Laptop hard disk speed
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Taka, My development sounds similar to yours. Although RAID would be nice, I don't think a laptop has the physical real-estate. I suppose you could sacrifice your CD/DVD slot for another drive. What is driving your desire for RAID - performance or redundancy? I run Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm drives in my Dell, and they do just fine. I say plural as the 2nd one I image a backup onto every week.
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
charlieg wrote:
What is driving your desire for RAID - performance or redundancy? I run Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm drives in my Dell, and they do just fine.
Performance. I'm currently using an Inspiron 8600 with a single 7200rpm drive (same as yours, IIRC) and while it's quick for a laptop, I still find myself waiting during disk-intensive stuff. Like I said, it's mostly VC6/VS2005 development so it's hitting the disk a lot (aside: I've got 2 gig of memory, most of which goes unused. I hear that Vista uses it all as a disk cache (at last :|)). I'm also using virtual machines more and more which means I've got more things on the go at any one time. To be honest, I'm impressed with how well the laptop is performing under the load, and spreading things out over two machines when I get the new box will help enormously, but since I've got a bit of money to burn, I want to get the fastest beast I can.
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I'm in the market for a new laptop, a desktop replacement, say up to three, three-and-a-half thousand USD. I particularly want 7200rpm RAID'ed hard disks but it's proving a bit hard to find. I'd be quite happy getting an Alienware except that they don't seem to be available in Thailand :-( So, am I going to be better off with RAID-ed 5400rpm drives or a single 7200rpm drive. My guess would be the former would be faster. Or is there much of an issue pulling out the disks and replacing them with faster ones? IIRC, one system I looked at (a Toshiba?) said they used software RAID that only worked with their drives :| I'm going to be doing mostly VC6 work with a bit of VS2005. I'm looking at the Dell XPS M1710[^], Fujitsu's N6410 Lifebook[^] and my current favorite, the HP DV9000T[^].
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The MacBook Pro has a single 7200rpm drive. Pretty fast machine too.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
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The MacBook Pro has a single 7200rpm drive. Pretty fast machine too.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
Let me know abt the MacBook Pro in detail.
With Regards Satips
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Let me know abt the MacBook Pro in detail.
With Regards Satips
It is the best laptop I have ever used. Detailed enough? :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
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charlieg wrote:
What is driving your desire for RAID - performance or redundancy? I run Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm drives in my Dell, and they do just fine.
Performance. I'm currently using an Inspiron 8600 with a single 7200rpm drive (same as yours, IIRC) and while it's quick for a laptop, I still find myself waiting during disk-intensive stuff. Like I said, it's mostly VC6/VS2005 development so it's hitting the disk a lot (aside: I've got 2 gig of memory, most of which goes unused. I hear that Vista uses it all as a disk cache (at last :|)). I'm also using virtual machines more and more which means I've got more things on the go at any one time. To be honest, I'm impressed with how well the laptop is performing under the load, and spreading things out over two machines when I get the new box will help enormously, but since I've got a bit of money to burn, I want to get the fastest beast I can.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Yes, even at 7200rpm, I've seen slow downs... Well, going laptop means tradeoffs, as I'm sure you are aware. Without the RAID hardware, I'm not sure multiple drives would buy you anything at all. How portable do you need to be? multiple drives would soak a battery pretty quickly... it might be cheaper to buy a desktop with raid in it.
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
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Yes, even at 7200rpm, I've seen slow downs... Well, going laptop means tradeoffs, as I'm sure you are aware. Without the RAID hardware, I'm not sure multiple drives would buy you anything at all. How portable do you need to be? multiple drives would soak a battery pretty quickly... it might be cheaper to buy a desktop with raid in it.
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
charlieg wrote:
How portable do you need to be?
It'll be running off mains most of the time so I don't really care about battery life. I prefer laptops since I tend to move around a bit. I'm in Thailand now but am starting to get itchy feet again... :-) You look at the specs for this baby[^] and there's not much of a tradeoff there :-)
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It is the best laptop I have ever used. Detailed enough? :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
Paul Watson wrote:
It is the best laptop I have ever used.
Yah, I asked you about it before. I'm only ever going to be doing Windows development and am a bit unsure about the wisdom of getting a MacBook to do it on :rolleyes: Why is it so good?
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Paul Watson wrote:
It is the best laptop I have ever used.
Yah, I asked you about it before. I'm only ever going to be doing Windows development and am a bit unsure about the wisdom of getting a MacBook to do it on :rolleyes: Why is it so good?
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Taka Muraoka wrote:
I'm only ever going to be doing Windows development and am a bit unsure about the wisdom of getting a MacBook to do it on
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/[^] with VM it all depends on your preference. You can develop Windows with a Linux host, or Mac host just as easily as a natural windows machine. Running can be slower depending on graphics since graphics is emulated not hardware.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Taka Muraoka wrote:
I'm only ever going to be doing Windows development and am a bit unsure about the wisdom of getting a MacBook to do it on
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/[^] with VM it all depends on your preference. You can develop Windows with a Linux host, or Mac host just as easily as a natural windows machine. Running can be slower depending on graphics since graphics is emulated not hardware.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
Running can be slower depending on graphics since graphics is emulated not hardware.
The point of my original post was that I want the fastest development environment I can possibly get. I'm sick of waiting for builds, and the machine being sluggish if I try to do something while I'm waiting. It's really starting to eat into my productivity. Spreading the load over two machines and a dual-core CPU will help enormously but I've got a bit of money to spend so I might as well get something that rocks. Hopefully the new machine will be fast enough for me to be able to give working solely in a VM a try but the underlying host machine still needs to fly.
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charlieg wrote:
How portable do you need to be?
It'll be running off mains most of the time so I don't really care about battery life. I prefer laptops since I tend to move around a bit. I'm in Thailand now but am starting to get itchy feet again... :-) You look at the specs for this baby[^] and there's not much of a tradeoff there :-)
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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I'm in the market for a new laptop, a desktop replacement, say up to three, three-and-a-half thousand USD. I particularly want 7200rpm RAID'ed hard disks but it's proving a bit hard to find. I'd be quite happy getting an Alienware except that they don't seem to be available in Thailand :-( So, am I going to be better off with RAID-ed 5400rpm drives or a single 7200rpm drive. My guess would be the former would be faster. Or is there much of an issue pulling out the disks and replacing them with faster ones? IIRC, one system I looked at (a Toshiba?) said they used software RAID that only worked with their drives :| I'm going to be doing mostly VC6 work with a bit of VS2005. I'm looking at the Dell XPS M1710[^], Fujitsu's N6410 Lifebook[^] and my current favorite, the HP DV9000T[^].
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Are things settling down there? Elaine :rose:
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Are things settling down there? Elaine :rose:
Trollslayer wrote:
Are things settling down there?
Things never really got started. This[^] was the most serious thing the military had to deal with :rolleyes::laugh:
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Trollslayer wrote:
Are things settling down there?
Things never really got started. This[^] was the most serious thing the military had to deal with :rolleyes::laugh:
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
yeah it's interesting
With Regards Satips
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I'm in the market for a new laptop, a desktop replacement, say up to three, three-and-a-half thousand USD. I particularly want 7200rpm RAID'ed hard disks but it's proving a bit hard to find. I'd be quite happy getting an Alienware except that they don't seem to be available in Thailand :-( So, am I going to be better off with RAID-ed 5400rpm drives or a single 7200rpm drive. My guess would be the former would be faster. Or is there much of an issue pulling out the disks and replacing them with faster ones? IIRC, one system I looked at (a Toshiba?) said they used software RAID that only worked with their drives :| I'm going to be doing mostly VC6 work with a bit of VS2005. I'm looking at the Dell XPS M1710[^], Fujitsu's N6410 Lifebook[^] and my current favorite, the HP DV9000T[^].
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
If you really want the speed and you will be docked most of the time, they have external SATA cards for laptops. Then you could plug in and boot off of an external 3 drive array for instance. I'm thinking about setting up one of my old laptops as a server in that configuration. Otherwise it's not hard to swap out a laptop hard drive. Most of them have adapters which fit on a standard drive. Even if you have to use software raid from the os you should still get good performance out of 2 7200rpm drives, especially with a dual core processor.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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If you really want the speed and you will be docked most of the time, they have external SATA cards for laptops. Then you could plug in and boot off of an external 3 drive array for instance. I'm thinking about setting up one of my old laptops as a server in that configuration. Otherwise it's not hard to swap out a laptop hard drive. Most of them have adapters which fit on a standard drive. Even if you have to use software raid from the os you should still get good performance out of 2 7200rpm drives, especially with a dual core processor.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
I've got a PCMCIA SATA card for my current laptop but I couldn't get the damn thing to work. Mind you, I've never been able to get any card to work with it so there's probably something wrong with the laptop. I use external drives a lot so an SATA or eSATA interface is something that would be a real plus. Booting off an external array is a neat idea. I might have to look into that :-) Laptops seem to be a bit finicky when it comes to replacing parts which is why I asked about swapping the hard drive. I wanted to do it with my current laptop to get a bigger drive but 7200rpm notebook drives are like hens teeth here in Thailand. Most people I asked didn't even know such a thing existed.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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I've got a PCMCIA SATA card for my current laptop but I couldn't get the damn thing to work. Mind you, I've never been able to get any card to work with it so there's probably something wrong with the laptop. I use external drives a lot so an SATA or eSATA interface is something that would be a real plus. Booting off an external array is a neat idea. I might have to look into that :-) Laptops seem to be a bit finicky when it comes to replacing parts which is why I asked about swapping the hard drive. I wanted to do it with my current laptop to get a bigger drive but 7200rpm notebook drives are like hens teeth here in Thailand. Most people I asked didn't even know such a thing existed.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
I have a little experience with laptops. I've a dell and an hp and I've upgraded hard drives on both of them. I've also replaced the Dell's motherboard with one I bought on ebay after it had a run in with a cup of coffee just after the warranty expired. One nice thing about the Dells is they usually use completely standard parts.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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Paul Watson wrote:
It is the best laptop I have ever used.
Yah, I asked you about it before. I'm only ever going to be doing Windows development and am a bit unsure about the wisdom of getting a MacBook to do it on :rolleyes: Why is it so good?
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
OK for me it is important that I can run OS X, Windows and Linux as I am doing web-dev. If you are only doing dev for Windows then other laptops like the T series Lenovos are probably a better bet. I was looking at one alongside the MacBook Pro and hose the MacBook Pro won mainly because of the OS X arguement. The Lenovos are light and portable like the MacBook Pro, use good quality components and are fast. My MacBook Pro has 2gig RAM, the 7200RPM drive, the 256MB graphics card and a dual core CPU. I can run OS X with Windows XP in Parallels and it feels "native." If I wanted max. perf then I could use Bootcamp to boot Windows XP but I haven't really needed too. My problem with the HPs and Dells are that they are bulky and not as well made as Lenovos and MacBook Pros. They are aesthetically unpleasing too. Aesthetics and ergonomics are something I value when working with a tool all day everyday. The MacBook Pro has those in spades. I also find the other laptop brands tend to try and pack in too many frivolous controls. Its a whole zen thing. Seriously. (BTW it is a 15" MacBook Pro. I found the 17" too big and its battery life was down.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
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OK for me it is important that I can run OS X, Windows and Linux as I am doing web-dev. If you are only doing dev for Windows then other laptops like the T series Lenovos are probably a better bet. I was looking at one alongside the MacBook Pro and hose the MacBook Pro won mainly because of the OS X arguement. The Lenovos are light and portable like the MacBook Pro, use good quality components and are fast. My MacBook Pro has 2gig RAM, the 7200RPM drive, the 256MB graphics card and a dual core CPU. I can run OS X with Windows XP in Parallels and it feels "native." If I wanted max. perf then I could use Bootcamp to boot Windows XP but I haven't really needed too. My problem with the HPs and Dells are that they are bulky and not as well made as Lenovos and MacBook Pros. They are aesthetically unpleasing too. Aesthetics and ergonomics are something I value when working with a tool all day everyday. The MacBook Pro has those in spades. I also find the other laptop brands tend to try and pack in too many frivolous controls. Its a whole zen thing. Seriously. (BTW it is a 15" MacBook Pro. I found the 17" too big and its battery life was down.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
I've heard a bit about Bootcamp but it sounds like a bit of a hack and maybe not the wisest thing to be building your main dev machine on top of. I've been pretty happy with my Dell Inspiron 8600 (although it's my first ever laptop so I don't have anything to compare it with). The MacBook looks nice but it's way expensive in terms of what you get compared to, say, the Alienware m9700. I don't mind shelling out the dough but I'm always looking for good value-for-money. I don't really care about what it looks like or what buttons are on the panel, I want hard-core performance :-) A fast dual-core chip, 7200rpm RAID-ed disks, lots of memory, gigabit ethernet. Having said that, the Levono's sure look butt-ugly :-) They're also real notebooks, not desktop replacements. None of the ones on the Thai website have a screen bigger than 14.1".
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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I've heard a bit about Bootcamp but it sounds like a bit of a hack and maybe not the wisest thing to be building your main dev machine on top of. I've been pretty happy with my Dell Inspiron 8600 (although it's my first ever laptop so I don't have anything to compare it with). The MacBook looks nice but it's way expensive in terms of what you get compared to, say, the Alienware m9700. I don't mind shelling out the dough but I'm always looking for good value-for-money. I don't really care about what it looks like or what buttons are on the panel, I want hard-core performance :-) A fast dual-core chip, 7200rpm RAID-ed disks, lots of memory, gigabit ethernet. Having said that, the Levono's sure look butt-ugly :-) They're also real notebooks, not desktop replacements. None of the ones on the Thai website have a screen bigger than 14.1".
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Why are you going for a laptop if you want to replace your desktop? You'll get much better value for money if you go for say a Mac Pro or one of the Dell performance desktops. I find the desktop replacement laptops are so bulky they just sit on a desktop all the time anyway. You then end up buying an external monitor, mouse, keyboard and docking station to get it all working as you want. Might as well get a desktop surely?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
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Why are you going for a laptop if you want to replace your desktop? You'll get much better value for money if you go for say a Mac Pro or one of the Dell performance desktops. I find the desktop replacement laptops are so bulky they just sit on a desktop all the time anyway. You then end up buying an external monitor, mouse, keyboard and docking station to get it all working as you want. Might as well get a desktop surely?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
Paul Watson wrote:
Why are you going for a laptop if you want to replace your desktop?
Because I have been cursed with eternally itchy feet. I'm staying on in Thailand for a little while longer but after that, who knows... :-) I'm using a laptop now and just use it's keyboard. I'm quite used to it now and a normal keyboard feels horribly big and clunky to me now :rolleyes: The screen is OK and usable, I've got a little wireless mouse, I'm happy :badger: I've always said that anytime you accumulate more stuff than you can either throw away or fit into a single backpack, it's time to pack up and move on. I'm getting to that point now... :sigh: Of course, my mate in Australia who's got all my boxes of shit stored in his garage is wetting himself laughing right now, but that's another story... :rolleyes:
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