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Solid State Hard Drives – It is time

I have been a big fan of Solid State Drives (SSD’s) for laptops ever since I saw one in action (yes even when they were expensive!). My first one was a 64 GB Samsung that turned up in a Dell laptop bought for a song on Grays Online. I was immediately impressed by the boot speed improvements and responsiveness of the system which made the relatively small storage capacity easy to live with. Now, I would not consider anything else for my own use. The lower power consumption, less heat generation, high shock resistance and no need to de-fragment all make them a compelling option.

SSD Experience Index
Solid State Drives may not be for everyone, users with a large media collection on their laptop for example, and they are more expensive but with recent leaps in technology making other components much faster, now the traditional hard drive has become the performance bottleneck for many systems, especially laptops. With SSD performance easily able to sustain 2-3 times the read and write speed of a traditional hard drive, the performance benefits are noticable. The Windows 7 experience index is generally around 5-5.9 for a traditional laptop drive, an SSD laptop drive will easily run up around 7.2-7.5 (see my laptop experience index on the right). While the actual relationship of performance to these numbers is a bit subjective, my experience with SSD upgrades is that it definitely feels 50% quicker at least.

My current preferred SSD is the OCZ Vertex range, either the SATA 2 Vertex II or the SATA 3 Vertex III. I only prefer these as they are readily available from one of my suppliers at good prices and they are fast and, so far, reliable. There are a couple of issues though. The main issue I have had is that the OCZ 2.5″ drives are slightly larger (a fraction of a millimetre but enough to be noticable) than a traditional drive which is strange. I have had some fitting issues in some laptops where the slightly larger width makes it a very snug fit, especially where there is a carrier screwed to the drive (2-3 yr old Lenovo T-Series laptops seem particularly difficult to get the OCZ SSD’s into). I have also had some compatibility issues with some brands and the newer SATA 3 Vertex III drives. An HP 6560b Probook for example just could not recognise the drive at all but had no problems with the SATA 2 Vertex II drive (they are supposed to be backwards compatible). Even a firmware update to the drive and a BIOS update to the laptop made no difference. The same drive worked without issue in my Dell Precision M4500 laptop so it can be a bit hit and miss at the moment. If in doubt, go with the SATA II option, they are pretty quick anyway!

Long term performance and reliability should be pretty good, the chip technology is good these days and always improving but as always, make sure you back up regularly regardless. I carry an external USB drive for bulk storage as my 128GB capacity is a bit light on, I also have a 32GB SD card (encrypted just in case it falls out and I lose it) permanently plugged into my laptop for a bit of extra space. 128GB does seem to be the pricing sweet spot at the moment but the 256GB and 512GB drives are getting cheaper as they become more popular and production increases.

I wont be going back to the old drives myself. You may not want the extra expense but it is definitely worth it in my opinion.

UPDATE: February 5th 2012
I have had a couple of client SSD’s fail recently, anecdotal evidence suggests that they may not be as reliable as we had hoped. The other downside is that when they fail, they fail, game over. It is relatively rare for a mechanical drive to fail without warning with no way of recovering any data. That said, I still use and recommend then. To me, the performance gains far outweigh the reliabilty issues. Make sure you have good regular backups and decide if you want the Toyota Corolla or the McLaren F1 racecar.

Posted in: Hardware

Small and Silent, the Intel Atom

I recently decided to re-visit my Home Theatre PC system and my always on home PC. Recent electricity cost increases have made the $140 per quarter it costs to run my IT systems start to look a bit much. I decided to retire my main PC to more of an “as needed” role with an always on PC being ultra low power consumption. The plan was an Intel Atom D525 PC with 4GB RAM and a solid state hard drive running 24/7 along with my NAS. It was all fine in theory.

The system I built used an ASUS mini iTX motherboard with nVidia ION graphics. Only a handful of the iTX Atom motherboards supported dual digital screens, a non-negotiable requirement. It had a 4GB RAM limitation in the chipset but this was fine for my needs. Two 2GB SODIMM chips fitted in quite neatly and the ultra small Aywun case with external 65W PSU seemed pretty good. It supposedly could accommodate a single 2.5″ hard drive and a slim optical drive. The hard drive mount was fine but the slim optical drive was a tight fit and seemed to distort the drive slightly which made it either vibrate badly or not eject depending on its exact location.

With the system up and running, the meter attached to its power supply was indicating a power consumption of 27W which, based on current prices of $0.21/KWh, equates to around $13AU/quarter, not bad. It was also completely silent with no moving parts and all passive cooling.

UbuntuTake 1: After removing the slim optical drive and reverting to a USB one for the install, Ubuntu 11.04 desktop was installed. It installed and ran fine and could easily do most of what was asked of it until video playback. HD up to 720p was perfect but 1080p was jerky and not watchable.

Windows 7Take 2: After Ubuntu not being able to play 1080p, I decided to install Windows 7 instead so I could directly compare the Atom performance against my existing PC. I was not expecting it to play 1080p either and I was right. All other general use was fine although zipping or unzipping large files was, as expected due to a slow CPU, very slow. I was impressed by how fast the Windows shell was, general use was perfectly acceptable, probably due to the speed of the SSD.

I still was not happy due to the lack of 1080p which meant that my experiment could not form the basis of a Media Centre PC which I had hoped it would. I took a step back and decided to rebuild with a fan. I had a brand new model CPU, the bottom of the line Intel Pentium G620 and another iTX motherboard (also with dual digital video) and case from a cancelled order. The Aywun case was too small for the heat sink and fan so I used a slightly larger iTX case with an internal 150W power supply. Unfortunately this also means a power supply fan, a small one, and small fans are noisy. I simply swapped the hard drive across and thankfully it just worked so I didnt need a rebuild. Now I have a much faster (Windows experience CPU index 5.2 up from 3.5 for the atom) small PC, albeit a noisier one that will happily play 1080p. It draws slightly more power at around 32W at rest and the components were actually marginally cheaper than the Atom (full size DIMM RAM chips are faster as well as cheaper too). Graphics performance is actually a bit worse (based on the Windows experience index), the nVidia ION has more grunt than the Intel HD graphics chipset. This is not an issue given that it is not for gaming and video playback is more CPU dependent. The next step will be to remove the tiny power supply fan and try to mount and duct a larger quieter fan instead. Perhaps I can lose the CPU fan as well and simply vent the entire case with a top mounted 120mm Noctua silent fan, it should move more than enough air and be much quieter. Maybe then it will compare to the Mac Mini….but then again, maybe not. The larger case can take a low profile PCIe TV Tuner card though.

Now my home office draws around 130-180W (with screens on) for the NAS, switch, DSL modem, VOIP box, PC and fish tank (yes its on my office UPS) down from the 250-300W it was drawing previously. This is saving around $60/quarter in electricity. Break even will be in less than a year. I get all my equipment wholesale and can claim it as a deduction but can only claim 10% of the home power bill as a business expense. The only other downside is that I now may need heating in the office in winter….

Posted in: Hardware

PC Dust cleaning

All computers require regular cleaning to maximise life and minimise problems. This is rarely done, often never in businesses.

In an ideal world, you would turn over 1/3 of your desktop and laptop fleet every year and with proper business grade hardware having a three year warranty, if it dies, it gets replaced. Some people are lucky enough to live in this technology nirvana however the rest of us are not so fortunate. Small businesses often hold on to computer hardware for at least 5-6 years before it dies and they are forced to replace it.

If you want to get the most from your IT investment, why would you not look after it? You have your car serviced, your lawns mowed, your windows cleaned but not your computers (well not the insides anyway). Regular cleaning can greatly improve the life and performance of IT equipment. Due to their nature and a high level of static electricity, computers attract dust which collects inside the cases. Fans and heat sinks are very likely to collect dust. Dust buildup reduces airflow through the case and acts as a blanket for the sensitive electronic components. Hotter equipment will use more electricity as fans will run faster to try to keep components cool and the combination of heat and dust can and will cause premature failure of PC equipment.

The biggest issue with this is successfully cleaning computers in offices. Vaccuum cleaners cannot be used due to static discharge being more risky than the dust. The only really good way to clean computers out internally is with compressed air (proper compressed air from a compressor, not a little can of aerosol “air”). This should be done every 6-12 months to keep systems cool but needs to be a dust free solution in an office. It is not practical to carry every computer outside to clean them, especially from the 21st floor of an office building so I am currently developing a portable cleaning system that can properly clean computer internals onsite without releasing the dust back into the surrounding office. If you are doing this yourself, make sure you dont spin up fans with the compressed air. The high speed air flow can destroy fans in seconds from spinning too fast. They need to be prevented from spinning while being cleaned.

If I am coming to your home to help with your home PC or home theatre systems, let me know if you would like your PC cleaned at the same time at no extra charge.

Call me if this service is of interest on (+61) 0438534016 (Melbourne CBD and metro only, A/H or weekends if required, $15/Desktop PC, minimum 6 for dedicated visit)

Posted in: Hardware
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