installation speed. I could have more than quadrupled my drive space for the same cost if I would have went with HDD's this time. I regret not doing that now.

My system seems to go through phases depending on what Microsoft does with Win10 at any given moment anyway. Sometimes it's snappy and lightning fast, then an update will come through and it will be sluggish until the next update, then it's snappy again. I hate everything about Windows 10.

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According to the guy who rebuilt mine, SSD failure is much exaggerated and something of an urban myth. True in the early days of SSDs apparently but not these days, provided you stick with reputable brands.

I don't know, just glad to have mine back and working again.

Andy

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16 minutes ago, AndyB01 said:

According to the guy who rebuilt mine, SSD failure is much exaggerated and something of an urban myth. True in the early days of SSDs apparently but not these days, provided you stick with reputable brands.

I don't know, just glad to have mine back and working again.

Andy

I've heard the same from several techs. I don't have any reservation using them long term but the cost per GB compared to HDD is something I can't justify. The installation/setup performance gains don't justify the cost on my sample limited setup.

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1 hour ago, paulo said:

So SSD's are not only a lot more expensive, but also expected to only last 80% as long?

Remind me again why we're all supposed to lust after them.......

 

I still have WD and Seagate HDD that are still working almost 10 years.  I'd be afraid to invest in a 2TB SSD.  Computer hardware prices are higher these days.  The best deals always seem to be the 500gb SSDs.  If I was wise enough to delete most of the sample stuff I never use I could probably get by easily with 4 500gb SSDs.  Developers are into bloat these days even the OS. 

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5 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

he cost per GB compared to HDD is something I can't justify.

This. 

 

5 minutes ago, Paul Young said:

I'd be afraid to invest in a 2TB SSD

I'm not afraid as such, but last time I looked 3 2TB HDD's were the same price as one equivalent SSD, so it just seemed like it would be a bit daft to choose one over three. I guess one day soon there will be no choice in the matter and it will be called progress.

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4 hours ago, paulo said:

So SSD's are not only a lot more expensive, but also expected to only last 80% as long?

Remind me again why we're all supposed to lust after them.......

 

There's actually a few reasons.  Sure, they're a bit more expensive (for the price of  a 1TB SSD you might be able to find two 4TB spinners if you look for specials), but they have a few benefits over the spinners:

  • No moving parts!  Less chance of something breaking plus it adds to some of the other benefits.
  • Quiet.  (No moving parts!)
  • Fast.  WAAAY faster than spinners, especially with the newer connection protocols.
  • Doesn't need periodic maintenance.  Because all areas can be addressed instantly, there's no need to defragment the drive to improve performance.  Also, because there's no moving parts, there's far less chance of errors.
  • Size.  SSD's are far smaller (especially the type that look like a stick of gum!).  That makes them great for laptops.
  • Durability.  Because SSD's have no moving parts (have I mentioned that yet?), they survive a drop much better than a spinner (which is also heavier).
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As a quick follow-up on my prior reply, we usually set up client computers with a smaller SSD for the OS drive (provides speedy boot-up and program launching) then we couple that with a larger spinner drive for bulk storage.  Then, if needed, we might add a second SSD for quick-access storage (usually this is video for us, but can obviously apply for audio).

We then add back-up services like Carbonite (what I use) or Backblaze (what Dan, my business partner, uses).  These provide almost real-time backing up of files.  One trick that I do is to use Acronis to make an image of my OS drive then put that on a spinner so Carbonite will back it up.

Edited by craigb
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I mentioned this on another forum one time where we were talking about SSD's and HDD's and was attacked by a moderator. True story. Some people take this stuff way too seriously. But I stand by my prediction. As the gap between RAM and SSD speeds close you'll see systems where there is no RAM and no system storage. It will all be combined. You can have virtual RAM and drives now, you're just limited by speed.

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16 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

Some people take this stuff way too seriously.

Agreed, some folks get way too bent out of shape around this stuff and your predictions are spot on I think.

I've literally today just replaced my 1Tb spinner with a 1Tb SSD; so now I'm all SSD. Many of my sound libraries were on the spinner and I've noticed two immediate impacts:

1. Noise - the fan fires less often, runs for less time and the disk noise has obviously disappeared (I never realised how significant this was).

2. Speed of sample loading -  e.g. Ivory II down from around ten seconds to just a couple and faster boot time overall (although main drive was already a SSD).

I'm less fussed about the speed impact but the noise reduction is a massive and very noticeable benefit.

However this is a debate that will outlive us all. 😂

Andy

Edited by AndyB01
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