

Ask HN: Are you using SSDs already ? - jacquesm

Hello HNers,<p>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.<p>By my reckoning by 2015 or so we will think about our magnetic harddisks with the same fondness now reserved for CRTs.<p>Are you already using SSDs ?<p>What is your experience with them ? Positive ? Negative ?<p>How do you feel about the price/performance ?<p>What applications do you use SSDs for and for which things do you think magnetic storage will be a hold-out ?
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simanyay
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.

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ScottWhigham
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'"

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kamme
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!)

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sp332
Come on up to New Hampshire then, we don't even have sales tax on electronics!

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spiffage
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.

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jasonwatkinspdx
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).

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goodkarma
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..

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johng
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.

