[Dazzler]

Dazz

Since you are using a vintage PC with the performance of a slug I have typed this message slowly so you will be able to read it.

It's a couple of years old, but an i5 with 8gb of Ram. I only load programs I use on the boot drive so the 128SSD was never much more than half full.

I love the responsiveness of SSD. My laptop is about 18 months old and the SSD drive in that (only 128gb) is still going fine I save everything to SD card and also to my NAS drive.

[AlanHo]

Nothing exceeds like excess. 

You would be about the only other person I know other of than my good self who takes backup seriously. What version of Acronis are you using? I'm still on True Image 2010.

I use True Image 2014. It seems to be 2010 with a modified interface to simplify the operations.  More user friendly except for an annoying auto file name habit. It's not easy to force it to use a manually entered file name.

[rustynutz]

Haven't yet found I need extra speed anywhere.

Trev, if you decide you do want something a bit faster and don't want to spend a fortune, these are a cheap option and while nowhere near as fast as an ssd they are quite a bit faster than your standard run of the mill hard drive...

Western Digital Veloci Raptor 160GB Sata 10000 RPM WD1600HLFS HDD | eBay

[Surferdude]

Haven't yet found I need extra speed anywhere.

Trev, if you decide you do want something a bit faster and don't want to spend a fortune, these are a cheap option and while nowhere near as fast as an ssd they are quite a bit faster than your standard run of the mill hard drive...

Western Digital Veloci Raptor 160GB Sata 10000 RPM WD1600HLFS HDD | eBay

Thanks Rusty. I'm not likely to anytime soon though. I use my computer for e-mail, storing and processing photos, web surfing and Word and Excel (with occasional Powerpoint stuff) and watching some catchup TV.
The only time speed catches me out is on some HD Youtube vids but I that would be web access (ADSL1) rather than anything in the computer.

[Dazzler]

Hybrid drives (part SSD/part HDD) are coming down in price. If the SSD in my Laptop dies, I may replace it with one of those.

[Phil №❶]

What happens when the SSD part of the SSDHDD fails or the HDD part of the SSDHDD fails. You lose a functioning SSD or HDD. 

[The Gonz]

I've seen too many likelihoods of catastrophic failure and short lifespan to entertain SSD as viable yet, and my performance demands are very modest anyway, especially with a lean, efficient Linux.

[Phil №❶]

Woof 

[The Gonz]

Woof 

[Aussie Keith]

I've seen too many likelihoods of catastrophic failure and short lifespan to entertain SSD as viable yet, and my performance demands are very modest anyway, especially with a lean, efficient Linux.

The tech is much improved over the first gen, far more reliable these days. I have had ssd's running in both the htpc and a routerboth running 24/7 for well over 2 years now with no issues. And yet I know they fall over quickly if too small a device is used which is likely the case when they were small and expensive.

[Phil №❶]

 

Why do they fall over AK ?

I thought the benefit of SSD was that defrag is unnecessary and allocation of data over the many sectors was a non physical thing, therefore more reliable.

As some of you know, I am a keen PWS (Private Weather Station) enthusiast and have my own weather station running Cumulus which collects data and uploads it to a website.

Well, there is quite a bit of discussion on the Cumulus forum about Win 8.  Just today I read with interest this piece of info about an upgrade coming soon to Windows 8:

Breaking news (via Windows Secrets newsletter of 27 march 2014);
Major update for Windows 8.1 coming soon
At next week's Build 2014 developers' conference in San Francisco, Microsoft will reportedly release its update to Windows 8.1. Apparently, Windows 8.1.1 (as it's unofficially called) will arrive via Windows Update and not the Windows Store. (Windows 8.1 could be downloaded only from the Store.)
Based on previews, the update will be smarter about the type of computer it's on. It'll boot directly to the Desktop on those computers that don't have touch screens.

[plasticphyte]

Why do they fall over AK ?

I thought the benefit of SSD was that defrag is unnecessary and allocation of data over the many sectors was a non physical thing, therefore more reliable.

Consumer class SSD's fail mostly due to faults in their controllers.
Enterprise class SSD's in high write environments can fail due to high number of write cycles.

However if the SSD is from the very early generations, they can fail due to reaching the write life cycle of the memory chip.

Modern SSD's mitigate this by using TRIM, where the OS tells the SSD controller which blocks of data are no longer used, and can therefore be deleted.

SSD's also use wear levelling, where an SSD uses additional unadvertised space on the drive to ensure that the write cycles are spread evenly across the memory chips so as not to excessively write data to particular cells, and therefore wear that memory cell out prematurely.
For instance, a 256GB SSD may actually have another 20GB of space that is only available to the SSD controller.

The very interesting thing about modern SSD's is that data, once deleted, is gone for good. It is no longer retrievable. This video from Defcon 21 is a great watch, explaining why/how in more detail.



Also, just to clarify, Mac OS X is not built on Linux, rather it inherits genes from BSD, and NeXT OS.

[Phil №❶]

Interesting u tube. 

Well, if I had a SSD, encryption is the only key to security. 

[Shambles]

Based on previews, the update will be smarter about the type of computer it's on. It'll boot directly to the Desktop on those computers that don't have touch screens.

Useful info - that'll save 4 clicks

[Aussie Keith]

Also, just to clarify, Mac OS X is not built on Linux, rather it inherits genes from BSD, and NeXT OS.

Thank you for the clarification.

An amusing nerdy aside, years ago I worked at Bell Labs in Whippany New Jersey. In one room was many, many boxes of Red Hat.

[Aussie Keith]

Why do they fall over AK ?

I thought the benefit of SSD was that defrag is unnecessary and allocation of data over the many sectors was a non physical thing, therefore more reliable.

Consumer class SSD's fail mostly due to faults in their controllers.
Enterprise class SSD's in high write environments can fail due to high number of write cycles.

However if the SSD is from the very early generations, they can fail due to reaching the write life cycle of the memory chip.

Modern SSD's mitigate this by using TRIM, where the OS tells the SSD controller which blocks of data are no longer used, and can therefore be deleted.

SSD's also use wear levelling, where an SSD uses additional unadvertised space on the drive to ensure that the write cycles are spread evenly across the memory chips so as not to excessively write data to particular cells, and therefore wear that memory cell out prematurely.
For instance, a 256GB SSD may actually have another 20GB of space that is only available to the SSD controller.

The very interesting thing about modern SSD's is that data, once deleted, is gone for good. It is no longer retrievable. This video from Defcon 21 is a great watch, explaining why/how in more detail.

Defcon 21 - Data Evaporation from SSDs - YouTube

Also, just to clarify, Mac OS X is not built on Linux, rather it inherits genes from BSD, and NeXT OS.

Excellent explanation. This was the subject of much discussion on the untangle forums a while back when there was a spate of ssd failures in untangle appliances. The common factor was small capacity and lots of writes. In nearly every case, they were subject to controller failure.

In our Riverbed fleet the larger devices have banks of ssd's and I am yet to see a fault. They handle massive volumes of data. On the other hand we routinely swap out regular hard drives owing to disk faults. I am not sure what conclusion to draw from this and as I said my own ssd experience including two machines running 24/7 for years including the router which is constantly logging data has been exemplary.

Here is an interesting article:

The proper care and feeding of SSD storage | PCWorld

From which this snippet of hope:

That 'dead' drive may just be awaiting rescue

How is this possible? Many times, what seems like a hardware failure is actually a firmware failure. The controller simply encounters a situation it can't deal with, and locks up.

So maybe a firmware update can resurrect your "dead" drive. Of course, if its not communicating how to flash it?

[plasticphyte]

That's a great article there Keith. Has a nice straightforward explanation of how SSD's work.

My experience with SSD's has also been positive, however I have never filled one beyond 50% capacity, and never use it for anything more than my OS and temporary data storage. I do use it for my VM's, as I need the speed for them to be worthwhile running, but I'm never without a backup of anything critical.

[Surferdude]

This is as good a place to document the last 2 days or so.
Bought an HP laptop.
2.3GHz
4 GB RAM
500 GB HD (5400 IIRC).
Windows 8.1 

So, I set out to try to understand what was happening as it came. Disn't want to screw up anything making changes too early.
Most important things were.

Get the mail client working as close to Windows Live Mail as possible. And link Claire's existing 2 e-mail addresses. Google is your friend - but still took some doing and interpreting the various guides, then modifying accordingly.

Get rid of any unnecessary apps and place those we kept into a workable order. Learn how to relocate and resize.

Set up Skype and Firefox and import bookmarks.

Made good use of Dazz's Windows 8 Tips (many thanks Dazz  )

Finally, went to download that little program  Alan Ho uses to change the appearance of the start screen.
They wanted to charge me for it so I fished around and went with Classic Shell which is free and seems to do everything I wanted it to. Spent some time adding and removing the links I wanted off the Start Menu.  Looking pretty good ATM.

Most important thing has been to find a simple version of Solitaire.   I've got one but it's not completely the same as that in WXP. It seems to have automated some of the moves whereas Claire preferred to carry them out herself. Work in progress.

NOW!
The big next step.

Edumacate the regular user.

I'll update here as the progress unfolds.

Today was the first lesson.
Went better than I'd hoped for.
Claire is very intelligent and picks things up quickly but she has developed a bit of a phobia about computers and technology - more on the basis of she doesn't need it than she can't do it.

And most importantly, I worked out how to copy the old, original W/XP Solitaire into W8, so it runs off the desktop.
Only real problem ATM is I still haven't got it right as far as accessing her iinet e-mail through Windows Mail (8.1). It recognises the e-mail address but isn't downloading the messages.

[Surferdude]

Sorted the email issue.