there is a third party
maker that makes
a ready boost version
for xp.
it's about 50 bucks.
-------------
they really act like
the hibernation feature
and you require usb
flash drives that are
twice the size of your
ram to provide the
full benefit.
also, flash drives come
in two flavors:
those that are ready
boost ready
and those that are
not.
-------------
one day microsoft
will hire the smart guy
who develops a rom
level hibernation.
but it will be a long
time til then.
An SSD drive would be about the same speed as RAM and would easily
run rings around a mechanical hard drive. It's pretty much a given.
However if the reason for the slowdown isn't known, an expensive SSD
drive might simply cover up a problem if an inexperienced user tries
it because he has nothing to reference the performance to. It might
still be a slow, half borked system, but the user won't know that
because of the speed increase. A new install would be much better
than an image containing all the collected problems and speed killers
of the last xx months.
In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:11:50 -0700:
Nor all SSD are equal for one. For example:
1) SLC type lasts 100,000 or more complete writes
2) MLC type lasts 5,000 to 10,000 complete writes
Secondly if you want to limit the number of writes, this is easy to do.
Just turning off System Restore and a swapfile is a very big help right
there.
Thirdly, you can totally stop all writes if you want to by merging MS
EWF files into your Windows XP.
I have seen heavy use of MLC SSD die in a year or two. They usually have
a warrantee of one year. SLC SSD should last 10 years plus without
problems. Although if you limit writing, you will be long dead before
you ever wear one of them out.
Thanks for the info. Do you know whether my OCZSSD2-1VTX120G Vertex
Series 120GB SATA II SSD is SLC or MLC?
Assuming that mine is SLC, and noting that I'm 72 years old, I *may*
be long dead before I wear it out.
Ken Blake said:There may eventually be such an issue, but I haven't experienced it so
far. Perhaps I'm taking my chances with it, but I've been very happy
with the performance.
In
From what I've read it'll happen over a relatively short period of
time compared to mechanicals but you also get some extra time out of
it because it quits using the bad "sectors" and moves over to other
good ones. That goes on until there's no space left unless you're
watching it. I know of some SSD drives in a CT business (UTC) where
my son works, where they're being used but not on the system drives;
so far not a problem anywhere. They're surprisingly cheap bought in
quantity which tells us, I think, prime time isn't too far off.
They're using 64 Gig drives right now; really tiny in size!
Twayne`
In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:55:10 -0700:
A Google search seems to suggest it is a MLC type. But I don't know for
sure. At first, SLC type was used for SSDs, but they were really
expensive. Since then MLC type has been improving in technology and half
the price to manufacture. Plus SLC types are disappearing from the
marketplace recently.
Yes and I am about 20 years behind you. And I think the computer with
SSD will most likely be so outdated that you wouldn't use it anyway
before it fails.
Actually if you can believe the specs of SSDs, a manufacture claims the
MTBF is 227 years. And HDD are only less than 37 years.
I'm always reluctant to believe MTBF claims. They may be correct, but
with numbers as high as 227 years, I have no confidence in them.
BillW50 said:In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:28:51 -0700:
Same here, but I have done the math. If every cell of a SSD can be
written to 100,000 times, it would take a person overwriting the whole
SSD 24 times a day for 11 years before you would wear one out. That is a
lot of writing. So I can see the average user might get 227 years out of
one.
So I guess the bottom line is it sounds like there's really no issue
with using the SSDs to replace conventional HDs except for the price
(no matter which type, but skipping the DRAM ones, which don't seem
useful for the general consumer).
IOW, they will outlast any conventional HD (no matter what type of
SSD), and are certainly a lot faster. I'm still not sure about the
permanence of of the data stored in flash memory in terms of its
shelf life (or maybe that was expressed in its MTBF stats), but I'm
guessing that's not an real issue, either, in comparison to the
mechanical drives.
Ken Blake said:I'm always reluctant to believe MTBF claims. They may be correct, but
with numbers as high as 227 years, I have no confidence in them.
In
MTBFs are a little like statistics; you can make them say different things
at different times. Folks should remember the calcs for MTBFs are usually
for laboratory conditions of a controlled environment, etc. etc.. I
wouldn't expect to see an SSD drive last 200 years in use any more than I
would a HDD last 37 years in use. Whether it's alpha migration or physical
parts wear, neither comes out very "real" in MTBF calcs. Grease dries,
irradiation degrades and all that good stuff. I've never seen a single
instance of a product making its MTBF numbers, have you? MTBF is really
only useful (sometimes) as a comparison factor, not real numbers.
Like in the G's tests, you have no idea how the products were dropped if
they don't say so and there are many different ways of speccing how to
calculate (not measure) them.
I used to have to do a lot of MTBF on my designs and I hated it; it felt
like lying to the customers because marketing always hyped it as how long
the product would last, which it definitely is not. You CAN do actual-use
calcs for MTBFs, but it's expensive and time consuming so all most engineers
do is use the means of the various parts within a product. It has its uses,
but not in advertising, marketing or anything for the public, in reality.
Cheers,
Twayne`
Actually, HD MTBF numbers are PURE statistics!
From what I've read it'll happen over a relatively short period of time
compared to mechanicals but you also get some extra time out of it because
it quits using the bad "sectors" and moves over to other good ones. That
goes on until there's no space left unless you're watching it. I know of
some SSD drives in a CT business (UTC) where my son works, where they're
being used but not on the system drives; so far not a problem anywhere.
They're surprisingly cheap bought in quantity which tells us, I think, prime
time isn't too far off. They're using 64 Gig drives right now; really tiny
in size!
Twayne`
Bob I said:Actually, HD MTBF numbers are PURE statistics!
Do they not have the equivalent of SMART?
I'd be very interested in going SSD as my main drive, but the
lifespan is always what scares me. I want my data to be relatively
safe. Being that the technology is newer than a hard drive is what
worries me since I have no experience with it.
SMART attributes aren't always a good measure of a drive I'm told.
Different programs read differently. I'm monitoring my drives at work
and they list 33% health left. I still had a Windows 98 machine
running here up until a few months ago with the original hard drive.