$100 to install windows 10, of course we will have to reinstall all the apps. They were having a sale on SSDs; $120 for 1TB so I am having both upgraded. I will also have 2 TB of backup drives. The chance of one backup drive failing is small. Two at the same time very small. Three at the same time? Nearly infinitesimal.
SSDs should also be far more reliable than a hard disk; no moving parts and resistant to any shock that does not break them. Not sure, but I suspect that they use less power and produce less heat than a mechanical hard disk.
And back. To my great pleasure, they managed to upgrade without needing to reinstall programs. Outlook was not working on the first try on my wife's PC. Repair fixed it. And yes, from power button to Windows in seconds not minutes.
A few unexpected issues with at least one external USB drive not appearing on my wife's PC, but a bit of swapping USB connections magically solved. I just ordered two of these enclosures for the two 1TB mechanical drives (how 20th century!). I have bought a number of these and each time they seem a bit nicer. The last one had a power switch on it.
Unfortunately, GIMP still takes forever (at least a minute or two) to load. Looking for data files.
I needed to do a repair operation of Microsoft Office on both PCs, and reinstall VMWare Player on mine. Not so bad.
A few unexpected issues with at least one external USB drive not appearing on my wife's PC, but a bit of swapping USB connections magically solved. I just ordered two of these enclosures for the two 1TB mechanical drives (how 20th century!). I have bought a number of these and each time they seem a bit nicer. The last one had a power switch on it.
Unfortunately, GIMP still takes forever (at least a minute or two) to load. Looking for data files.
I needed to do a repair operation of Microsoft Office on both PCs, and reinstall VMWare Player on mine. Not so bad.
SSDs have different failure mechanisms than platters, but they do fail.
ReplyDeleteAnd they all have a limit on how many write cycles they are guaranteed for. Depending upon how actively you use them, you may hit that limit sooner or later.
For a typical desktop, you could be talking decades or more.
For a high-volume server using a disk-based queuing system, it may be months, or even weeks.
Never defragment an SSD.
ReplyDeleteModern SSDs usually have a guaranteed lifetime equivalent to about 1/3 of a full drive write per day for 3-5 years (or several hundred terabytes written.) The last time anyone did an exhaustive test many of them lasted for a petabyte's worth of writing.
ReplyDeleteThese have a 5 year warranty. I will likely replace the computers before then. I can see why defragmenting would prematurely wear them out. I know there was an automatic defragmenting part of Windows 7. I just need to find it and kill it in Windows 10.
ReplyDeleteCuriously and happily, Windows 10 recognizes SSDs and defrag is off.
ReplyDelete