Flatworm, your obviously a big fan of SSD’s, and that’s OK. However, I work on my clients computers constantly, and I have a different view. That’s OK too, we are all entitled to our own opinions.
For my clients, the MTBF is immaterial, what they want is the best price. I know this first hand. One of my clients called me to ask about the SSD in a laptop he was looking at. I checked it out, and it was a good drive. Lots of four, and five star reviews, but it was a 500 MB drive.
When I told him I thought that the drive looked good for a 500 MB drive, his first question was “What’s the price difference to a standard (mechanical) drive?” I had anticipated this question, and gave him the price of the laptop with a 1TB mechanical drive. No surprise to me, he opted for the mechanical drive.
In the early days of the SSD’s some of my clients did go for them, despite the price difference. Of the three that did, one had his drive suddenly go south, and lost everything on his laptop. Despite my nagging, he didn’t have a good back up routine. He opted to replace it with a 1TB mechanical drive, rather than a new SSD.
My other two clients bought tablets with SSD’s, and still bemoan the lack of storage compared with their laptops. Though I told them that a tablet was a far different beast than a laptop, or convertible, they wanted to be on the cutting edge of technology, and got cut.
As to your statement that “You save more in the first WEEK of productivity to pay the difference.” Well, most of my clients use good old mouse & keyboard PC’s, and over the last couple of years I have upgraded, and optimised most of their hard drives, to 2 to 4TB models, depending on what they are using them for. I have yet had a complaint that the computer was too slow, that I couldn’t fix with a tune up.
That’s what I do. I no longer build, or sell computers, I just service them. Admittedly, mostly to the clients that I originally sold some computers too, but as I said I’m out of that end of the business now. I do upgrades, repairs, and consult on policy’s, like what server would best suit them, and if they should go with a NAS, or external hard drive.
One client was all Gung Ho about getting a 10TB NAS (because he had been reading an online article about them) when all he needed was a 4TB external hard drive with a good backup program that would run scheduled backups every night. I think I saved him around $800.00.
But back to your complaints about my post. Perhaps I’m just old, and set in my ways, but I just don’t see the need for a SSD in a non-tablet, when mechanical drives are getting so big, and so inexpensive. I made that clear when I compared the 2TB WD Green mechanical drive ($95.99), to the 1TB Samsung SSD ($464.00).
Admittedly that was for the WD 3.5” desktop drive, as opposed to the Samsung 2.5” drive, but you get my point. You are right about the 2TB SSD’s coming on line, but at $799.99 for the Samsung 850 EVO 2TB MZ75E2T0, compared to $139.99 for the Samsung Seagate Spinpoint M9T (ST2000LM003) 2TB 2.5" Hard drive (OEM), it makes a lot of difference to the average computer buyer.
My first year comment was not to say that this is the first year that SSD’s have been around. It was referring to the fact that this is the first year that they, and the mechanical drives can be compared on an equal footing in terms of size. I’m glad you’re getting four years out of your SSD system drive. I have an old laptop that I use for testing purposes, it has had the same 500MB mechanical drive in it for fifteen years now. When I bought it, it came with Window ME on it. It now runs with Windows XP Pro on it. It never gets connected to the internet.
I will disagree with you about the correct way to configure a computer these days. A tablet, or convertible sure, but unless you are a hard core gamer, there is no immediate need to install a SSD in your laptop, or desk top. And this includes the Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive.
As to your last paragraph, regarding my ignorance about a topic, well perhaps now you know me a little better, and where I’m coming from (the business world). Just because we differ in our opinions does not make either of us “pristinely ignorant”. It just means we have different opinions. As for advertising ones shortcomings, I think attacking someone, and calling them names just because they disagree with your cherished beliefs, says much more about you, than it does me.
Regards,
Mr. Windows