Solid State Hard Drive?

Question

I am currently looking at laptops for college and have came to an impass. I have selected all the other features I need / want, but when it comes to the hard drive (i want a dual drive config) I cant decide between a 32gb solid state / 320 gb (5400rpm 8mb cache) configuration, 32gb solid state / 200gb (7200rpm 16mb cache configuration or a 200gb (7200rpm 16mb) / 200gb (7200rpm 16mb) RAID 0 configuration. The price difference between the solid state and non solid state options is around $350.

I want to have a fast laptop and i think 200gb of space should be sufficent. Is the increased performance worth the increase in price? are solid state drives really that much better?

Other specifications if it helps:
Dual 512MB NVIDIA Geforce 8700's
IntelCore2Duo Processor 2.33GHz 4Mb Cache 667 MHz FSB
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz
Vista Ultimate
8x Dual Layer CD-RW/DVD±RW Burner w/ LightScribe Technology

Please help me choose.

Answer 1

solid state drives have no moving parts so they can resist being dropped better than a regular drive. Keep in mind though if something else breaks youre still out a laptop.

dont go for an 8mb cache if youve got the option of 16. theres a very noticable difference in speed for very little money. Likewise the 5400 rpm vs the 7200 rpm, i assume youre gonna want to play games, they transfer a lot of data.

RAID might be your cheapest option with 400 gb of space but you double your chances of losing all your data with the way the data's stored. With all the moving a laptop does as opposed to a desktop the risk is much higher.

id recommend the 32/200 as the best compromise in speed/data saftey.

Answer 2

i would go for the hard drive route 200gig(7200 rpm and 16mb cache) rather than the solid state, although the solid state drive should last a lot longer cos of no moving parts to wear out. its far too new to take a chance on yet.

Answer 3

thats one nice notebook!
if you have the $ then go with the 32gb solid state / 200gb (7200rpm 16mb cache

SSD
benefits:
-use less power
-run cooler
-no moving parts
-doesnt matter whether data is written on the inner edgoe or outer edge of the platter...no mechanical parts on a SSD means no delay
-lighter

drawbacks:
-expensive
-newer (lifespan?)
-once a SSD breaks-zero chance of any recovery.

Answer 4

Hard drive, no solid state, it is such an immature technology. Immature tech == Niche tech and college-use is not niche use.

Answer 5

With the Acer Aspire (One), it depends what You want to do with it since it's completely portable, and designed to be lightweight. For the benefits of the SSD at 8Gigs ; 1) It's a VERY small hard drive and can be backed up completely onto a new flasdhdrive with backup software, which would take up some space to keep installed of course. 2) It's a fast technology, although it will still be faster than XP in general and the RAM anyway. 3) It's much faster and simpl;er to recover with the same hardware if there is a virus problem, from a flashdrive image, but more difficult to recover Your own files from in a virus incident if there;s no recent enough backup done. The benefits of the 160Gig drive (My choice too) ; 1) It's a huge hard drive, and will store anything You need to have installed, including a Vista upgrade when there's a version stable enough and made for lower-media hardware (which is just so anti-Vista in design). 2) It's a standardized SATA hard drive, which means the connector will take another standardized SATA hard drive. This is useful for several reasons, including swapping out drives between travel and secured data You don;t wnat to lose in case of theft, or switching between entertainment and work trips, or Vista and Linux, and XP as Your needs change. 3) It's replaceable in case of a virus with a cheaper than SSD hard drive, which will probably be 1.5terabytes available in the next 3 months (SATA). 4) It can be divided into many more partition for file organizations and archivings, or password protecting an entire partition. Good luck!.