Sweet laptop
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I wouldn't buy a Sony laptop. My next one might be a Lenovo, but whatever brand it is, it must be available with XP on it.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
Why would they be slower than hard drives? After all, there is no mechanical movement involved, so it should be much faster. More reliable too.
Regards Senthil [MVP - Visual C#] _____________________________ My Blog | My Articles | My Flickr | WinMacro
Flash memory is faster in seek time (very little latency in opening a new row), but magnetic storage is still faster in sustained bandwidth. SanDisk are now offering CompactFlash flash memory cards that allegedly provide 45MB/sec sequential read/write speeds - for $314.99 for 8GB. Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 range has a quoted read/write sustained rate of 105MB/sec for a 7200rpm drive. The problem is the 4.1ms average latency. These numbers might be slightly fake, though, as Seagate's Cheetah 10K.7 10krpm SCSI drives, for enterprise use, show a 39 - 80MB/sec sustained transfer rate (according to the data sheet). These are commonly used with the caches switched off. You get best performance out of a hard disk if you use it sequentially, rather than randomly - track-to-track seek time is typically 0.2ms or so for reading. That's why defragmenting the hard drive can really help, for data that's actually read sequentially (it doesn't help for SQL Server database files much because they're read randomly, for example, while the transaction log benefits hugely from having a dedicated disk as it's 99% sequential writes, the log only being read from when a rollback or recovery is required).
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Flash memory is faster in seek time (very little latency in opening a new row), but magnetic storage is still faster in sustained bandwidth. SanDisk are now offering CompactFlash flash memory cards that allegedly provide 45MB/sec sequential read/write speeds - for $314.99 for 8GB. Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 range has a quoted read/write sustained rate of 105MB/sec for a 7200rpm drive. The problem is the 4.1ms average latency. These numbers might be slightly fake, though, as Seagate's Cheetah 10K.7 10krpm SCSI drives, for enterprise use, show a 39 - 80MB/sec sustained transfer rate (according to the data sheet). These are commonly used with the caches switched off. You get best performance out of a hard disk if you use it sequentially, rather than randomly - track-to-track seek time is typically 0.2ms or so for reading. That's why defragmenting the hard drive can really help, for data that's actually read sequentially (it doesn't help for SQL Server database files much because they're read randomly, for example, while the transaction log benefits hugely from having a dedicated disk as it's 99% sequential writes, the log only being read from when a rollback or recovery is required).
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote:
still faster in sustained bandwidth
Not for 2.5" laptop drives it isn't.
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Toshiba R500 world's lightest, thinnest notebook. 64GB flash hard drive...[^] Oops! <bang> it <bang> looks like I've <BANG> accidently dropped my <bang> old <bang, bang...BANG> laptop and <ba-crunch> will need to buy a new one. What a pity.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Toshiba R500 world's lightest, thinnest notebook. 64GB flash hard drive...[^] Oops! <bang> it <bang> looks like I've <BANG> accidently dropped my <bang> old <bang, bang...BANG> laptop and <ba-crunch> will need to buy a new one. What a pity.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Very cool... Maybe we should start giving these away! Next2Friends (^) --> Free new Dell laptop every 30 days.
carboncoder wrote:
Next2Friends (^) --> Free new Dell laptop every 30 days.
Could I interest you in some Amway wall polish?
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Toshiba R500 world's lightest, thinnest notebook. 64GB flash hard drive...[^] Oops! <bang> it <bang> looks like I've <BANG> accidently dropped my <bang> old <bang, bang...BANG> laptop and <ba-crunch> will need to buy a new one. What a pity.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Be careful not to sneeze whilst you're using it.
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Toshiba R500 world's lightest, thinnest notebook. 64GB flash hard drive...[^] Oops! <bang> it <bang> looks like I've <BANG> accidently dropped my <bang> old <bang, bang...BANG> laptop and <ba-crunch> will need to buy a new one. What a pity.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
The specs are impressive, but the claim about thinnest and lightest is a bit excessive. My IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad x32 claims to weigh only 2.2 lbs, although it has no CD/DVD drive and is probably thicker than the r500. I'm pretty sure UMPCs are smaller and lighter.
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Mike Dimmick wrote:
still faster in sustained bandwidth
Not for 2.5" laptop drives it isn't.
I believe my laptop (which is at home, and I'm at work now) has a Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB drive in it (it's certainly 7200rpm). The datasheet[^] quotes 45.8 MB/sec sustained transfer rate. The newer 7200.2 range quotes 59.0. However, seek time is slightly worse, 10.5ms on the old drive, 11ms on the new.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Technology marches on, but doesn't flash memory have a finite number of erase/write cycles that is much less than a hard drive?
73
IIRC it's upwards of 100k now. Provided you have enough ram to rarely use the swap file and don't cache the browser on disk you'll never hit it. Even then assuming the SSD is smart enough to move rapidly modified areas around it probably won't be an issue either.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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carboncoder wrote:
Next2Friends (^) --> Free new Dell laptop every 30 days.
Could I interest you in some Amway wall polish?
Wow, that was clever... not... Email for a laptop, sounds simple enough.
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Wow, that was clever... not... Email for a laptop, sounds simple enough.
carbonbaseone wrote:
Wow, that was clever... not... Email for a laptop, sounds simple enough.
Wow! There really IS someone who believes that the Internet is a land of milk and honey, where every site is owned by altruists, and every person you encounter is a pop-star's cousin! I wonder how many lists the e-mail address you used has already been added to. Beware of dotcoms bearing gifts.
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carbonbaseone wrote:
Wow, that was clever... not... Email for a laptop, sounds simple enough.
Wow! There really IS someone who believes that the Internet is a land of milk and honey, where every site is owned by altruists, and every person you encounter is a pop-star's cousin! I wonder how many lists the e-mail address you used has already been added to. Beware of dotcoms bearing gifts.
Listen... Like it says... No spam, no strings...The email addresses are being used for count only. I know, because I, and a few others (who happen to be CPians) are part of this. It's very simple...Don't put your email in, seems easier than being a belligerent flamer. Thanks
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carbonbaseone wrote:
Wow, that was clever... not... Email for a laptop, sounds simple enough.
Wow! There really IS someone who believes that the Internet is a land of milk and honey, where every site is owned by altruists, and every person you encounter is a pop-star's cousin! I wonder how many lists the e-mail address you used has already been added to. Beware of dotcoms bearing gifts.
I may have been a little harsh there... Indeed, you can't trust what is presented most of the time. But, in this case, it is just an email address. Not very intrusive in my opinion. Thanks
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Listen... Like it says... No spam, no strings...The email addresses are being used for count only. I know, because I, and a few others (who happen to be CPians) are part of this. It's very simple...Don't put your email in, seems easier than being a belligerent flamer. Thanks
carbonbaseone wrote:
Listen... Like it says... No spam, no strings...The email addresses are being used for count only. I know, because I, and a few others (who happen to be CPians) are part of this. It's very simple...Don't put your email in, seems easier than being a belligerent flamer.
I'm not flaming, and I'm not being belligerent; it's simple pragmatism. They're not doing anything for your benefit; that is guaranteed. There is also no guarantee that the laptops actually exist -- and, even if they do, there is no overt sign of the small print (that probably says you have to live in a particular small town in Guatemala to qualify for free P&P, otherwise it will cost you a couple of hundred [insert currency unit here]). There is also (believe it or not) a long and depressing list of people who got their fingers burned for showing perfectly normal human trust to faceless entities on the Net. Since you've already signed up, I hope you're right and wish you luck -- but be a little wary, eh? People who don't have to look you in the eye often feel they've got carte blanche to treat you like sh1t.
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I may have been a little harsh there... Indeed, you can't trust what is presented most of the time. But, in this case, it is just an email address. Not very intrusive in my opinion. Thanks
carbonbaseone wrote:
I may have been a little harsh there...
Pfft. I've been insulted by experts. (Fortunately, most of them were programming, rather than sarcasm, experts, so it wasn't so tough to take).
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carbonbaseone wrote:
Listen... Like it says... No spam, no strings...The email addresses are being used for count only. I know, because I, and a few others (who happen to be CPians) are part of this. It's very simple...Don't put your email in, seems easier than being a belligerent flamer.
I'm not flaming, and I'm not being belligerent; it's simple pragmatism. They're not doing anything for your benefit; that is guaranteed. There is also no guarantee that the laptops actually exist -- and, even if they do, there is no overt sign of the small print (that probably says you have to live in a particular small town in Guatemala to qualify for free P&P, otherwise it will cost you a couple of hundred [insert currency unit here]). There is also (believe it or not) a long and depressing list of people who got their fingers burned for showing perfectly normal human trust to faceless entities on the Net. Since you've already signed up, I hope you're right and wish you luck -- but be a little wary, eh? People who don't have to look you in the eye often feel they've got carte blanche to treat you like sh1t.
Here is how I know they exist... I will say again... I and others are part of the giveaway... And yes, while from the face of it, no guarantee they exist, it is just an email address. No small print... Maybe it seems to good to be true. The reason we are giving away laptops every 30 days is to drive people to enter their email address which aids in a registration count which aids in our business plan. We thought this would be very different, give people the chance to win something for giving us a very small piece of information. For the hundreds that have entered their address, they must have balanced that point as well. Thanks
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carbonbaseone wrote:
I may have been a little harsh there...
Pfft. I've been insulted by experts. (Fortunately, most of them were programming, rather than sarcasm, experts, so it wasn't so tough to take).
I meant harsh by my belligerent and flaming comment. Thanks P.S. Although you do seem to be a little belligerent... (Geanerally aggressive and defensive)
