Dan Waters
df.waters at comcast.net
Sun Jun 12 18:42:36 CDT 2011
An SSD is a Solid State Drive. You use it in addition to the internal spinning HD that's currently in your PC. The reason for doing this is that a 128 Gb SSD costs $200 - $250, while a 500 Gb HD costs about $60. You need more space than 128 Gb, but you don't want to spend many hundreds for a 500 Gb SSD. What you would do is purchase the SSD and install it internally, disconnecting your existing HD. Install Windows on the SSD, then reformat the HD. Then, when you install an app, install it on the SSD. When you save data, or tell an app where to save data, save it on the HD. I've named my two drives System, and Data. I haven't looked at OEM PC's for a while, so I don't know if SSD's are an option yet. If you got an 'average' PC, you can boost performance by a factor of 2 - 3 times - and who can argue with that? My PC was pretty fast to begin with (I built it 3 years ago), but now with the SSD it's usually ahead of me while I'm developing, for each keystroke and for each mouse click. I actually develop code quite a bit faster just with this one hardware addition. If you get an SSD then follow parts 1 - 3 of these instructions - very helpful! http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/windows-7-and-ssds-just-how-fast-are-they/290 2?tag=mantle_skin;content Good Luck! Dan -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 12:18 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Shopping for a new comp OEM - don't want to fool with hardware. But an SSD does sound like a good idea. Can I just hang that on the outside like and external HD or is that a board that takes a slot? Don't know if I'll be running virtuals - I don't run them now although I played with them in the past. Any compelling reason to do that? -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 8:18 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Shopping for a new comp Hi Rocky, Are you going to buy components and assemble them? Or are you looking for an OEM box? Are you using XP Mode (Virtual PC) on Windows 7? If so, I found that 6 Gb Ram was needed to not max out Ram usage when it opened. If you can get a PC with a SSD for your system and apps (128 Gb), and a good standard HD for data storage (500 Gb), that's a great compromise considering the cost of an SSD. The SSD will be the item that causes most of the improved performance. If you're looking to build a box I can give you a list of components. Dan -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of rockysmolin at bchacc.com Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 8:26 AM To: dba-ot at databaseadvisors.com Cc: dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com; accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: [AccessD] OT: Shopping for a new comp Dear List: It's time. My current development box is 4-5 years old. Dell P4, 3GHz, XP, limited to 2 GB RAM. And the HD is pretty small (<100 GB, IIRC - I'm not at home at the moment - in Chicago, actually), though it was huge at the time. Been a very solid workhorse but (like me) is slowing down. I think part of the problem is that I have more stuff open than I used to so there's some swapping going on. I could dump the HD, reformat and reload I suppose. My 14 y.o. wants a more powerful box, too and needs better graphics than he has. So I told him with the right GPA at the end of the year I'll get him a new box, too. All we need are the boxes, BTW - got plenty displays and external HD. I need speed, not a lot of graphics, and no need for huge HD storage. Any new box will have a big enough HD for me. But the new crop of multi-core processors is unfamiliar to me. We'll probably take a field trip to Fry's but if Dell has a good price I usually order from them and have it delivered. What would you advise? TIA ROcky -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com