[GTALUG] Looking for SSD HD

Giles Orr gilesorr at gmail.com
Tue Nov 22 22:02:33 EST 2016


On 22 November 2016 at 19:44, Kevin Cozens via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
> Greetings, everyone.
>
> I have a laptop that I don't use that often which runs Windows 10. It has
> killed 3 regular hard drives since I've had it. I don't know if it is
> getting bumped and causing a head crash, or if it is a power related thing.
> Windows will seem to lock up on me so I force a power off by holding down
> the power button. After that I have trouble with the HD when I try to turn
> the machine on again.
>
> I don't think the laptop has been getting any more shock or vibration than
> my old laptop which had a mother board failure. These newer higher capacity
> drives may be more sensitive or it may be related to forcing power off when
> the machine locked up.
>
> I'm thinking of switching to an SSD instead of a regular HD. I don't want to
> spend a ton of money as I don't use the laptop much. It would be to run
> Windows natively on occasion instead of via emulation. (I run Win XP via
> virtualbox on my main computer to use a Windows only 3D modelling program).
>
> I would like an SSD with a capacity of around 250GB (or more) and not spend
> too much more than $100. I don't really want to get in to spending $200+. I
> might be able to get away with a 120GB HD as I don't expect to put a lot of
> programs on the machine.
>
> I'm still concerned about how SSDs can wear out with use. My knowledge of
> SSDs may be a bit out of date. When using Linux I remember people saying you
> have to turn off atime and mtime (IIRC) to minimize wearing out the SSD too
> quickly. I don't know what equivalent tweaks may be needed when running
> Windows.
>
> Any suggestions for drives I should consider? Any ones I should avoid?

Three dead drives?  I'd be concerned that the problem isn't impact or
the drives, but possibly the laptop itself supplying an over-voltage
or otherwise doing something evil to the drives.  If that (admittedly
wild) guess is correct, changing to an SSD may just see you burning
out an SSD in record time.

I have no idea how to test for such a problem, but I thought it might
be worth considering.  Good luck.

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com


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