Solid state hard drives

[xfilesman]

Most advertised HP 17"laptops (on HSN or QVC - better on budget because of "easy pay" option) have been recently showing "TB" (1 or 2) hard drive storage (instead of "GB" storage) so, just wondering how does "256GB M.2 Solid-state" hard drive  compare to "TB" hd storage - on above advertised item (HP laptop) on HSN? And, I've often heard "SSD" hard drives as being far superior to TB (or GB) hard drives as no "crashing" problems,speed(!),and durability? Thanks for any "responses". te P.S. I have had great success with a HP laptop purchased in 12/16 with about the same 'specs' as this laptop - Intel i3, 8GB RAM, 2.4 GHz BUT 2TB HDD and was looking to replace my wife's much older laptop with an equally FAST and reliable laptop! Thanks again! te :-]

[David_J_W · Accepted solution]

Please delete your e-mail address from your post; the forum rules do not allow posting personally identifying information.

1TB is 1000GB.

SSDs are faster, quieter and more robust than a mechanical hard disk. SSDs really only have two drawbacks - the big one is cost, also they wear out from being written to. The write lifetime is unlikely to be an issue unless you use a laptop grade SSD built for intensive server style applications (server SSDs are built for many more writes).

I have only bought laptops with SSDs since 2010, when SSDs were tiny and really expensive; I wouldn't want a mechanical hard disk in a laptop any more. You will need to think whether 256GB is large enough for your requirements; I would prefer 512GB or greater on a primary laptop, but I use loads of storage.

How much of the 2TB hard disk is in use on your current laptop? If that is more than 256GB, could your wife get away with less storage on a new laptop than you have on yours? 2TB laptop SSDs are available, but you probably won't like the price!

[xfilesman]

Dear David_ J_W, Thanks for the 'info' on  solid state hard drives! I checked my computer "stats" and I'm currently using only 1.73 of 1.80 TB but, I only surf the web, make occasional purchases, read email and do occasional word processing. My wife basically does the same 'stuff' but she also does do online "brain" games - she CLAIMS(!) it keeps her memory "sharp" so we don't have need for a ton of storage so I believe 256GB of SSD should be enough for her? This is the first SSD laptop I've 'noticed' (HP anyway) to be advertised on HSN or QVC so I hope they bring out more SSD laptops in the near future. Thanks again! te :-} P.S. Didn't know about the email address "rule" - will not do that again in the future (just 'habit', I guess, because I "sign" all my messages - whether email or not, with my email address)! te 😐

[David_J_W]

SSDs are finally making their way down into mid range and even some budget consumer laptops, which is a good thing in my opinion. Computers with SSDs are typically more responsive in operation, quieter, have better battery life and have a notoriously fragile component replaced with one that is more robust. The move to SSDs is such that the major storage manufacturers are beginning to close hard disk factories. I don't think hard disks will disappear, not least as they are excellent for high capacity lower speed applications, but they will continue to disappear as primary storage.

I suspect the 1.73 of 1.80TB may be what is free - in which case you're only using around 80GB of your hard disk. That level of usage would be consistent with a system used for the web / online shopping, a bit of e-mail and word processing. For that sort of application a 256GB SSD should be fine; software for Sudoku and the like if you wife chooses to play offline will use very little additional space. What chews through storage capacity is media (especially video files, but also audio files) and additional software.

I've currently got 450GB in use on a 1TB SSD, but that includes a lot of specialist software (for business, media and software development purposes), some virtual machines (which are complete copies of Windows and other operating systems used, in my case, for test and development purposes), quite a lot of media files and several GB of archived e-mail and notes. I have 49GB of installed software, with Windows taking a further 24GB on top of that.

It's all about sizing your hardware to your needs, ultimately.

There are plenty of systems with SSDs in the HP online store. It is always worth watching out for offers; I would not be surprised if manufacturers push systems with 256GB SSDs this Black Friday, for example.

[xfilesman]

Dear David J_W_, Thank you so much for your kind and well thought-out replies on my questions (or "concerns") about SSD hard drives. Sometimes one just wants to to stay with what's 'familiar', in my case, "mechanical" hard drives! But, if I can just indulge your "expertise" in these matters just one more time(!) before I make a final decision on whether or not to purchase this SSD laptop from HP?

I had a purchased a Gateway laptop awhile back (now 'morphed' into ACER?), it got good reviews, but more importantly, it was under $500 and was an Intel quad-core, but no "turbo-boost" tecnnology and, only 4gb ram and most quad-cores were coming in with 1.6GHz (at that time).

I took in to my local computer "shop" because of slowwww(!) wait times ("flipping" web pages, waiting for "links" to link(!), etc.) and, long story short, the 'tech' sold me on replacing my mechanical hd for a SSD 125GB drive (after describing my normal 'usage' patterns to him as well) plus, I told him to increase the ram to 8gb. Still, after all that and a complete "diagnostic", still had the same problems, maybe a little faster. They could not do anything with the low Ghz because they said it was "welded" in to the hd.

After calling them back about my STILL SLOW laptop, what they said is I "got what I got" (brand name) because they only sold the Toshiba brand in their store and everything should have been working much better because of the SSD hd replacement. A $300+ "wet job", in my opinion and, to put it mildly.

My question(s) is: the SSD hd is for performance and storage capacity? And, the GHz, as well as the RAM capacity, is for speed, surfing web, etc.? And so, without any way to increase the GHz, my computer, even with the new SSD hd, would still run slow with what I do mainly with a pc, surf web, click on "links", etc? I try now to stay with at least mid-2Ghz with at least 8gb ram.

And, my wife probably has 10-15 downloaded online "games" with maybe a few cds downloaded, and I have approx 50 cds downloaded to iTunes for 'compilation' cd burning with maybe 250 pics downloaded on both our laptops from our digital camera(s), I do not see this SSD laptop running out of "write?" capacity with us - at least for a few yrs (5 or more) with normal pc usage?

Thanks for any 'reply' you can give back to me! te :-] 

[David_J_W]

Device performance is a function of several factors, especially with a task like web browsing. If the issue is that disk access times are limiting the system performance (as seen by Disk hitting 100% in task manager), then switching from a mechanical hard disk to a solid state drive is almost certain to help. Generally, a system with a SSD is more responsive than a system with a hard disk.

However, if the issue was full utilisation of the processor, full utilisation of the GPU, running out of RAM or limited network speed, then a SSD will do nothing to help those areas. It is important to use the tools built in to the operating system to understand performance issues before spending any money trying to address them.

The speed of the processor is inherent to the processor - the same is true of the GPU. There is such a thing as 'overclocking', where you run these devices faster than their rated specification, but this can't be done with regular laptop hardware, it often causes cooling issues, it may well affect reliability and it voids any warranty. Normally the only upgrades that can be done with a laptop are adding or exchanging RAM, and exchanging (or on some high end models adding) a storage drive. Some laptops do not have upgradable RAM. Microsoft Surface devices are glued shut!

I suspect your issue was that the 'technician' sold you the wrong solution. It is impossible to guess what the right solution might have been.

[David_J_W]

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@xfilesman wrote:
And, my wife probably has 10-15 downloaded online "games" with maybe a few cds downloaded, and I have approx 50 cds downloaded to iTunes for 'compilation' cd burning with maybe 250 pics downloaded on both our laptops from our digital camera(s), I do not see this SSD laptop running out of "write?" capacity with us - at least for a few yrs (5 or more) with normal pc usage?

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I agree - you're simply not going to hit the write limit of a consumer SSD with that sort of use. I work my devices hard; after more than two years of heavy use of my former primary laptop, the SSD only had 20% of its write lifetime used.

The write lifetime is only really an indication and a warranty limit; the SSD doesn't stop working when you reach the write limit, though you've exceeded its design life. SSDs have a certain amount of spare blocks to substitute for failed or worn out blocks of flash memory. This happens transparently - up to the point that you run out of spares, then the drive fails. Hard disks use a similar approach; when you run out of spare sectors, the drive fails.

[xfilesman]

Dear David _J_W, THANK YOU for all of your 'educational' and informative "replies" to the inner "workings" of pcs! te 🙂