In
news:118800f7-dc61-4538-9918-f64e8cfaf6e6@t11g2000vbc.googlegroups.com,
Roy typed on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:09:47 -0700 (PDT):
> Hello group
> I want toknow more about the beneifits for newer solid state drives
> for laptops.
> if the C drive is SSDS ( Flash type) would the boot upspeed increase
> dramatically if compared to the standard Disk type Hard drive.
> This is my concern as I want to get a laptop with SSD drive and don't
> know if the price for a laptop having that is worth it.

SSD are generally faster for random access and usually slower for
sequential access. And booting falls under random access.

> Aside from being shock proof( IIRC) what are the other advantages of
> this so called Solid state drives versus their disk type counterpart?

Well defragging is futile with a SSD. So no need to do that.

> How about durability and risk of drive failure are there already known
> issues with these kind of storage facilties?

Hard drives can fail in a couple of days (rare, but it happens) and SSD
can fail in a couple of days too (also rare, but can happen). The
important thing is SSD longevity is mostly govern by write cycles. A SLC
SSD lasts for 100,000 complete writes. Meaning if you overwrote the
whole SSD 24 times per day, it would take 11 years to burn it out.
Normal use though, it would take 227 years to get there.

The MLC SSD is a cheaper version and has far worse going for it. It only
last 5,000 to 10,000 complete writes. Worse it has an erase cycle and it
can take like 20 seconds to write 2kb if it needs to use the erase
cycle.

> How about supposing a desktop replacement system is equipped with
> three drives and one or two are SSD type, what are other benefits can
> it confer.

Boots faster, no need to defrag, and vibrations isn't a problem (they
use them for Space Shuttle launches).

> Could it still be configured to Raid 5 assuming the drives
> have equal capacities?
> TIA

Got me there Roy. I never tried that.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC