SSDs. Just... wow!

[Brian Elfert]

I believe Google allows one to have a backup email address in case of issues with your primary email address. If you're concerned about a service going away sign up for multiple free cloud accounts and keep your documents in multiple locations. I use Norton Ghost to make a nightly backup of the SSD in my laptop to an external drive. Unfortunately this does not protect me in case of fire or other disaster.

[Chuck Wintle]

I'm not a fan of the "Cloud" for my important files , as soon as your connection is lost then no access
And the idea that someone else has my files & I don't have complete control over them is disturbing to me
You my feel different but I'm funny about my privacy & who can access my files
I like the new mini servers that act as a the "Cloud" in your own house that has personal encryption that you are the only one with the key
I'm gonna be getting one soon

The idea that any of my files are stored on a server somewhere in cyberspace makes me cringe, as I also do not like the cloud for the possible privacy infringement that it may allow. As you said, if the network goes down so does access to these files.

[Chuck Wintle]

Built a new computer this past week in an attempt to get some more horsepower for some upcoming design work. I decided to go for an SSD for the OS drive this time around... absolutely amazing. After POST, I'm at the login screen in under 3 seconds. Simply amazing.

Here's what I have (not a huge powerhouse, but pretty snappy overall):
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 MB
Intel i5-3570K
2x Kingston HyperX 8GB RAM
2x Western Digital Black 1TB HDD (in RAID1 mode)
Samsung 840 Pro SSD - 256GB
GeForce GTX 750 Ti video
Other bits/baubles (cooler, SeaSonic power supply, etc.)

It has taken me several days to set it up to run off of the SSD properly (to avoid early death), latest drivers loaded, etc., and I'm just now getting some of my favorite programs loaded up. Other than missing a letter in the model number and receiving laptop memory initially, the total is around $1,300. Next up will be a second 24" PixelPerfect monitor from Dell and a dual-monitor arm. All in, it looks like a $2k haul.

they will replace regular hard d rives in the near future in my opinion.

[Howard Garner]

The idea that any of my files are stored on a server somewhere in cyberspace makes me cringe, as I also do not like the cloud for the possible privacy infringement that it may allow. As you said, if the network goes down so does access to these files.

And just think what "joys" you can have if your using software based on the cloud. Or software that MUST verify every time before it can be used.

Howard Garner

[Michael Mahan]

And just think what "joys" you can have if your using software based on the cloud. Or software that MUST verify every time before it can be used.

Howard Garner

Yeah ,think that New Google laptop for one IIRC it only has a 16Gb drive

[Tom Stenzel]

I thought I read about drives that were part magnetic part solid state and gave the benefits of both. Does anyone have one of those or are those enterprise type gear?

-Tom

[Brett Luna]

Built a new computer this past week in an attempt to get some more horsepower for some upcoming design work. I decided to go for an SSD for the OS drive this time around... absolutely amazing. After POST, I'm at the login screen in under 3 seconds. Simply amazing.

That does look like a snappy system. I recently built a new system myself with the same SSD you have but in the 500GB flavor and a 4770 (non-K) CPU. Between that the the 16GB of RAM, Sketchup sure behaves a lot better than on my 5-year-old system. I also do a bit of flight simming and the SSD sure helps with that, too.

I thought I read about drives that were part magnetic part solid state and gave the benefits of both. Does anyone have one of those or are those enterprise type gear?

They're called hybrid hard drives or SSHDs and as the name suggests, they include the guts of a traditional hard drive, plus a small capacity SSD (4 or 8GB is pretty common) that's kind of a drive cache on steroids. Frequently used data gets stored on the SSD resulting in better speed, while less frequently used (and new) data is accessed at typical HDD speeds. I wouldn't consider them enterprise gear at all. SSHDs cost a bit more than traditional HDDs but much less than SSDs.

[Matt Meiser]

We had a customer who insisted on using an SSD in a PC that was running SQL Server. Everything about that screamed big problems but it did have transnational replication with a server-class backup machine and the application would automatic failover to the backup so we reluctantly agreed. This was on a refrigerator assembly line and we were storing a bunch of data about every refrigerator down the line which got built upon at numerous stations. The data was stored until the unit was shipped then moved elsewhere. Last I heard, about 2 years after we put it in, it was still running.