SSD or External HDD?

G'day,
Well, I just checked and it's 61 days til Christmas! In past I have tried to decide whether I get a new laptop, or keep this bad boy... Well, I've maybe decided to keep my current Latitude... I made a wish list, (which yes, will be sent to Santa!!) and on it is a lot of things, but two which are listed next to each other with question marks next to them is the SSD or External HDD.

The SSD is only 64GB but the External HDD is 2TB. Also on my list is a 320GB HDD. Should I go with the SSD for my laptop, or the External HDD?

Here are the links:
Kingston SSDNOW V SNV425 64GB SSD 200Mbps 2.5" SATA HDD
Astone WD 2TB External Hard Disk Drive eSATA USB HDD

BTW, I'd buy a 2nd HDD Bay for the other HDD.

Cheers,
Joel.

 

If you don't already have an external HDD, then get one. End of.

Otherwise the SSD has merits. Can you get a second caddy to put your old drive in your laptop before purchase cos they can be difficult to obtain.

And before anyone else throws this in, now about a Momentus XT. not so great if your into data security or multibooting but otherwise....

And let me be the first to wish you a Merry Chrimbo!

 

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I can get a second caddy to put my old drive in... They are around $20 on eBay AU.

It was to my knowledge that the Momentus XT was expensive, but looking on eBay I can get a 500GB one for around $170. However, my question about them, are they any useful? It only has 4GB of solid state storage, what is this exactly for?

 

The idea is that the most frequently used 4gig of files are copied to this storage where they have the speed of a SSD. And the other files are available at normal 7200rpm speeds. So some of the time they give you the speed of a SSD and you still have a large capacity drive..

Overall performance is between that of a SSD and conventional drive. Lots of folk swear by them but they have a couple of disadvantages. You can't easily wipe files from the SSD part so in theory someone could steal the drive and access your otherwise wiped data. Also if you dual/triple/quad etc boot then the spped increase is less cos the 4gig is split between different OSs. If you do seriously think about one do a bit of research first to make sure it's right for you.

 

Yeah, I'll look into them as it seems pretty good. Thanks for the reply.

 

+ 1 for Seagate Momentus XT. Best price/performance at the moment.

The Kingston you're looking at is a bit faster but power consumption is quite high.

 

Thanks, I'll defiantly look into the Momentus XT.

 

OCZ Vertex II 2.5" 60GB SATA II Solid State Drives SSD (eBay item 190429915077 end time 09-Nov-10 21:35:31 AEDST) : Computers

If you were going for an SSD.

 

Thanks for the link... I guess when searching for one I didn't do too much searching! Oh well. It's added to My Watch List

 

And I thought us Canadians are getting screwed over royally for the price. Now that AUD:CAD is almost 1:1 I looked at your reply saying you could get a 500GB for "almost $170 on ebay" and almost choked cause it's $119 CAD off the shelf here, and then I looked up your location (Yeah by the coordinates you put lol) then searched for prices in Australia and OMG

 

Cheaper here if you do decide to go with the SSD

OCZ Vertex 2 60GB E Series SSD [OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G] - $155.00 : PC Case Gear

If you go for storage, you can grab a WD 2TB Green for $110~ and buy a enclosure for $30~

The momentus XT is if you want a middle ground for both.

lol yes we generally pay much more (up to 2.5x more) for electronics compared to the prices in the US.

 

Joel,

This is my concern: you seem to need a data drive and although you can get a caddy to put in a second HD in your notebook, this is the worst possible solution (as a backup system).

Why? Because all your data is in one physical place - inside the notebook. If the notebook is (knock on wood) stolen, dropped, or even zapped (power surge) etc. chances are that both drives would be toast. Even if one is an SSD; your archive data is on the most 'fragile' HD inside: the mechanical one.

I hope you can see that as a 'backup/archive solution' this is not the best idea.

With a 2TB external, you are a lot more covered with your data (if you consistently do backups!) but frankly while safer, this is also boring! (Still recommend this route if you have a lot of data to archive though...).

With an 500GB XT though, you can use your current HD as your backup if you get an external enclosure for it and still have 80% of the speed of an SSD (without the capacity limitations) of your most used programs.

Overall, I think that the best of all worlds may be to find a 250GB XT Hybrid, a 1TB external and a caddy to use your existing HD as a second HD inside your notebook. Would these prices add up attractively for you?

Then, not only will you have increased your notebook's performance - but you'll have a solid backup system in place too (with your most current data on two or three different drives - the XT, the orig. HD and the 1TB external).

Just make sure that you do your backups, consistently!

Note that I'm assuming that you can physically put two HD's inside your notebook (but you can't buy a 2nd HDD bay for your notebook, right?).

BTW, I'm not sure what Nankuru is trying to say about 'security' with the XT's. Since all the operating system sees is a single 500GB drive - and the nand is constantly updated with the most recently read data - it would be a pretty sophisticated attack on an XT to be able to see what the nand is/was holding.

Good luck.

 

I suggest a 2TB external. I am loving my 2TB WD Elements. It was only US $120 shipped.

 

Some info I hope you will find useful....

Here are some videos of a SSD install, and the speed differences (although on a MAC, but will give you the general idea.....)...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/app...40gb-vertex-ssd-installed-video-included.html

If you are going for an external HDD, I cant recommend this enough!

YouTube - WD My Book Studio Edition II 4TB - Hard Disk Replacement

Comes in 2 configurations - 2x1TB discs, or 2x2TB discs. Both with built in RAID.

 

Thanks for the reply... Very well thought out I must say. If I was going SSD route, I would only use that for OS and Programs, and use the 2nd HDD for data - Which, as you said, can be rather unsafe.
Just to make it clear, I can buy a 2nd HDD bay to go into the media bay of my notebook.

Awesome, thanks for that link. I found a 1TB External HDD on eBay and that should be plenty, I don't even know why I'm looking at a 2TB one. lol.

Haha, yes, our prices are quite ridiculous!

Thanks for those.