Hardware question for Clevo folks : Buy now or wait SSD

Hi guys,

new user here. I am tech-savvy but a newb regarding notebook stuff. I thought I would try it here first before going to Hardware sub-forum because folks here are nice

I am looking at the Clevo model later this summer and had a question for the people here...

I have been eyeing SSD drives and there have been some really nice price drops recently so I was wondering if I should jump on the current deals or wait until this summer hoping for further price drops?

Future setup would be something like the p150EM / Ivy Bridge i7 / 7970m kind of setup with either mSATA or SSD primary.

 

Well SSD prices have been falling, but I don't know what they will be like in the future. If you don't have a laptop now, I would just wait until about the time that you purchase one and see how prices are. My guess is they will either go down a little bit more, or stay where they are right now.

With so many manufacturers producing SSDs, there is tons of competition.

 

The deals right now are good, however waiting wouldn't be a bad choice either. The prices can only drop more, unless there's another flood where there's factories

 

Thanks for the replies. I know that in the tech world... waiting is always becomes the cheapest solution! I'll stay put but man the Crucial drives are really testing my willpower. My current Macbook could use a refresher before I put out for pasture tho!

There was one factor that made me hesitate was the Samsung F4 drives that stagnated last year but it was due to the flooding.

Thanks again and I am sitting tight for the Ivy Bridge and GTX 680m / 7970 debate to finish up. It will really depend on how much the nVidia card will be over the 7970m and mainly at what cost! Final motivation for waiting is money constraint

 

Just saying, my plan is getting a new one with ivy and 7970, and then buying an ssd myself

 

Same here. I am hesitating a bit because I do have a 320 GB hardrive on my macbook but I *am* lazy about cleaning up the drive. I have movies/music that can easily be on the NAS and photography projects that could be on a e-sata drive.

I don't know if I can be disciplined enough to stay with a 250 GB drive optical bay switch notwithstanding...

I guess I have a 2nd question then... I am out of the computer tech loop for a bit, so how fast can external BR player be compared to internal ones? I would only use the optical drive to backup my media and the occasionnal game install

 

An external model will be just as fast as an internal model, even over USB 2.0. Optical media is just slow in general. For example, even the fastest burners at 12x speed will only use 432Mb/s. (see a full chart here: Blu-ray Disc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. USB 2.0 is rated for 480Mb/s. Both of these are theoretical because you rarely see burning speeds that high or USB speeds that fast in the real world.

Of note though is that when burning a disk, most external drives require two USB ports to provide enough power, so that needs to be taken into consideration as well. An unpowered hub won't cut it.

 

@ Anthony

That is food for thought... I have used my CD drive 2, maybe 3 times during the 4 years that I have had this CPU. I do not see a scenario where it would be much more in the future!

Now the final question is to mSATA or not !!!!!

 

I wanted both the storage space of a full HDD and the speed of an SSD, so I decided to get both.

After pricing them out, I decided to order the laptop with the default 500GB 7200 HDD and toss in an SSD I'd get elsewhere. I went with a Crucial 128 GB m4 for just under $130, which was about $40 less than getting the intel 60gb drive from the reseller.

I figure it won't be too terrible to install, and not only do I save money; I get better performance too! Extra Bonus!

 

Since you barely used your optical drive don't go the mSATA route.
You can go by with an external optical drive or just swap the HDD caddy whenever you need to install the OS or whatever.
Buy a SSD now to start enjoying it, it seems that the SSD tech will reach a plateau and start fading in ~ 10 years.

 

With other threads concerning mSata drives, I have nixed that idea. I'll go SSD primary with a storage secondary drive. With the other advice from the board, I will probably also go with external usb/esata bluray drive.

I'll give a big thanks to this board for helping me on some of decisions...now time to play the waiting game!

 

mSata is better than normal SSD in some respects. It consumes less power I believe..?

 

In no aspects what so ever, the power difference is so small, you won't even feel it. Someday maybe, but not now

 

As far as I have seen analyst (not that those people know anything) say the prices will keep going down. New processes come online and reduce the price gradually, but they think that in addition the big players are looking to exert some pressure to kill off some of the smaller players.

 

Same for me bro. I'm waiting a month or two to spot a good SSD deal since I think it might be possible to find one for <$0.75/gb. By that time people should have already gotten their 7970m 9150s and posted feedback on how well it runs.

 

SSDs have already touched 75 cents / gb so you dont have to wait too long.

 

I've made up my mind and the next time the crucial or mushkin 256 GB hit 200$, i am pulling the trigger.

SSD have come down so much thatvthe extra incremental drop is not worth it for me

I can't wait for the new job so that I can buy more toys!