Is an SSD worth the money for a casual user?

[Zak33]

however.. I have become too .. exuberant

Opening post : Is an SSD worth the money for a casual user?

Casual user with the spare dough to buy one, or sacrifice a cpu speed or graphics model increase? yes I think it might be, long term
Casual users on a tighter budget : no. Install one large regular HDD and it'll be fine

[Saracen]

Thanks Saracen, your last response merely confirmed my previous point about measures of productivity being subjective and in your case very questionable. Not sure why you're still continuing with points though. It's like a watching an Hamster running around in circles.

More importantly, most people on this thread have recognised how slow HDDs are compared to SDDs and would not want to go back to HDDs after experiencing SDDs. I share the same view too.

Of course you're entitled to your views, but once you factored in the questionable nature of your productivity measure then you're not really making any point at all. Perhaps there is scope to explore further flaws in your thinking!!! But please carry on at your own risk.

Who the hell do you think you are?

I've explained, in detail, that it does not affect MY productivity, yet you continue with partronising remarks, as if you somehow know better.

Knock off the patronising put downs, right now.

If you do not, you WILL be suspended, or banned, without further warning.

Not one more word.

[Top_gun]

Who the hell do you think you are?

I've explained, in detail, that it does not affect MY productivity, yet you continue with partronising remarks, as if you somehow know better.

Sorry, but being aggressive does not prove your point all. I shall give this thread a miss as I'm not able to give my views in a fair way.

[Saracen]

Sorry, but being aggressive does not prove your point all. I shall give this thread a miss as I'm not able to give my views in a fair way.

You were warned.

Account suspended.

[DanceswithUnix]

But as it is, even in hybernation mode, it can take 3 minutes before it's useable.

3 minutes??? Is it booting from paper tape? The mind boggles at what junk they must have installed to manage that. My netbook boots from cold in about 2 mins.

Will they let you run an approved virtual machine on your own hardware to access the company facilities? That can sometimes work, and might work out faster.

[Spreadie]

In the spirit of the Commonwealth Games, I propose a new event:

"Begging for the Banhammer".

I think we have a gold medal candidate in our ranks.

[Zak33]

3 minutes??? Is it booting from paper tape? The mind boggles at what junk they must have installed to manage that. My netbook boots from cold in about 2 mins.

Will they let you run an approved virtual machine on your own hardware to access the company facilities? That can sometimes work, and might work out faster.

oh it's a mess honestly.

but that's another subject.

[Splash]

My guess is... encryption is the killer. Or McAfee. And if it's encryption then you're going to struggle to get a VM past the IT security guys, unless you've got access to Horizon or something similar.

[grayg1]

For many they are a much loved luxury and in the right cases can really increase your productivty.
Personally I find using machines without SSD's next to unbareable these days, but then I'm very impatient.

[peterb]

Now making a cup of tea means you're not being productive. So to say, Saracen, that you experienced no loss of productivity is simply isn't true.

That assumes that you are only productive while your computer is up and running. My most productive time is thinking and discussion time, often informal chats round the communal coffee machine - and I can do that while a computer (which is my slave, not my master) is booting up. Time spent putting those thoughts down on a computer is sort of productive, but having not having a computer running does not mean I am not productive.

However, for a salesman or field service technician with a laptop may well be unproductive while the machine is booting or restoring from sleep, and that might be significant. The lower power consumption and ruggedness may also be important factors, particularly for laptop/notebook users.

But then they fall out of the OPs question concerning casual users.

So - it depends - I guess a casual user doesn't really care whether he is productive or not, so it comes down to choice/budget. SSDs are still expensive on a price/byte basis when compared with there hdd counterpart - offset that against lower power consumption and do some maths. Reliability is another issue - SSDs haven't, IMHO been around long enough to see what the long term reliability will be - not that that matters to much if you have regular backups and don't mind the cost of replacement!

[kalniel]

Or conversely, if you're going to make a cup of tea at some point then that's going to limit what you can do at the same time, but it doesn't limit a computer booting up once you've pushed the button, so the booting is free time that won't impact on productivity. And there are all sorts of reasons why having a cup of tea increases productivity for a lot of people, so combining this with your computer booting is very effective use of time.

[Saracen]

Or conversely, if you're going to make a cup of tea at some point then that's going to limit what you can do at the same time, but it doesn't limit a computer booting up once you've pushed the button, so the booting is free time that won't impact on productivity. And there are all sorts of reasons why having a cup of tea increases productivity for a lot of people, so combining this with your computer booting is very effective use of time.

Exactly.

I would add that I use "cuppa" as a generic term. It might be tea but much more likely is coffee. It might also be iced water, or even a (home made) smoothie. But it's in part because I fancy a drink, and in part because I know, from 30 years of working for myself, when my concentration is lapsing. To blindly carry on at that point is, first, not efficient, but second and far more damagingly, my error rate goes up. That results in me having to go back, later, and redo or rewrite some of what was done earlier, and that process actually takes longer, correcting issues, than just doing it right first time would have. It's an appallingly inefficient use of my time.

On the other hand, a regular break, 5 to 15 minutes, every hour or hour and a half, refreshes my mind. That break might be making a cuppa, it might be pottering in the garden, it might be sitting back in a chair listening to a CD. Hell, it might even, shock horror, be posting on here.

It's the break, in concentration, that matters, not really particularly what I do with it.

And that's just me. I don't necessarily claim it works for everyone, but my bet is it'd work for a lot of people, especially where 'work' consists of a very tight focus on a specific task. But whatever happens for anyone else, it does work for me. Exactly when I need a break does depend on what I'm doing, though. Some jobs, like maybe building a PC, are pretty varied and I can go at that for hours, uninterrupted, and break-free. It's as if the variety is a kind of built-in break time. But others, most notably sitting at a PC and 'creating', writing, involve a level of single-minded focus that regular and fairly frequent breaks are a must. Exactly when I break is determined by the flow of the work, though. Breaking at the wrong point disrupts my thought process as much as not breaking at all. Which is why I have background music, ignore the doorbell (unless I'm expecting a delivery) and turn phone ringers off.

I'm also fortunate that, working for myself and, much of the time, from home, I can break when I want. And, I might be working equally as hard sitting back in an armchair with my eyes closed as I am with my face stuck in a PC monitor. Why? Thinking. Planning, structuring. And, with a portable note-taker in my hand, taking notes for later transcription. I wouldn't advise the average office worker to try convincing their boss that sitting in an arm chair, eyes closed, music playing quietly, is "work", but for me, it often is.

Productivity means different things to different people. For an factory floor worker, it might be units per hour. For a lawyer, billable hours. For me, it's harder to define because it depends what I'm doing. When writing, it's not just words per hour, but getting exactly the right words. Five hundred exactly right words, per session, is far, FAR better than a thousand, or ten thousand, mediocre ones because mediocre just doesn't cut it, any more than it does for a surgeon if he removes two of any old organ or limb, rather than just the one that was the right one. Quantity matters in my game, but never at the price of quality. And for quality, concentration is critical and for that, adequate breaks, timed correctly, increases productivity.

[mrham4321]

It makes your experience much snappier. It may not be essential but you'll be glad you have one. Downside: it makes family member tech support even more intolerable because the machines feel terribly unresponsive!

[jameskgowan]

I would say that SSDs are fantastic and most definitely worth the extra cost. You can purchase smaller size SSDs now such as the Kingston V300 128GB for about £41 and the official read and write speeds based on some reviews have been very conservative at 450MB/s. Closer to 500 or even 525 in the real world performance. It is most definitely noticeable when you go back to a spinning disk drive and agonising to wait sometimes!