Database development OK on a laptop with SSD?
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I've been a two-platform development guy for years; a well-specced tower for 90% of the time, with a laptop for occasional use. My tower is getting flakey, so I'm considering making the jump to laptop-only, since I also think I'll be traveling more. I'm using VS 2008 + SQL Server 2005 with mostly-read databases (aren't they all). Does anyone have any experience with using solid state hard drive on a laptop? I *suspect* that a dual core with an SSD will fly... can anyone confirm/deny? Or am I best off sticking with a tower?
I do not think any development is okay on the laptop but I guess that is just me. I can not type to save my life on the darn keyboard. And even 7200 rpm laptop hard drives I find too slow.
John
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I've been a two-platform development guy for years; a well-specced tower for 90% of the time, with a laptop for occasional use. My tower is getting flakey, so I'm considering making the jump to laptop-only, since I also think I'll be traveling more. I'm using VS 2008 + SQL Server 2005 with mostly-read databases (aren't they all). Does anyone have any experience with using solid state hard drive on a laptop? I *suspect* that a dual core with an SSD will fly... can anyone confirm/deny? Or am I best off sticking with a tower?
It really depends on the other hardware you put in your laptop. A good SSD drive will most likely improve performance in any machine you drop it into. I've been developing on my current laptop for over a year now. With my laptop I was shooting for power over battery live so I got a model that actually runs a desktop processor. At the time of purchase I would say it would stand toe to toe with most full towers. If you start with a good processor,a fast bus speed, and a fist full of RAM, you can do quite well without an SSD. But if after that you've got an extra $500 burning a hole in your pocket toss in an SSD.
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It really depends on the other hardware you put in your laptop. A good SSD drive will most likely improve performance in any machine you drop it into. I've been developing on my current laptop for over a year now. With my laptop I was shooting for power over battery live so I got a model that actually runs a desktop processor. At the time of purchase I would say it would stand toe to toe with most full towers. If you start with a good processor,a fast bus speed, and a fist full of RAM, you can do quite well without an SSD. But if after that you've got an extra $500 burning a hole in your pocket toss in an SSD.
thrakazog wrote:
But if after that you've got an extra $500 burning a hole in your pocket toss in an SSD.
Or $815 :omg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227363[^] But I guess in the mid 80s I had my parents shell out nearly this much for a 40MB hard drive that came standard with a long list of bad sectors...
John
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I've been a two-platform development guy for years; a well-specced tower for 90% of the time, with a laptop for occasional use. My tower is getting flakey, so I'm considering making the jump to laptop-only, since I also think I'll be traveling more. I'm using VS 2008 + SQL Server 2005 with mostly-read databases (aren't they all). Does anyone have any experience with using solid state hard drive on a laptop? I *suspect* that a dual core with an SSD will fly... can anyone confirm/deny? Or am I best off sticking with a tower?
Speaking of SSD, does anyone have any idea on max read/write cycles on modern SSDs? After all it's a flash memory... AFAIR, several years ago the max write cycles on usb flash driver was around 10k, which is definitely nonsense for SSDs, I guess they should have done something in this regard
Regards, Lev
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Speaking of SSD, does anyone have any idea on max read/write cycles on modern SSDs? After all it's a flash memory... AFAIR, several years ago the max write cycles on usb flash driver was around 10k, which is definitely nonsense for SSDs, I guess they should have done something in this regard
Regards, Lev
Lev Danielyan wrote:
max write cycles on usb flash driver was around 10k
Even that was nonsense. Mitsubishi engineers did some tests on some of their first flash memory which the sales guys claimed had a 12k limit. These engineers programmed up a micro and at the time of the meeting it had done half a million and nothing had happened. They'd left it running but I never heard the final result.
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I've been a two-platform development guy for years; a well-specced tower for 90% of the time, with a laptop for occasional use. My tower is getting flakey, so I'm considering making the jump to laptop-only, since I also think I'll be traveling more. I'm using VS 2008 + SQL Server 2005 with mostly-read databases (aren't they all). Does anyone have any experience with using solid state hard drive on a laptop? I *suspect* that a dual core with an SSD will fly... can anyone confirm/deny? Or am I best off sticking with a tower?
Me and a team of three developed one of our department's main testing systems on laptops. This was 3-4 years ago - I had an Athlon 3400+, the other guys were on 3.xGHz PIVs. They were perfectly good for developing with VS2003 in C++ and C#. In fact, my laptop was faster than any of our desktops until January this year, when we upgraded to some sweet Core 2 Duo goodness! With modern laptops with (say) a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM (that's the same spec as my workstation...and the spec MacBook Pro I'm planning on getting), I'd be perfectly happy using VS2008. I would recommend an extra monitor - they're cheap enough and you've likely already got one anyway - and (if you don't like laptop keyboard and trackpad) USB keyboard and mouse.
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Speaking of SSD, does anyone have any idea on max read/write cycles on modern SSDs? After all it's a flash memory... AFAIR, several years ago the max write cycles on usb flash driver was around 10k, which is definitely nonsense for SSDs, I guess they should have done something in this regard
Regards, Lev
The issue with SSDs is write-speed. Up until the Intel one that was announced recently, they were (to my knowledge) very slow at writing.
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The issue with SSDs is write-speed. Up until the Intel one that was announced recently, they were (to my knowledge) very slow at writing.
Yup, you're right, but I apart from the speed, the write cycle are also very important, especially for desktop usage. I wonder if at this moment SSDs can be competitive to magnetic drives (even if we forget about the price ;))
Regards, Lev
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Yup, you're right, but I apart from the speed, the write cycle are also very important, especially for desktop usage. I wonder if at this moment SSDs can be competitive to magnetic drives (even if we forget about the price ;))
Regards, Lev
Speed is competitive, apart from seek times, where SSDs slaughter hard drives. Looking at the Intel datasheets, they don't document write-cycle life, but I believe they have a management layer over the top of the raw flash that ensures cells don't get written excessively, by cycling through different cells?
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I do not think any development is okay on the laptop but I guess that is just me. I can not type to save my life on the darn keyboard. And even 7200 rpm laptop hard drives I find too slow.
John
I would be using all external components, including two monitors. And yes, even a 7200 rpm HDD is pokey, hence the SSD question - I'm want to run the database locally. Seems like SSDs are pretty thin on the ground as yet.
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Speed is competitive, apart from seek times, where SSDs slaughter hard drives. Looking at the Intel datasheets, they don't document write-cycle life, but I believe they have a management layer over the top of the raw flash that ensures cells don't get written excessively, by cycling through different cells?
I suspect that since most database development is read rather than write, the balance will tip very much in favor of SSD - just looking for any real life confirmation. I've heard that boot time (for example) of computers equipped with these is unbelievable (e.g. x4 as quick as a regular hard drive).
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thrakazog wrote:
But if after that you've got an extra $500 burning a hole in your pocket toss in an SSD.
Or $815 :omg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227363[^] But I guess in the mid 80s I had my parents shell out nearly this much for a 40MB hard drive that came standard with a long list of bad sectors...
John
... but the increment for a 64 Gb SSHD on a new Thinkpad is 'only' about $500!
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It really depends on the other hardware you put in your laptop. A good SSD drive will most likely improve performance in any machine you drop it into. I've been developing on my current laptop for over a year now. With my laptop I was shooting for power over battery live so I got a model that actually runs a desktop processor. At the time of purchase I would say it would stand toe to toe with most full towers. If you start with a good processor,a fast bus speed, and a fist full of RAM, you can do quite well without an SSD. But if after that you've got an extra $500 burning a hole in your pocket toss in an SSD.
Can I ask which make/model of laptop that is?
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Speed is competitive, apart from seek times, where SSDs slaughter hard drives. Looking at the Intel datasheets, they don't document write-cycle life, but I believe they have a management layer over the top of the raw flash that ensures cells don't get written excessively, by cycling through different cells?
But now it's the price that slaughters :(
Regards, Lev
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I've been a two-platform development guy for years; a well-specced tower for 90% of the time, with a laptop for occasional use. My tower is getting flakey, so I'm considering making the jump to laptop-only, since I also think I'll be traveling more. I'm using VS 2008 + SQL Server 2005 with mostly-read databases (aren't they all). Does anyone have any experience with using solid state hard drive on a laptop? I *suspect* that a dual core with an SSD will fly... can anyone confirm/deny? Or am I best off sticking with a tower?
I think it depends on whether the SSD is the only storage on the machine. I'm a 'don't bother until it's 3rd generation' sort of guy. What would worry me more here in the UK is the thought of travelling with all of my development work on something likely to be stolen at least 5 times a day. You do do hourly backups don't you? :-D
Henry Minute honi soit qui mal y pongs - evil to he who thinks it stinks
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Can I ask which make/model of laptop that is?
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The issue with SSDs is write-speed. Up until the Intel one that was announced recently, they were (to my knowledge) very slow at writing.
Some were OK at single writes, but all the consumer ones (64GB for $300ish) were samsung(?) rebadges using the same jmicron controller. Unfortunately that controller would stall for upto a second during writes of two or more files at a time. See this (long) article on anandtech[^] for details
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Some were OK at single writes, but all the consumer ones (64GB for $300ish) were samsung(?) rebadges using the same jmicron controller. Unfortunately that controller would stall for upto a second during writes of two or more files at a time. See this (long) article on anandtech[^] for details
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
dan neely wrote:
Unfortunately that controller would stall for upto a second during writes of two or more files
That's awsesomely awful!