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Author Topic: My list of potential new computers  (Read 12560 times)

renluop

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #30 on: March 06, 2017, 10:38:33 PM »

@parkdale @roseway
Thanks both! I had wondered if fragmentation also caused HDDs to be less storage capable.

SSDs seem wonderful, but don't think I'll be going that way. As to drive size, I tend to ditch things once they are no more needed. I don't hoard data etc.
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tickmike

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #31 on: March 07, 2017, 01:50:31 AM »

@tickmike

Nevertheless thanks for that post! Ilove this bit from it,
There are some risks, that I will not take!
I used to work with electronics and sometimes when all else fails poking different components sometimes finds a dry-joint and when re-soldered the system works again.
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Weaver

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #32 on: March 07, 2017, 09:07:07 AM »

Again, I would strongly urge anyone to consider SSDs. Personally I am just so very sick of mechanical disk failures all the time even with quality models. (As I said earlier, as for laptops, not using an SSD is insane, one knock and you are potentially dead, russian roulette every time. And there is the power consumption.) When I had a twin channel mirror-config raid system fail irrecoverably on me, then that was the last straw for me. (I had to tear the machine apart and rebuild using one of the disks, which was thankfully in good shape.) If you are disciplined about doing backups both thoroughly and regularly, either to the internet or to a local server then that makes all the difference, but backing up an entire physical disk as opposed to just your valuable user data is a real challenge. For me backing up to another box across the lan was convenient, but of course you need to be worried about fire and theft destroying local backups. Now I always back up to the internet (incremental backups, done very frequently, use data only, upstream is free) and restores do work beautifully. Apologies for the sermon, everyone's priorities differ.
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renluop

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #33 on: March 07, 2017, 09:11:46 AM »

I used to work with electronics and sometimes when all else fails poking different components sometimes finds a dry-joint and when re-soldered the system works again.
Look again at the word in quote, I changed to green colour. You'll see why a replied as I did. ;)
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Weaver

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Re: My list of potential new compute
« Reply #34 on: March 07, 2017, 09:40:45 AM »

“No”, to your question about storage capacity of SSDs, the reverse if anything. No the fact that SSDs are small just comes down to cost, magnetic storage is very cheap, disks have several platters and bits per unit area figures just keep getting better and better. The cost per GB of SSDs will come down, and bit density will certainly go up. I assume that the price that the market is willing to pay is the limiting factor first. As well as that then I don't know if the physical size of the package is a second limiting factor assuming there are some users with really deep pockets. For very high capacity SSDs, lack of economies of scale will make things even worse as the demand for the entire package will be less healthy, and if they use higher bit-density chips then these may be less economical for various reasons for all I know, which doesn't help either.

Another thing with large SSDs. Why buy one when you could buy two units? (You might save money, or the reverse, I haven't looked. I ought to check which way the economic go.) But you will presumably get superb i/o bandwidth if you use RAID, a sexy combination, especially given the unimpressive read and especially write rates of some SSDs. (I would want a battery-backed RAID controller that is guaranteed to write back its internal RAM cache contents to the drives in a timely fashion, otherwise some of the reliability of SSDs is defeated.) And using raid striping with SSDs means you don't feel bad about such a loss of reliability as with mechanical HDs given they are so good to begin with. But anyway, it occurs to me that the option of running two SSD drives in parallel, even without RAID, might not help sales of the highest capacity units at all.

I ought to know more about SSDs' lifetimes. I've heard so much contradictory stuff, much of it vague, and little science. Operating systems matter - an SSD-aware file system is good for performance and a huge factor in keeping lifetimes healthy. Presumably very lazy write-back RAM caching helps a lot, although dangerous unless done well, but a lack of a correctly designed FS still means that there can be hotspots on the volume which are abused in relative terms. I wonder if a controller could fix the problem, by using an internal block mapping table, but of course this has to be done cleverly so that the region to which the table is eventually committed doesn't become a hotspot in itself. This unsolicited rant (apol) is off-topic (apol again) and might be worth splitting off into a new thread, but only if anyone might be interested in educating me / discussing SSDs. Admins?
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Ronski

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #35 on: March 07, 2017, 10:22:36 AM »

SSDs seem wonderful, but don't think I'll be going that way. As to drive size, I tend to ditch things once they are no more needed. I don't hoard data etc.

I also think your missing a trick here by not going for an SSD,  they make so much difference to the feel and responsiveness of a computer. I've fitted them in all our PCs at home and all PCs at work. There's absolutely no need to worry about wearing them out eirher, the average user never will, I'm still using my original 80GB Intel ssd's from years ago.
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Weaver

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #36 on: March 07, 2017, 10:52:34 AM »

Am with Ronski, Intel make good SSDs. Some are rubbish, relatively speaking.
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parkdale

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #37 on: March 07, 2017, 05:59:52 PM »

I've got 3 SSD's in my system ;D all 240Gb ones got Windows 7 (Intel) Windows 10 (Samsung 850evo) Sabayon linux (OCZ Agility). And 2 Rotating Disks, Totaling 2,5Tb
All laptops that came too me via friends all have SSD's in them and the Rotating Harddrives put in USB/eSata caddies.
SSD's do not suffer from fragmentation, in fact you do not defrag them ever!
Cheap SSD's have no or very little over provisioning, Intel out in front with as much as 30%, along with enterprise class drives.

http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/tech-insights/ssd-over-provisioning-benefits-master-ti/

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renluop

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #38 on: March 07, 2017, 06:19:17 PM »

Is it me? I get an impression that Pro Win 10 systems are trending vs Home in the offerings. Am I right, and how so?
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Chrysalis

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #39 on: March 07, 2017, 06:24:13 PM »

Quick word of warning regarding ssd's especially as the budget is tight.

There has been in the past 12 months some dramless ssd's using planar TLC appearing on the market, they mostly designed for cheap OEM parts to go in cheap laptop's, but if you see one for retail avoid it as they have quite bad durability, tomshardware has an article on it where he was told unofficially the manufacturers expect the ssd's to fail in under a year.

If you on a budget then get a 3d nand TLC ssd with a dram cache. Or an older model planar MLC drive (I woud avoid planar TLC).

some info here http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/dramless-ssd-roundup,review-33792.html
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parkdale

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #40 on: March 07, 2017, 06:24:34 PM »

I think Home is all you ever need unless your into small networks at home :-\ or need more than 128Gb of Ram.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/windows/windows-10-home-vs-windows-10-pro-uk-difference-3618710/
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gt94sss2

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #41 on: March 07, 2017, 06:40:07 PM »

As others here have mentioned I would also suggest an SSD (or Hybrid drive) instead of a traditional one - having an SSD is the one area where you will immediately notice the difference and will have the benefit over your old machine.

As for the rest - if you want Windows 10 go with the home version - 4GB RAM sounds sufficient for your purposes (and if really needed can be upgraded later). No need to spend more on these areas for arguably relatively minor benefits.
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Weaver

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #42 on: March 07, 2017, 07:32:30 PM »

I hate to contradict parkdale, but you're totally wrong. Home versions _cannot be secured_. If you don't know how to secure an installation then that doesn't mean anything.

Do not by Home. Learn about Pro and read up on SRP and local group policy, nothing to do with domains or networking. (mind you the crippled networking is a total disaster in itself.) Then you will know what you are talking about. :-) I have been doing this for decades and I always fully secure single, non-networked PCs for old grannies so that they cannot possibly run malware (be it downloaded, in email or on removable disks) or crap apps that will trash the system. Apologies for the rudeness which you don't deserve, but disastrous advice where it comes to security is, er disastrous. Or something. :-) I can't stress strongly enough how important correct config is because then you will have a totally stress-free and disaster-free life. Do not believe this is unachievable just because you have never seen a correctly secured system. As I said, none of my users have every had a single security incident in a decade, despite being totally non-computer-literate in most cases and unsupervised too.

Do by all means ask if you need any help, or the jargon explaining. Setting SRP, local group policy is really easy, and in fact you can just copy pre-cooked recipes. Setting ACLs correctly is a bit fiddly but again a pre-cooked batch file (.CMD file) will just do the job for you. But it is by far the best to do this on a fresh system, worth the effort even to do a clean install, secure it and then reinstall apps then restore user data, in order to know the job has been done thoroughly with no holes. Follow the brief set of rules to follow in my earlier post. This can't be done unless you buy Pro, not the cynically crippled garbage that is Home saving a pathetic £60 and getting a time bomb for your efforts. Why MS’ marketing scum think home users don't deserve a chance at security is disgusting / incomprehensible. This was never an issue until WinXp came out, all earlier versions were fully configurable (but shamefully not configured correctly by default). It also depends on whether you are willing to learn a small amount, copious good docs on the MS website and elsewhere plus tons of help from humans on the web.

Apologies once again.
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Weaver

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #43 on: March 07, 2017, 07:37:46 PM »

And a cow pat to me for being the most off-topic ever. If any of this stuff is useful to anyone could split it off. Or bin it if not. Love to all and apologies to the OP. Inexperienced users getting into bad trouble is something I just hate to see so much because it's so awful and unnecessary if only MS had a conscience or there were more people around like me who are passionate about true 100% security not just for important people.

In fact, to hell with it, just buy Apple, because it at least comes 100% correctly secured. (iOS is like a brick s_house. Are you allowed to say s_house in the forum?)
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Weaver

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Re: My list of potential new computers
« Reply #44 on: March 07, 2017, 07:51:47 PM »

Google "software restriction policies" (SRP), local "Group Policy", and the icacls and cacls commands, all of which I can sort out for you. Can try doing a secure config on a clean install using a VM too if you're new to the game, to see that you're doing the right thing.
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