rejuvinating an old machine: inexpensive SSD
Old advice: If you are still using an old machine, one that uses an HDD to hold the OS, consider replacing the HDD with an SSD. Why do I bring it up now? Because SSDs are getting even cheaper. Some think that they will get cheaper still in the next little while. But this drive is cheap enough that it is hardly worth thinking about: <https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07LG1PJMH> Currently $33.99. You may have to add something worth $1.01 to your order to get free shipping. Here's some candy for $1.39: <https://www.amazon.ca/Maynards-Fuzzy-Peach-Candy-Grams/dp/B073DPJQDL/> Good: - cheap - 512GB is a comfortable size - TLC rather than QLC - 2.5" SATA so it easily replaces an HDD - if you don't have a bay for it, it is light enough that duct-taping it into your case is often good enough. So you might be able to add it to your system rather than replacing an HDD. Bad: - no DRAM - 2.5" SATA; NVMe is better (but if you have a a suitable M.2 socket you are probably already using it for an SSD - you might want a larger capacity
That's cheap. But, if the OLD machine worth $35? :-) On 2023-01-02 14:17, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
Old advice: If you are still using an old machine, one that uses an HDD to hold the OS, consider replacing the HDD with an SSD.
Why do I bring it up now? Because SSDs are getting even cheaper. Some think that they will get cheaper still in the next little while. But this drive is cheap enough that it is hardly worth thinking about: <https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07LG1PJMH>
Currently $33.99. You may have to add something worth $1.01 to your order to get free shipping. Here's some candy for $1.39: <https://www.amazon.ca/Maynards-Fuzzy-Peach-Candy-Grams/dp/B073DPJQDL/>
Good: - cheap - 512GB is a comfortable size - TLC rather than QLC - 2.5" SATA so it easily replaces an HDD - if you don't have a bay for it, it is light enough that duct-taping it into your case is often good enough. So you might be able to add it to your system rather than replacing an HDD.
Bad: - no DRAM - 2.5" SATA; NVMe is better (but if you have a a suitable M.2 socket you are probably already using it for an SSD - you might want a larger capacity
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On 2023-01-02 14:17, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
Old advice: If you are still using an old machine, one that uses an HDD to hold the OS, consider replacing the HDD with an SSD.
Why do I bring it up now? Because SSDs are getting even cheaper. Some think that they will get cheaper still in the next little while. But this drive is cheap enough that it is hardly worth thinking about: <https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07LG1PJMH>
Currently $33.99. You may have to add something worth $1.01 to your order to get free shipping. Here's some candy for $1.39: <https://www.amazon.ca/Maynards-Fuzzy-Peach-Candy-Grams/dp/B073DPJQDL/>
Good: - cheap - 512GB is a comfortable size - TLC rather than QLC - 2.5" SATA so it easily replaces an HDD - if you don't have a bay for it, it is light enough that duct-taping it into your case is often good enough. So you might be able to add it to your system rather than replacing an HDD.
Bad: - no DRAM - 2.5" SATA; NVMe is better (but if you have a a suitable M.2 socket you are probably already using it for an SSD - you might want a larger capacity
Well they have drives up to 2TB. https://www.amazon.ca/stores/SPSiliconPower/page/CECA89EF-0FF0-46E2-AC1A-60C... On the other hand there are tales like the following. https://datarecovery.com/2022/03/the-2tb-flash-drive-scam-why-high-capacity-... -- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
| From: Alvin Starr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On 2023-01-02 14:17, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: | > <https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07LG1PJMH> | Well they have drives up to 2TB. | | https://www.amazon.ca/stores/SPSiliconPower/page/CECA89EF-0FF0-46E2-AC1A-60C... Yes. I kind of think that the 512 is a sweet spot, but of course that depends on your needs. I have notebooks with only 64G of "disk" (eMMC) but I feel the constraints. The 512G is at the lowest cost per byte (in this line) and is plenty of space for things I do. | On the other hand there are tales like the following. | | https://datarecovery.com/2022/03/the-2tb-flash-drive-scam-why-high-capacity-... I've heard a lot of reports of USB sticks and SD cards being couterfeit. That doesn't seem to happen with reputable brands from reputable dealers. There was one infamous exception: Amazon (used to) mingle their SD cards with other vendors SD cards in their warehouse. So "sold by Amazon" SD cards could actually be supplied by a disreputable vendor. All hell broke loose when counterfeits were found. Also (not really a problem?) Amazon would source SD cards intended for other countries and sell them in Canada and the US. Grey market. I kind of like this since it erodes price discrimination-by-country. I'm convinced that this is a real SSD. Not a top tier one, but very cost-effective. If you want a really good SSD, you want one with DRAM. Unfortunately they seem to be quite a bit more expensive. A 500G Crucial MX500 is $69.99 at Canada Computers (much worse on Amazon.ca). The 1TB MX500 is 101.50 at Amazon.ca.
On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 11:45 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
There was one infamous exception: Amazon (used to) mingle their SD cards with other vendors SD cards in their warehouse. So "sold by Amazon" SD cards could actually be supplied by a disreputable vendor. All hell broke loose when counterfeits were found.
They still do. You can't reliably source storage products on Amazon. If it's too cheap, you must assume it's a knockoff. <https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk> It still blows my mind that there are (expensive) 1 TB micro SD cards. The equivalent quantity of HD floppies would overfill a half-length (20') shipping container. I can show my working ... There are 2.5" HD format PATA enclosures for PCIe SSDs. Seems a little like overkill, though Stewart
On 2023-01-02 23:45, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
... If you want a really good SSD, you want one with DRAM. Unfortunately they seem to be quite a bit more expensive. A 500G Crucial MX500 is $69.99 at Canada Computers (much worse on Amazon.ca). The 1TB MX500 is 101.50 at Amazon.ca.
Why would they add DRAM to the SSD itself? Buffering writes so it can report success sooner? What if you have a crash or shutdown before the flash write actually happens? This sounds like a misfeature designed to beat benchmarks. Back in the Unix days the rule of thumb said that adding more RAM to a system was the most effective way of improving performance. I believe that's still true and maxing out the system DRAM on your Linux box's motherboard remains high on the list of things to do to get more out of the system. BTW, crying over those prices sounds like 21st century first-world problems, considering the princely ransoms we paid for wee fractions of that much storage back in the day, or being in awe of the first sysadmin on Usenet who was running a Terabyte Array in their datacentre. Anthony
On 2023-01-03 22:11, Anthony de Boer via talk wrote:
BTW, crying over those prices sounds like 21st century first-world problems, considering the princely ransoms we paid for wee fractions of that much storage back in the day, or being in awe of the first sysadmin on Usenet who was running a Terabyte Array in their datacentre.
Back in 1976, I paid about $200 for 4 KB of memory for my IMSAI 8080. In the 80s, I paid $500 for a 30 MB drive and controller for my XT clone. Back in those days, when I was a computer technician, I worked on core memory boards that cost a heck of a lot more than that for 8 or 16 KB. BTW, I still have a 4 Kb core memory plane: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5LapMwk8iPrNkFZUXA4cmd5dTg/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-UaImmIxbC-73mW1SoJYNFA However, this is not the memory I worked on. I salvaged it from an older system that was being scrapped. 32 of these were stacked to make a 16 KB memory module and the computer had 4 modules the size of a desktop PC case.
Interesting... I have ordered one of those drives (plus a boat part in order to get the total to over $35 and thus get free shipping). This will be a drive for a PC that I ordered in December. The December PC was done on the very cheap, so cheap its' only included storage was a 128 GB m2 SSD, with one empty 2.5" drive bay. I bought the PC with three specific jobs in mind, so 128 GB was adequate storage. But with this, for under $35 (plus tax) I quadruple the storage which sounds fine to me and meaning other roles / options open up :-) . On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 2:17 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Old advice: If you are still using an old machine, one that uses an HDD to hold the OS, consider replacing the HDD with an SSD.
Why do I bring it up now? Because SSDs are getting even cheaper. Some think that they will get cheaper still in the next little while. But this drive is cheap enough that it is hardly worth thinking about: <https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07LG1PJMH>
Currently $33.99. You may have to add something worth $1.01 to your order to get free shipping. Here's some candy for $1.39: <https://www.amazon.ca/Maynards-Fuzzy-Peach-Candy-Grams/dp/B073DPJQDL/>
Good: - cheap - 512GB is a comfortable size - TLC rather than QLC - 2.5" SATA so it easily replaces an HDD - if you don't have a bay for it, it is light enough that duct-taping it into your case is often good enough. So you might be able to add it to your system rather than replacing an HDD.
Bad: - no DRAM - 2.5" SATA; NVMe is better (but if you have a a suitable M.2 socket you are probably already using it for an SSD - you might want a larger capacity
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On Thu., Jan. 5, 2023, 08:23 James Knott via talk, <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2023-01-04 22:33, Colin McGregor via talk wrote:
plus a boat part
Anchor? 😉
Steady on there - we're not in the US where USPS fixed price shipping boxes have no weight limit, so people can ship lead ingots across the country for under $5. I did see a teardown of a purported 8 *TB* USB SSD available for suspiciously cheap on everyone's favourite online cyber-tat sites. It enumerates as 4x 2 TB USB 2 drives. Inside is a USB hub with four flash drives attached. The tearer-down couldn't be bothered to find out the actual capacity of each drive as they were so terribly slow. Stewart
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On Thu, Jan 5, 2023 at 9:00 AM Stewart Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Thu., Jan. 5, 2023, 08:23 James Knott via talk, <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2023-01-04 22:33, Colin McGregor via talk wrote:
plus a boat part
Anchor? 😉
Steady on there - we're not in the US where USPS fixed price shipping boxes have no weight limit, so people can ship lead ingots across the country for under $5.
True, not an anchor. Anchors are the sort of thing I would want to buy at a boat show, for multiple reasons. What I did get was an electrical power inlet (note NOT outlet) like this : https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08B3MR572? . The new PC that I got the SSD drive for is one of these : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DCJ457F? . This machine will make the gamers ... yawn. By current standards, no speed demon, but it does blow the doors off the roughly 2008 PC that it replaces. Further for driving a cutting machine, and some other specialty equipment it is just fine. Colin.
I did see a teardown of a purported 8 *TB* USB SSD available for suspiciously cheap on everyone's favourite online cyber-tat sites. It enumerates as 4x 2 TB USB 2 drives. Inside is a USB hub with four flash drives attached. The tearer-down couldn't be bothered to find out the actual capacity of each drive as they were so terribly slow.
Stewart
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participants (7)
-
Alvin Starr -
Anthony de Boer -
Colin McGregor -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
James Knott -
Stewart Russell -
William Park