On 8-Jan-2009, at 08:25, Mark Smith wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Jared Earle <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> There are compelling arguments for running 5400rpm drives instead of
>> 7200rpm drives in portable machines. SSD makes even more sense.
>
> I am in my practical naivety inclined to agree, but I'm not sure
> whether real world testing bears this out
>
> - heat from 7200rpm - is it really a problem ?
Not really. Even the power draw (which was a definite issue even a
year or two ago) is really not a consideration anymore. Newer drives
might have as little as 2W draw for a 7200 drive when writing (I know
the Hitachi released last year was under 2W draw, but can't recall if
it was 1.6W or 1.8W) and will be well under 1W when idle.
> - reliability of SSD - is it really better over the lifetime of a
> laptop ?
The reliability of the SSD, as I understand it, has more to do with
day-to-day usage. No head crashes, no problems from jostling, no
worrying if the heads have parked properly when the laptop sleeps,
etc. etc. I don't recall that it's a MTBF sort of reliability.
> - speed of SSD (excepting large sequential writes) - is it really
> better ?
Erm.. no? SSDs are slower than 7200rpm drives overall. They are
faster for most people's use though (small reads and writes) --
assuming sufficient cache and overall system speed. Trouble is, most
people's experience with SSD drives are in the micro-laptops, which
are severely under-powered overall. System sluggishness and lack of
response gets blamed on the SSD rather than on the over all crappiness
of the overall product.
--
A man, in a word, who should never have been taught to write and
whom if unhappily gifted with that ability, should have been
restrained by a Act of Parliament from writing Reminiscences.
- PG Wodehouse
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