SSD or Hybrid?

General Computing Hardware & Networking
1

Has anyone had any experience with the Seagate Hybrid drives? I’m looking to upgrade a laptop drive but I’m not sure I can cope with 64GB of space.

I’m sure I COULD but means I cant have all my music on the drive:ghey:

I imagine it’s worth the trade off and going for the pure SSD instead of the extra drive? From looks, either would beat my current laptop drive.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :    59.919 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    59.910 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :    24.950 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    29.013 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.323 MB/s [    78.8 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     0.948 MB/s [   231.4 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     0.340 MB/s [    83.1 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     0.927 MB/s [   226.2 IOPS]

  Test : 100 MB [C: 22.1% (65.9/298.1 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2011/01/05 14:42:31
    OS : Windows XP Professional SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)
2

Been keeping half an eye on these although I’ve had no experience personally…

For desktops I think it’s best to go for SSD + HDD… however for a lappy if you only have 1 drive slot available then the hybrid seems the perfect solution :thumbsup:

3

That was my thinking - the hybrid does seem to be better suited to the laptop where I might need the space. But then do I need the space that much? I mean after all, my laptop is used for working on documents - I have about 4GB of them of an estimate. It’s only my 30-40GB music collection that provides a pain.

At work, not really an issue as I have an external drive connected and I have solutions in place at home though on the move I’d be “musicless” - though that’s where an MP3 player comes in hand!. I think that’s the only limiting factor (as I’d be putting linux on this and 64GB for linux is plenty!)

I think the easiest option is pure SSD - would stop the sodding laptop pausing if anyone hits the table :frowning:

Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

4

Spotify removes the need to keep taking the music around with you, mind you so does a mp3 player :smiley:

DT.

5

Spotify might be blocked by Surf Control if used in a business environment. I know where I’ve worked that the network admins tend to lock down certain web sites…

6

Usb stick? :wink:

7

I’m not convinced on the hybrid drives based on reviews I saw, but they might not be representative of state of the art in that department. I’d go either extreme, either conventional for capacity, or SSD for performance.

If the laptop has a memory card reader of some kind could the music be stored on a card in there? Otherwise just manually juggle what you want to listen to rather than copy everything.

8

Bingo.

The thought occurred to me whilst I was eating tea and saw a camera advert on TV. A USB stick is a a nice idea but unless I get a small one (like this HP one I bought from Play a few weeks back, it’s a bit awkward and messy) manually swapping and changing is good as well, especially now that Dropbox has selective sync.

Spotify does the job but I don’t like the business model. If I want to pay for stuff, I want to own it (alright I don’t technically own my downloaded MP3’s, but it lets me use them where ever and whenever) and I’m not tied down to using a PC or phone to play music.

Now to deicde if I want a ~30GB drive or a 64GB :nod:

9

Just pressed order on an OCZ Vertex 2 64GB (read ~285Mbps ~275Mbps write). :slight_smile:

10

Nice one. I’d love one of them. If this job pans out, I’ll start build on the tower case later on in the year and this will be one of those things on my shopping list for sure.