Ask HN: Are you using SSDs already ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=923558

by jacquesm • 17 years ago

10 8 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hello HNers,

It looks like we are about to say goodbye to magnetic media. The price difference right now is still definitely there, a factor of about 20...25. But the biggest drives are no longer magnetic, they're solid state (4T!), and prices are coming down very fast.

By my reckoning by 2015 or so we will think about our magnetic harddisks with the same fondness now reserved for CRTs.

Are you already using SSDs ?

What is your experience with them ? Positive ? Negative ?

How do you feel about the price/performance ?

What applications do you use SSDs for and for which things do you think magnetic storage will be a hold-out ?

simanyay• 17 years ago

Switched recently to the Intel X25-M. Experience is very, very positive. My computer now boots in less than 15 seconds and Apple Mail opens in less than a second.

The price was pretty high when I bought it (it went down since then) but it is worth every penny.

ScottWhigham• 17 years ago

Same here but on Windows Server 2008 R2. I tried Windows 7 but I didn't like it and went to Windows 2008 R2. I don't like it either but have invested too much time in installs lol. I like "plain old Windows 2008 without all the Windows 7 taskbar shit and other 'upgrades to the user experience'"

johng• 17 years ago

Just put an X25M G2 into my 17" Macbook Pro. Boots and program loads are super snappy. Don't do anything too serious with the machine, no gaming so other then that it just seems snappy.

kamme• 17 years ago

I've been thinking about buying a X25-M, but prices are a bit too high for me at the moment. I'd better go to the US for a day and buy all the gadgets/computer equipment I want and go back, it will be cheaper then buying everything here in europe (plus it's good for the US economy!)

sp332• 17 years ago

Come on up to New Hampshire then, we don't even have sales tax on electronics!

spiffage• 17 years ago

I've been using a Macbook with a SSD for about a year (mainly for coding in Eclipse), and it's noticeably snappier than my desktop machine with a magnetic drive. It was definitely worth the cost for the productivity boost.

jasonwatkinspdx• 17 years ago

I've been using a SSD in a 2nd gen macbook pro for a couple weeks now. Huge improvement in system responsiveness.

Basically: it makes beach-balls go away.

If you look at the projections you'll see disk maintains a slight edge in capacity cost. Spinning disks will still be around for very cold data, much like how magnetic tape still finds a home in large data centers. (see the FAWN paper, Memory Cloud paper or the 2 sequels to Gray's 5 minute rule).

goodkarma• 17 years ago

I've been wanting a SSD for weeks now. I think hard drive speed is why Windows XP is running so slow for me (via VMWare on my Mac).

Downside is I've got a 320 Gb hard drive so need something somewhat comparable. Bigger SSDs are still not cheap! Saw the 250 Gb ones on Amazon for about $600. Almost bought it yesterday, but decided to wait until after my next trip..

Ask HN: Are you using SSDs already ?

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