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Poll: Are you using SSDs?

news.ycombinator.com

151–153 of 153 posts

Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?

#151

Been using an SSD in my Macbook Pro for the last year ... easily the best computer upgrade I've made in my lifetime (no kidding) ... Photoshop and Netbeans open up in 5-9 seconds, booting into OS X takes less than 30-40 seconds and applications generally fire up in the blink of an eye. One word of caution though, when the SSD runs out of free blocks and has to re-use blocks marked as deleted, the performance hit can…

Yes, SSD is great. It works even better in high end PC's which are FAR faster than Macbook Pro's. I have one in an i7 based pc at 4ghz on pretty high end motherboard. I can load Photoshop in about 1 to 2 seconds. So I'm not sure why your mac takes 5-9 seconds other than maybe they typically use cheap chips for the bus I/O etc. Macs tend to be slower at drive operations, even when an SSD is in place. I keep hearing ab…

I'm sorry but I get fed up of seeing posts like this. I could tell you hundreds of little details in mac hardware and software that make the hundreds of hours a month I have to spend on a computer more tolerable.

If your laptop is your profession then you care about the tools you use, you're right it's not down to speed, it's down to the thought that goes into every element of both the hardware design and user interface that means my computer thinks along the same lines as me.

The cost extra is minimal when you offset it across 2-3 years of earning but the difference it makes in small increments to your daily working life is more than worth it.

Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, SSD is great. It works even better in high end PC's which are FAR faster than Macbook Pro's. I have one in an i7 based pc at 4ghz on pretty high end motherboard. I can load Photoshop in about 1 to 2 seconds. So I'm not sure why your mac takes 5-9 seconds other than maybe they typically use cheap chips for the bus I/O etc. Macs tend to be slower at drive operations, even when an SSD is in place. I keep hearing ab…

I'm sorry but I get fed up of seeing posts like this. I could tell you hundreds of little details in mac hardware and software that make the hundreds of hours a month I have to spend on a computer more tolerable. If your laptop is your profession then you care about the tools you use, you're right it's not down to speed, it's down to the thought that goes into every element of both the hardware design and user interf…

Don't feed the troll.

Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?

#153
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're just another product on the Moore's Law trajectory. Treat them the same as you do computers and phones -- plan to buy a new one every 2-3 years, and plan on only having the latest and greatest for about 12 minutes after you get it.

Wrong. HD speed improvements have been pretty flat, and has been far outpaced by HD capacity which is closer to Moore's Law. SSD offers a nice boost in speed. Don't just throw around Moore's Law as if you know something.

Moore's Law, as originally stated, is that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months. Flash memory is definitely on that trajectory, and SSD controllers look like they can make good use of increased transistor counts for a few generations.

My comment was directed to Matt_Cutts' complaint that he didn't know when to buy an SSD. I don't think it matters exactly when you buy one. (Though I personally am waiting to see how Intel's 25nm SSDs compare to those based on the SandForce SF-2000 controller around Jan/Feb 2011. Maybe I should practice what I preach.)

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