PC Processors: Dual vs. Quad-Core Processors, & MS Excel Performance

SSDs are designed for a limited number of write cycles. Eventually bits will start to stick and write errors will occur, at which point the drive is dead.

The flash memory I use in embedded systems also sufferers from this problem. The data memory on my chips is specified for 1,000,000 write cycles. The program memory is only good for 100,000 write cycles.

SSD does not have moving parts, but don't delude yourself into thinking that the parts don't wear out.

Tom

 

SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance" article in STORAGE search .com

To get that very high speed the process will have to write big blocks (which also simplifies the calculation).

We assume perfect wear leveling which means we need to fill the disk 2 million times to get to the write endurance limit.

2 million (write endurance) x 64G (capacity) divided by 80M bytes / sec gives the endurance limited life in seconds.

That's a meaningless number - which needs to be divided by seconds in an hour, hours in a day etc etc to give...

The end result is 51 years!

Just because there is a set number of writes does not make it any less reliable. With the size/speed advances and the amount of space needed, for every day applications, if you get a 64-100GB SSD and use it for your OS, it will become obsolete beyond use before you reach the write endurance cap.


To the OP (if you are still looking for answers). Check out the Alienware $700 laptop from Dell. I would normally kick anyone who recommended a Dell in the balls, but this line is very good for gaming, and a gaming laptop is great for other high processor and video applications.

If you want a desktop then it gets much more difficult. Quad cores are great! The more ram the better, but some places gouge for the upgrade (Dell etc..) so I recommend buying ram yourself and replacing/upgrading at half the price. SSD hard drives are fast and becoming cheaper every day, just make sure there is a large internal data drive for music/movies/files/programs, and set your programs to deposit them there! Most importantly is a 64bit OS, most notably Windows 7 is good.

Also the best thing I can tell you about buying a computer or laptop is to look for these words "Dedicated video"! In car terms a "shared video" would be like towing a trailer 25% the weight of your car all the time. Imagine what that does to your power, and that is what it does to a computer. Dedicated means your video card has its own processor and ram, and does not borrow from the rest of the computer. This is crucial especially when buying a laptop.

Other than that, do some research and try not to overspend! Dell is not the only place in the world to buy a computer, and do not get sucked into upgrading all of their extras! Some of the best computers I have helped friends buy were Acers from newegg (with the right specs) and they also happened to be the cheapest.

You can get what you need for under $800 if you look around, and sometimes under $600.

 

I think you're quoting some outdated info.

Yes, I'm aware of the limited # of write cycles on SSDs but also am aware of wear leveling. Besides the other quotes in this thread, see Intel X25-M SSD: Intel Delivers One of the World's Fastest Drives - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News.

That said, I just put together a machine w/an Intel X-25M G2 160 gig SSD as the boot and programs drive and I DO plan to ensure that I reduce the amount of unnecessary writes to it. For example, I transcode videos using Ripbot264 from my TivoHD (typically 5-9 gigs/hour) and the disk isn't the bottleneck. I plan to try to force all its operations to my hard drive instead.

I guess you need to read about TRIM on Windows 7 (only useful if the SSD supports it):
The SSD Improv: Intel & Indilinx get TRIM, Kingston Brings Intel Down to $115 - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
Feature - Why You Need TRIM For Your SSD | bit-tech.net

There seems to be some controversy or confusion (that I don't remember the answer definitive to) about how much free space to leave even w/TRIM. In the past, before TRIM, I'd seen suggestions of either leaving say 20% (IIRC) free or partitioning your drive so that 20% is unallocated.

Also from Engineering Windows 7 : Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives (emphasis mine):

 

The trick is finding the bottleneck, while not spending too much money in the search ;-)

If memory paging to the HD is taking place, then RAM is the answer. If more RAM is not possible, perhaps a flash drive would be better than a HD ?

Nevermind, I see now that this question has been hashed and rehashed to much more depth than I could ever descend.

 

I don't suggest one skimp on RAM (that would cause excessive paging) and buy an SSD instead.

However, if you look at the benchmarks at say The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News or OCZ?s Vertex Limited Edition Review & SSD State of the Union - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News, you'll see decent SSDs completely decimate the fastest SATA drives of the time (Velociraptors) by at least an order of magnitude in random reads and writes and there are significant real world perf improvements.

 

When I built my current system 1.5 years ago SSD were too expensive and small for my needs. So I decided to go with the "dream setup" I always wanted. 2x raptor in Raid 0. While SSD are 100% faster, these bad boys scream, you can also cook an egg on them.

With platter drives using less than 10% of the drive gives a much faster seek time than 50%+ full, so I Went with 2x 150gb 10krpm SATA drives, and use a 1TB drive for data, with a clone going to my 1GB NAS. The setup works quite well and load times are not a problem.

Then my mobo fries and I am working on the laptop... Its like being in the stone age!

 

A 32 bit version of windows will be able to access around 3,328 MB our of the 4,096 MB of installed ram. So not the entire 1,024 MB is "idle"

Correct, SSD's are entirely different than RAM. Furthermore, an OS like Windows is a very poor match for a SSD.

There are military RTOS's that are ideally suited to SSD, and those can expect lifespans at least as long, if not longer, than a conventional hard disk

 

As Jayman points out, this is a very bad assumption for an OS like Windows. Windows tends to continuously write to the system disk, often repetitively in the same area. The SSD will wear out much faster than the math in this article predicts.

That said, SSD technology gets better all of the time, so the expected life is steadily increasing.

Tom