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ephion comments on Open thread for December 9 - 16, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think I want to buy a new laptop computer. Can anyone here provide advice, or suggestions on where to look?
The laptop I want to replace is a Dell Latitude D620. Its main issues are weight, heat production, slowness (though probably in part from software issues), inability to sleep or hibernate (buying and installing a new copy of XP might fix this), lack of an HDMI port, and deteriorated battery life. I briefly tried an Inspiron i14z-4000sLV, but it was still kind of slow, and trying to use Windows 8 without a touchscreen was annoying.
I remember reading that it's unsafe to move or jostle a laptop with a magnetic hard drive while it's running, because of the moving parts. Based on that, it seems like it's best to get one with only a solid-state drive and no magnetic drive. Is that accurate?
I'm somewhat ambivalent about how to trade off power against heat and weight, or against cost of replacement if it's lost or damaged.
(Edit: I eventually ordered a Dell XPS 13.)
Not necessarily. Most laptops nowadays are equipped with anti shock hard drive mounts and the hard drives are specially designed to be resistant to shock. The advantages for an SSD are speed, not reliability.
This reliability report (with this caveat) indicates that Samsung is the most reliable brand on the market for now. I've always considered Lenovo and ASUS to be high quality, with ASUS generally having cheaper and more powerful computers (and a trade off in actually figuring out which one you want, that website is terrible).
I would expect an SSD to be MUCH more reliable than a hard drive.
SSDs are solid-state devices with no moving parts. Hard drives are mechanical devices with platters rapidly rotating at microscopic tolerances.
So now that I've declared my prior let's see if there's data... :-)
"From the data I've seen, client SSD annual failure rates under warranty tend to be around 1.5%, while HDDs are near 5%," Chien said. (where Chien is "an SSD and storage analyst with IHS's Electronics & Media division") Source
Reliability for SSDs is better than for HDD. However, they aren't so much more reliable that it alters best practices for important data keeping -- at least two backups, and one off site.
Oh, certainly.
Safety of your data involves considerably more than the reliability of your storage devices. SSDs won't help you if your laptop gets stolen or if, say, your power supply goes berserk and fries everything within reach.
Thanks for replying. I haven't looked at your link yet, but it seems like there'd be limits to how much shock protection could be fit in an ultrathin laptop, and it'd be hard to find out how good it is for specific models. (And the speed advantage seems like enough reason to want an SSD in any case.)