Static Drives

[Danolo]

I'm considering getting a little Netbook computer which has a static drive, in stead of a hard drive.

Its a small drive, 8GB, but I only plan to use the netbook for surfing sites (like Terb!), that should be plenty big enough.

As far as I understand a static drive needs power to retain it data, and so i assume it draws from the netbook's battery. Does it lose all data if you change batteries?

Any thoughts on these?

Thanks

 

[registrar1]

I'm considering getting a little Netbook computer which has a static drive, in stead of a hard drive.

Its a small drive, 8GB, but I only plan to use the netbook for surfing sites (like Terb!), that should be plenty big enough.

As far as I understand a static drive needs power to retain it data, and so i assume it draws from the netbook's battery. Does it lose all data if you change batteries?

Any thoughts on these?

Thanks

If by static drive you are referring to a Solid State Drive (basically a big flash memory drive, aka "SSD")...i have been investigating.

Performance depends on the type of SSD and the OS. If I understand correctly there ar 2 basic types of SSDs. One is 'single-level cell' (SLC) and 'multi-level cell' (MLC). SLC is better overall...more reliable and faster. Especially with Windows OSs the MLC is less efficient due to read/right cycles performed by the OS for caching and running. Non-Windows OSs tend to operate better with SSDs.

SSDs don't need power to retain data...unless it is a full RAM drive (unlikely).

It's probably a good idea just to check the reviews on the netbook to see how users are finding it.

 

[Radio_Shack]

I assume you mean SSD Ram drive such as this one:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4040261&CatId=1891

It's a memory card just like you may use in a Digital camera and will not lose its data when no power.

It's an old myth that SSD has whats called write endurance issues. They are just as good or better as disks.

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

 

[Garrett]

It's an old myth that SSD has whats called write endurance issues. They are just as good or better as disks.

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

Thanks for the link. I had avoided this move based on cost and write endurance.

 

[Danolo]

Here's links to a couple of the units I'm looking at. It seems sensible to me that for only $50 more you get a 160GB hard drive as opposed to a 8GB solid state drive.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pr...665000FS10117642&catid=27003&logon=&langid=EN

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pr...665000FS10112480&catid=27003&logon=&langid=EN

I got so pissed with the jerk at future shop trying upsell me a $79 setup charge, and not listening to my questions, that finally I left.

As far as I recall, both of these units run XP home and are therefore pretty easy to set up.

Other units, which are running Vista, might be a problem, because I have no experience with Vista, but then I don't think I'll buy a 'puter with vista anyhow.

Thanks guys