OT: SSD drive prices have dropped drastically this week.

On 6/7/2014 11:25 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Jun 2014 01:53:55 -0400, Bill <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> woodchucker wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 9:25 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>>> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
>>>>> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
>>>>> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
>>>>> inefficiencies.
>>>>
>>>> Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also
>>>> lead to
>>>> decreased software disciplines since the resources were so cheap. We
>>>> have
>>>> indeed lost something in this transition.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Absolutely.
>>>
>>> I see people storing crap in the db because they think disk is cheap.
>>> But SAN storage is very expensive. And usually what they are storing
>>> is never used. But they want to cover themselves.
>>>
>>> I see them do unbelievable bad code because they don't know better.
>>> Where we used to organize statements to most frequent first, least
>>> last, they do it logically not for performance.
>> Performance is not the be-all and end-all of software
>> development (software engineering text contains explanation).
>> Unless maybe you want to say, OVERALL-performance.
>
> You are absolutely correct. Cost is the be-all and end-all. Writing
> tight code is hard and even harder to verify. That's why techniques
> like "object oriented programming" are used extensively.
>
In their case, it is not cost, just the way they think.
In my world, performance is the biggest issue. Generally it is not
thought about and ignored, until its too late. Then they go back and
have to figure out how to make it run faster, which means identifying
the bottle necks and then re-reading their code. And making changes,
testing, pushing to production... (costly)

That's more expensive. When you do it right the first time you are
thinking about it all the time. You do it because you know it will be an
issue later.

I interviewed the other day for a small company, my first in many years.
They are at this place now. That's why they need someone like me. As we
were discussing things, I realized they never thought about perf at all.
So their small customers are OK, now they are in big places, and it's
failing to keep up... When I heard some of the things they did, they
never made it scalable, and they never considered performance. I can
already tell much of the things they want me to do, will be pushed back
to them to make changes. They won't like that, but I can't solve their
problems with a magic bullet, I have to educate them to do it on their
own. I do this so many times after the fact... its cheaper to teach
them how to code for performance and get it done when they write their
code to begin with.

B4 the breakup of the bell companies, they identified some simple
problems in IBM's logic.. they were doing the most common logical in
reverse order. The most frequent case was being tested second, the least
common first. Bell identified the problem and presented it to IBM. They
made the change, and now the system was flying. Logical tests matter as
far as order. The lower in the code o/s the more important. Certainly
it doesn't matter if the code is rarely exercised. But if it is....

--
Jeff

On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>
>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>
>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>
>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>
>>>> Cool.
>>>>>
>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>> drive.
>>>
>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>
>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>> up, video and images mostly.
>
> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
> to be a pig.


Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.

On Friday, June 6, 2014 3:50:03 PM UTC-7, Leon wrote:
> On 6/6/2014 9:11 AM, pentapus wrote:
>
> > On 6/6/2014 8:29 AM, Leon wrote:

> > Seems like HD companies have their ups and downs. Both Maxtor and WD
> > went through a really bad patch and I went with them on that. I've had
> > drives from both where not only the original failed, but the replacement
> > also! I've heard really bad things about the current Green WD.

> > Looks like Hitachi is the current champ:

> Good to hear, that is what my new primary drive brand is.

How 'new' is this info, anyhow? Hitachi HD division became
HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technology)
and is now a Western Digital company...

<http://www.hgst.com/about-hgst-storage>

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:G-
[email protected]:

>
>
> If you put one in, a SSD, I have read that you should not run an
> optimization/derangementer. I don't, at least not in the last 3 years.

Do you mean "defragmenter"? Windows 7 does some sort of defragmentation in
the background, but I don't remember any of the details. They might turn
it off for SSD, after all there's no delay as the drive waits for the head
to move and platter to come to the right point.

Puckdropper
--
Make it to fit, don't make it fit.

"Leon" wrote:

> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.

Remember the days of 64K?

They knew how to write tight code.

Lew






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On 06/05/2014 08:53 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
> "Leon" wrote:
>
>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>
> Remember the days of 64K?
>
> They knew how to write tight code.
>
They had 80x24 green text screens instead of the GUIs and
multi-megapixel displays and photo and movie data and the software to
process.

Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
inefficiencies.

Leon wrote:

> What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____.
-----------------------------------------------
Mike Marlow wrote:

>> So - maybe a little clarity is in order. DOS was generally
>> considered a
>> misnomer because it lacked so much of what an operating system
>> typically
>> contained. In those early days, you needed add-on utilities to do
>> things
>> that an OS would normally manage - memory management, I/O
>> management, etc.
>> It did perform miminal sets of those, but not in a way that was
>> generally
>> accepted as part of an operating system.
------------------------------------------------
Leon wrote:

>>> While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing
>>> out
>>> that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do
>>> so
>>> much more.

Mike Marlow wrote:

>> True - and I didn't want to sound like I disputed that claim.
----------------------------------------------------

Leon wrote:

>>
>>>
>>> FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows
>>> ran
>>> under DOS. Windows was a program that allowed above all
>>> multitasking
>>> for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt
>>> and
>>> earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the
>>> C:/
>>> prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the
>>> autoexec.bat file on most computers with earlier versions of
>>> Windows
>>> it included the command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.
------------------------------------------------------------
I know I'm a Neanderthal but I still run programs that were designed
to
operate on DOS-2.0 and haven't been updatede since 1990.

Have my bank programs set up as database programs, some of which
go back to the early 80's and are less than 70K.

Biggest PITA is to remember to use <ALT><ENTER> to get into
full screen mode.

My customer file is a custom database file the contains 1,000 records
with 50 fields and is only 200K.

I'd call that pretty tight code. What do you call it?

Lew



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On 6/6/2014 8:49 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> Leon wrote:
>
>>
>> What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____. ;~)
>
> So - maybe a little clarity is in order. DOS was generally considered a
> misnomer because it lacked so much of what an operating system typically
> contained. In those early days, you needed add-on utilities to do things
> that an OS would normally manage - memory management, I/O management, etc.
> It did perform miminal sets of those, but not in a way that was generally
> accepted as part of an operating system.
>
>>
>> While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing out
>> that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do so
>> much more.
>
> True - and I didn't want to sound like I disputed that claim.
>
>>
>> FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
>> under DOS. Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
>> for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
>> earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
>> prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the
>> autoexec.bat file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows
>> it included the command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.
>
> Yes - true. I don't think we're disagreeing on anything with respect to
> this point.
>


Well GOOD! I'm glad cause I don't want to get you started. LOL

On 6/6/2014 9:11 AM, pentapus wrote:
> On 6/6/2014 8:29 AM, Leon wrote:
>> On 6/6/2014 3:37 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 9:49 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>>>> Bill wrote:
>>>>>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first
>>>>>>>> ssd
>>>>>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>>>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the
>>>>>>>> manufacturer
>>>>>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>>>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the
>>>>>>>> best
>>>>>>>> performance specs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
>>>>> quickly.
>>>>> 256gb is $99
>>>
>>> That's a deal...
>>>
>>> Out of curiosity I checked regular laptop HD prices:
>>>
>>> $80 for a 2.5 1TB Seagate momentus
>>>
>>> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST1000LM024/
>>>
>>> Decent hardware is getting really cheap. As cheap as the junk.
>>
>> Seagate has been around for a long time, so to speak. Have you had any
>> luck with that brand? I have had two computers with a Seagate drives,
>> one about 25 years ago and one as recently as 2 years ago. Both failed
>> and those are the only hard drives that have failed IIRC. I have heard
>> that this is not unusual for a Seagate drive.
>
>
> I'm not in the hardware business, so I can't really say, but my Seagate
> Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM is running fine. So is a friends
> bought a couple years ago. Others aren't so happy with theirs. I have
> the crucial SSD and 4 Gigs of RAM so the drive is just handling data.

My last Seagate was external strictly for data and would spin but would
cause my computer to freeze daily. I was unaware that was the problem
until I started seeing that data was occasionally not obtainable.
Finally I unplugged after 6 months of aggravation and the problem was
solved. Hummmmmmm ;~)



>
> Seems like HD companies have their ups and downs. Both Maxtor and WD
> went through a really bad patch and I went with them on that. I've had
> drives from both where not only the original failed, but the replacement
> also! I've heard really bad things about the current Green WD.
>
> Looks like Hitachi is the current champ:



Good to hear, that is what my new primary drive brand is.
>
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/putting-hard-drive-reliability-to-the-test-shows-not-all-disks-are-equal/
>
>
> It's been said that good judgement comes from experience. And experience
> comes from bad judgement. You don't always know until after the fact!
>>
>>
>
>

On 6/6/2014 9:03 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>> On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>>> drive.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>>
>>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>>
>>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>>> to be a pig.
>>
>>
>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
>> that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
>> can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>
> I routinely run linux VM's with 8GB hard disks, and that leaves plenty
> of space to spare.
>
> This is my domain email server (MX, DNS, IMAP server) for example:
>
> $ df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/root 7.0G 2.1G 4.6G 32% /
> /dev/vda1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
> tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm
>


Still a lot larger than a 360k floppy. ;~)

But where does one get an 8Gig HD????

On 6/10/2014 8:41 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> woodchucker <[email protected]> writes:
>> On 6/9/2014 10:15 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>>>> On 6/6/2014 9:03 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>>>>>> On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>>>>>>> drive.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>>>>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>>>>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>>>>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>>>>>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>>>>>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>>>>>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>>>>>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>>>>>>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>>>>>>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>>>>>>> to be a pig.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
>>>>>> that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
>>>>>> can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>>>
>>>>> I routinely run linux VM's with 8GB hard disks, and that leaves plenty
>>>>> of space to spare.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is my domain email server (MX, DNS, IMAP server) for example:
>>>>>
>>>>> $ df -h
>>>>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>>>>> /dev/root 7.0G 2.1G 4.6G 32% /
>>>>> /dev/vda1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
>>>>> tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Still a lot larger than a 360k floppy. ;~)
>>>>
>>>> But where does one get an 8Gig HD????
>>>
>>> dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/lib/kvm/email-server-root.img bs=1m count=8192
>>>
>> Not sure I understand Scott, dd is used for copying/converting files I
>> used to use it for taking raw disk files and moving them to tape. or
>> vice versa.
>>
>> I think you are using dd to show creating an 8gb disk. But really you
>> should just be defining the mount for them to understand.
>>
>
> Leon did ask where I found an 8GB disk :-)
>
> Here, dd(1) is creating an "empty" 8GB virtual disk and reserving
> the disk space for it. This is a root disk for a virtual machine
> and is mounted as usual by the installer when installing the OS
> onto the virtual disk.
>

No, LOL I was asking about a hard disk, not drive.

On 6/9/2014 10:15 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>> On 6/6/2014 9:03 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>>>>> drive.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>>>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>>>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>>>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>>>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>>>>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>>>>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>>>>> to be a pig.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
>>>> that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
>>>> can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>
>>> I routinely run linux VM's with 8GB hard disks, and that leaves plenty
>>> of space to spare.
>>>
>>> This is my domain email server (MX, DNS, IMAP server) for example:
>>>
>>> $ df -h
>>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>>> /dev/root 7.0G 2.1G 4.6G 32% /
>>> /dev/vda1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
>>> tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm
>>>
>>
>>
>> Still a lot larger than a 360k floppy. ;~)
>>
>> But where does one get an 8Gig HD????
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/lib/kvm/email-server-root.img bs=1m count=8192
>
Not sure I understand Scott, dd is used for copying/converting files I
used to use it for taking raw disk files and moving them to tape. or
vice versa.

I think you are using dd to show creating an 8gb disk. But really you
should just be defining the mount for them to understand.



--
Jeff

On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>> Bill wrote:
>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>
>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
>>>> performance specs.
>>
>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>
>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>
>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>
>>
>>
> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
> quickly.
> 256gb is $99
>

But they are already back in stock it looks like.
Can't do this until I'm back to work..
But I would consider 512 for 199 reasonable. That's all I would need for
my laptop.

--
Jeff

On Fri, 06 Jun 2014 07:57:46 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
wrote:

>On 6/6/2014 5:32 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> Leon wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 8:22 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>>> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>>>>> "Leon" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>>>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>>>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>>>
>>>>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>>>>
>>>>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
>>>> operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless
>>>> you're talking about very simple operating environments (not the
>>>> same as an OS), that served a single purpose game use.
>>>
>>> I had DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123 on a single 360 disk IIRC. I got soooo
>>> tired of booting with a floppy and then inserting another disk to load
>>> 123. I may have Dollars & Sense on a DOS disk too. I thought I had
>>> solved on of my great time wasters by adding an autoexec.bat file to
>>> that DOS disk so that the program would automatically after the prompt
>>> came up.
>>
>> Different things Leon. DOS 2.0 was an operating environment - could not do
>> a fraction of what you are accustomed to today. 123 was an application.
>>
>
>
>What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____. ;~)
>
>While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing out
>that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do so
>much more.

That's quite arguable. IMO, DOS was a file system and program loader.
It was not an operating system at all. It didn't manage memory or do
much else than an operating system does.

>FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
>under DOS.

No, the NT variants (of which everything after Win2K is) are/were not
based on DOS.

>Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
>for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
>earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
>prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the autoexec.bat
>file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows it included the
>command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.

It's arguable whether Windows3x was an OS or not, too. You're right,
all it did is slap a GUI on top of DOS. WinNT, Win2K, XP, and all,
are a very different thing.

[email protected] writes:
>On Fri, 06 Jun 2014 07:57:46 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>

>
>>FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
>>under DOS.
>
>No, the NT variants (of which everything after Win2K is) are/were not
>based on DOS.

Windows NT 3.51 predated Win2K, and
Win2K itself was based on the NT4.0 source base which I
was working with at the time (circa 1998/1999).

Both were based on Dave Cutlers new (vms-like) operating system.

I believe 98 & /ME were the last DOS-based releases.

On 6/3/2014 9:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
> From about $1.15 per gb
> to less half that.
>
> 512gb for under $200.
>
> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>
> Finally affordable.
>


If you put one in, a SSD, I have read that you should not run an
optimization/derangementer. I don't, at least not in the last 3 years.

woodchucker <[email protected]> writes:
>On 6/9/2014 10:15 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>>> On 6/6/2014 9:03 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>>>>> On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>>>>>> drive.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>>>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>>>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>>>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>>>>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>>>>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>>>>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>>>>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>>>>>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>>>>>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>>>>>> to be a pig.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
>>>>> that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
>>>>> can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>>
>>>> I routinely run linux VM's with 8GB hard disks, and that leaves plenty
>>>> of space to spare.
>>>>
>>>> This is my domain email server (MX, DNS, IMAP server) for example:
>>>>
>>>> $ df -h
>>>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>>>> /dev/root 7.0G 2.1G 4.6G 32% /
>>>> /dev/vda1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
>>>> tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Still a lot larger than a 360k floppy. ;~)
>>>
>>> But where does one get an 8Gig HD????
>>
>> dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/lib/kvm/email-server-root.img bs=1m count=8192
>>
>Not sure I understand Scott, dd is used for copying/converting files I
>used to use it for taking raw disk files and moving them to tape. or
>vice versa.
>
>I think you are using dd to show creating an 8gb disk. But really you
>should just be defining the mount for them to understand.
>

Leon did ask where I found an 8GB disk :-)

Here, dd(1) is creating an "empty" 8GB virtual disk and reserving
the disk space for it. This is a root disk for a virtual machine
and is mounted as usual by the installer when installing the OS
onto the virtual disk.

On 6/6/2014 5:32 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> Leon wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 8:22 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>>>> "Leon" wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>>
>>>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>>>
>>>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>>>
>>>
>>> One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
>>> operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless
>>> you're talking about very simple operating environments (not the
>>> same as an OS), that served a single purpose game use.
>>
>> I had DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123 on a single 360 disk IIRC. I got soooo
>> tired of booting with a floppy and then inserting another disk to load
>> 123. I may have Dollars & Sense on a DOS disk too. I thought I had
>> solved on of my great time wasters by adding an autoexec.bat file to
>> that DOS disk so that the program would automatically after the prompt
>> came up.
>
> Different things Leon. DOS 2.0 was an operating environment - could not do
> a fraction of what you are accustomed to today. 123 was an application.
>


What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____. ;~)

While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing out
that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do so
much more.

FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
under DOS. Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the autoexec.bat
file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows it included the
command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.

On 6/5/2014 8:22 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>> "Leon" wrote:
>>
>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>
>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>
>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>
>
> One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
> operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless you're
> talking about very simple operating environments (not the same as an OS),
> that served a single purpose game use.

I had DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123 on a single 360 disk IIRC. I got soooo
tired of booting with a floppy and then inserting another disk to load
123. I may have Dollars & Sense on a DOS disk too. I thought I had
solved on of my great time wasters by adding an autoexec.bat file to
that DOS disk so that the program would automatically after the prompt
came up.

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>> drive.
>>>>
>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>
>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>
>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>> to be a pig.
>
>
>Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
>that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
>can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.

I routinely run linux VM's with 8GB hard disks, and that leaves plenty
of space to spare.

This is my domain email server (MX, DNS, IMAP server) for example:

$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 7.0G 2.1G 4.6G 32% /
/dev/vda1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm

On 6/5/2014 9:25 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>
>>
>> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
>> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
>> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
>> inefficiencies.
>
> Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also lead to
> decreased software disciplines since the resources were so cheap. We have
> indeed lost something in this transition.
>

Absolutely.

I see people storing crap in the db because they think disk is cheap.
But SAN storage is very expensive. And usually what they are storing is
never used. But they want to cover themselves.

I see them do unbelievable bad code because they don't know better.
Where we used to organize statements to most frequent first, least last,
they do it logically not for performance.

There is a lot of bad code out there. And some very dangerous code that
can be injected easily.

--
Jeff

On 6/6/2014 8:29 AM, Leon wrote:
> On 6/6/2014 3:37 AM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 9:49 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>>> Bill wrote:
>>>>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>>>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>>>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the
>>>>>>> best
>>>>>>> performance specs.
>>>>>
>>>>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
>>>> quickly.
>>>> 256gb is $99
>>
>> That's a deal...
>>
>> Out of curiosity I checked regular laptop HD prices:
>>
>> $80 for a 2.5 1TB Seagate momentus
>>
>> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST1000LM024/
>>
>> Decent hardware is getting really cheap. As cheap as the junk.
>
> Seagate has been around for a long time, so to speak. Have you had any
> luck with that brand? I have had two computers with a Seagate drives,
> one about 25 years ago and one as recently as 2 years ago. Both failed
> and those are the only hard drives that have failed IIRC. I have heard
> that this is not unusual for a Seagate drive.
>
>
>
>
>
My biggest problems were with the IBM drives quite a number of years
ago. I had to buy multiples for my raid setup, and those drives failed.

I was treated poorly by the IBM people (kids), and it was awful. They
finally sent new drives ( I was still under warranty) and those failed
quickly. Long after that I saw a class action for those same drives.
How PC mag rated them the best is confusing.

I have had luck with both WD and Seagates.

--
Jeff

On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 10:39:02 -0400, woodchucker <[email protected]> wrote:

> From about $1.15 per gb
>to less half that.
>
>512gb for under $200.
>
>Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>
>Finally affordable.

In Jan bought Samsung 840 EVO 500Gb for $308.99. from BH Online. Been waiting
ages for prices to drop. Finally bought one and it's fast....... for Dell
laptop.

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>On 6/6/2014 9:03 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> writes:
>>> On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>>>> drive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>>>
>>>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>>>
>>>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>>>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>>>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>>>> to be a pig.
>>>
>>>
>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
>>> that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
>>> can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>
>> I routinely run linux VM's with 8GB hard disks, and that leaves plenty
>> of space to spare.
>>
>> This is my domain email server (MX, DNS, IMAP server) for example:
>>
>> $ df -h
>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> /dev/root 7.0G 2.1G 4.6G 32% /
>> /dev/vda1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
>> tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm
>>
>
>
>Still a lot larger than a 360k floppy. ;~)
>
>But where does one get an 8Gig HD????

dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/lib/kvm/email-server-root.img bs=1m count=8192

On 6/6/2014 3:37 AM, pentapus wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 9:49 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>> Bill wrote:
>>>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>>>> <snip>
>>>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
>>>>>> performance specs.
>>>>
>>>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>>>
>>>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
>>> quickly.
>>> 256gb is $99
>
> That's a deal...
>
> Out of curiosity I checked regular laptop HD prices:
>
> $80 for a 2.5 1TB Seagate momentus
>
> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST1000LM024/
>
> Decent hardware is getting really cheap. As cheap as the junk.

Seagate has been around for a long time, so to speak. Have you had any
luck with that brand? I have had two computers with a Seagate drives,
one about 25 years ago and one as recently as 2 years ago. Both failed
and those are the only hard drives that have failed IIRC. I have heard
that this is not unusual for a Seagate drive.

On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>> Bill wrote:
>>> woodchucker wrote:
> <snip>
>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>
>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
>>> performance specs.
>
> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>
> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>
>
> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>
>
>
>>>
>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>
>
>
The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
quickly.
256gb is $99

--
Jeff

On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 10:39:02 -0400, woodchucker <[email protected]>
wrote:

> From about $1.15 per gb
>to less half that.
>
>512gb for under $200.
>
>Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>
>Finally affordable.

Replaced the drive in my ancient (2002 vintage) Dell dual-core laptop
with a 240GB SSD. Never have to worry about moving it while in use or
if a bump or jar will damage the drive. Just close it up, tuck it
under my arm and go to the next place. Would have been nice to have
it 15 years ago when I carefully carried a laptop around a network lab
to talk to big pieces of Cisco hardware.

If there weren't so much stuff to load at startup (antivirus,
firewall, etc) it would run a close second to my Lenovo tablet on boot
speed.

On Sat, 07 Jun 2014 01:53:55 -0400, Bill <[email protected]>
wrote:

>woodchucker wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 9:25 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
>>>> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
>>>> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
>>>> inefficiencies.
>>>
>>> Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also
>>> lead to
>>> decreased software disciplines since the resources were so cheap. We
>>> have
>>> indeed lost something in this transition.
>>>
>>
>> Absolutely.
>>
>> I see people storing crap in the db because they think disk is cheap.
>> But SAN storage is very expensive. And usually what they are storing
>> is never used. But they want to cover themselves.
>>
>> I see them do unbelievable bad code because they don't know better.
>> Where we used to organize statements to most frequent first, least
>> last, they do it logically not for performance.
> Performance is not the be-all and end-all of software
>development (software engineering text contains explanation).
>Unless maybe you want to say, OVERALL-performance.

You are absolutely correct. Cost is the be-all and end-all. Writing
tight code is hard and even harder to verify. That's why techniques
like "object oriented programming" are used extensively.

On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:34:25 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
wrote:

>On 6/3/2014 9:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>> From about $1.15 per gb
>> to less half that.
>>
>> 512gb for under $200.
>>
>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>
>> Finally affordable.
>>
>
>
>If you put one in, a SSD, I have read that you should not run an
>optimization/derangementer. I don't, at least not in the last 3 years.

There is no reason to do so and all it does is waste time (and write
cycles). Defraggers/optimizers are intended to put files together so
the head is where it needs to be when it needs to be there. Since
SSDs have no head, defragmenting is rather silly. Add to that, the
SSD screws up file sequencing, intentionally, and keeps moving stuff
around to "load level" (keeps the number of writes constant across the
drive).

On Fri, 06 Jun 2014 19:03:47 -0400, woodchucker <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On 6/6/2014 8:29 AM, Leon wrote:
>> On 6/6/2014 3:37 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 9:49 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>>>> Bill wrote:
>>>>>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>>>>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>>>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>>>>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>>>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the
>>>>>>>> best
>>>>>>>> performance specs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
>>>>> quickly.
>>>>> 256gb is $99
>>>
>>> That's a deal...
>>>
>>> Out of curiosity I checked regular laptop HD prices:
>>>
>>> $80 for a 2.5 1TB Seagate momentus
>>>
>>> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST1000LM024/
>>>
>>> Decent hardware is getting really cheap. As cheap as the junk.
>>
>> Seagate has been around for a long time, so to speak. Have you had any
>> luck with that brand? I have had two computers with a Seagate drives,
>> one about 25 years ago and one as recently as 2 years ago. Both failed
>> and those are the only hard drives that have failed IIRC. I have heard
>> that this is not unusual for a Seagate drive.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>My biggest problems were with the IBM drives quite a number of years
>ago. I had to buy multiples for my raid setup, and those drives failed.
>
>I was treated poorly by the IBM people (kids), and it was awful. They
>finally sent new drives ( I was still under warranty) and those failed
>quickly. Long after that I saw a class action for those same drives.
>How PC mag rated them the best is confusing.

The (in)famous "DeathStars". The IBM drives before those and after
were quite good. Pretty much all of the innovation in disk drives
came from IBM. Yes, they even lost the recipe for a while in the
'90s. There was no money to be made, anymore, so sold the whole deal
off to Hitachi.

>I have had luck with both WD and Seagates.

They've had troubles, through the years, too. No one is immune when
margins are that thin and the technology changing that fast.

woodchucker wrote:
> From about $1.15 per gb
> to less half that.
>
> 512gb for under $200.
>
> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>
> Finally affordable.
>
I paid about $220 for a Intel 40GB ssd when I built a PC 5 years ago.
Then $100 (on sale) for a second Intel 40GB ssd about two years after that.

It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd in
order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
(though I didn't run into any problems).

Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
performance specs.

I'm glad to see the price trend!

On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
> From about $1.15 per gb
> to less half that.
>
> 512gb for under $200.
>
> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>
> Finally affordable.

Cool.
>
Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot drive.

My understanding at the time is that you don't get as many write cycles
on a SSD as a HD. They have wear leveling software in them for that
purpose. Not so much an issue as to counter the clear benefits. And I
suspect they are improving. Many thumbs drives are purely driven by cost
and seem to be getting worse!

--
pentapus

Bill wrote:
> woodchucker wrote:
>> From about $1.15 per gb
>> to less half that.
>>
>> 512gb for under $200.
>>
>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>
>> Finally affordable.
>>
> I paid about $220 for a Intel 40GB ssd when I built a PC 5 years ago.
> Then $100 (on sale) for a second Intel 40GB ssd about two years after
> that.

I will correct myself. Each of the SSD's I referred to above were 80GB,
not 40GB.

>
> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>
> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
> performance specs.
>
> I'm glad to see the price trend!

On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>> to less half that.
>>>
>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>
>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>
>>> Finally affordable.
>>
>> Cool.
>>>
>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot drive.
>
> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.

Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
up, video and images mostly.

Seems like most of what fills up a HD is crap, I clean it out every few
months. MS will stuff a HD if you give it a chance. And so will
free/cheap programs.

With that said, I wouldn't mind a bigger boot drive, but it all still
fits and the i5 still flies.

I suppose if I did all my work on it, it would be stuffed, but the
entertainment has switched to the tablet and the light weight stuff is
on the laptop.

MS could learn a thing or two from Android, computing is trending smaller.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> My understanding at the time is that you don't get as many write cycles
>> on a SSD as a HD. They have wear leveling software in them for that
>> purpose. Not so much an issue as to counter the clear benefits. And I
>> suspect they are improving. Many thumbs drives are purely driven by cost
>> and seem to be getting worse!
>>
>


--
pentapus

On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>> to less half that.
>>>>
>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>
>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>
>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>
>>> Cool.
>>>>
>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot drive.
>>
>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>
> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
> up, video and images mostly.

Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
to be a pig.

On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
> Bill wrote:
>> woodchucker wrote:
<snip>
>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>
>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
>> performance specs.

At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.

Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html

Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135



>>
>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>


--
pentapus

Lew Hodgett wrote:
> "Leon" wrote:
>
>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>
> Remember the days of 64K?
>
> They knew how to write tight code.
>

One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless you're
talking about very simple operating environments (not the same as an OS),
that served a single purpose game use. Though we did know how to write code
within 64K of memory - but that required swapping and paging. The code was
not so "tight" as to fit within 64K. What that code was much better at
(compared to today's junk) was the use of available resources, properly
freeing those up, doing their own house cleaning behind them to prevent
memory leaks, etc. Indeed - much more professional code, but not the kind
of thing we talk about now where we say we did all of these things in such
little space. We did not. We had to manage how we used small amounts of
memory and we had to come up with ways to do that. But - we still needed
memory.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Doug Winterburn wrote:

>
> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
> inefficiencies.

Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also lead to
decreased software disciplines since the resources were so cheap. We have
indeed lost something in this transition.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Doug Winterburn wrote:
> On 06/05/2014 08:53 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
>> "Leon" wrote:
>>
>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>
>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>
>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>
> They had 80x24 green text screens instead of the GUIs and
> multi-megapixel displays and photo and movie data and the software to
> process.

Yeah, those were the days, huh? ; )


>
> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
> inefficiencies.

On 6/5/2014 9:49 PM, woodchucker wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>> Bill wrote:
>>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the best
>>>>> performance specs.
>>>
>>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>>
>>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>>
>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
>> quickly.
>> 256gb is $99

That's a deal...

Out of curiosity I checked regular laptop HD prices:

$80 for a 2.5 1TB Seagate momentus

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST1000LM024/

Decent hardware is getting really cheap. As cheap as the junk.
>>
>
> But they are already back in stock it looks like.
> Can't do this until I'm back to work..

Yeah, tempts me, but it has to go at the end of the list.

> But I would consider 512 for 199 reasonable. That's all I would need for
> my laptop.

It's a lot of laptop drive!


>


--
pentapus

Leon wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 8:22 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>>> "Leon" wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>
>>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>>
>>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>>
>>
>> One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
>> operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless
>> you're talking about very simple operating environments (not the
>> same as an OS), that served a single purpose game use.
>
> I had DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123 on a single 360 disk IIRC. I got soooo
> tired of booting with a floppy and then inserting another disk to load
> 123. I may have Dollars & Sense on a DOS disk too. I thought I had
> solved on of my great time wasters by adding an autoexec.bat file to
> that DOS disk so that the program would automatically after the prompt
> came up.

Different things Leon. DOS 2.0 was an operating environment - could not do
a fraction of what you are accustomed to today. 123 was an application.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Leon wrote:

>
> FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
> under DOS. Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
> for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
> earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
> prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the
> autoexec.bat file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows
> it included the command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.

But - by that time, DOS no longer ran off a single floppy.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Leon wrote:

>
> What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____. ;~)

So - maybe a little clarity is in order. DOS was generally considered a
misnomer because it lacked so much of what an operating system typically
contained. In those early days, you needed add-on utilities to do things
that an OS would normally manage - memory management, I/O management, etc.
It did perform miminal sets of those, but not in a way that was generally
accepted as part of an operating system.

>
> While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing out
> that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do so
> much more.

True - and I didn't want to sound like I disputed that claim.

>
> FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
> under DOS. Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
> for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
> earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
> prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the
> autoexec.bat file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows
> it included the command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.

Yes - true. I don't think we're disagreeing on anything with respect to
this point.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On 6/6/2014 8:29 AM, Leon wrote:
> On 6/6/2014 3:37 AM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 9:49 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 9:02 PM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 5:38 PM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>> On 6/4/2014 10:09 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>>> Bill wrote:
>>>>>>> woodchucker wrote:
>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>> It's worth noting that I had to update the firmware in the first ssd
>>>>>>> in order to make them compatible with the Intel "SSD Toolbox" (a
>>>>>>> necessity). A full-backup is strongly suggested by the manufacturer
>>>>>>> (though I didn't run into any problems).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Maybe the most (only?) important point in my post. Not all ssd
>>>>>>> components are created equal. When I bought mine, Intel had the
>>>>>>> best
>>>>>>> performance specs.
>>>>>
>>>>> At my time it was the Crucial M4, not the fastest, but best overall.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tom's Hardware still thinks highly of Crucial. SSD reviews:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Note Samsung 840EVO 250GB @ $135
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm glad to see the price trend!
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> The crucial 512gb was 199 from Tiger direct this week, they sold out
>>>> quickly.
>>>> 256gb is $99
>>
>> That's a deal...
>>
>> Out of curiosity I checked regular laptop HD prices:
>>
>> $80 for a 2.5 1TB Seagate momentus
>>
>> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST1000LM024/
>>
>> Decent hardware is getting really cheap. As cheap as the junk.
>
> Seagate has been around for a long time, so to speak. Have you had any
> luck with that brand? I have had two computers with a Seagate drives,
> one about 25 years ago and one as recently as 2 years ago. Both failed
> and those are the only hard drives that have failed IIRC. I have heard
> that this is not unusual for a Seagate drive.


I'm not in the hardware business, so I can't really say, but my Seagate
Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM is running fine. So is a friends
bought a couple years ago. Others aren't so happy with theirs. I have
the crucial SSD and 4 Gigs of RAM so the drive is just handling data.

Seems like HD companies have their ups and downs. Both Maxtor and WD
went through a really bad patch and I went with them on that. I've had
drives from both where not only the original failed, but the replacement
also! I've heard really bad things about the current Green WD.

Looks like Hitachi is the current champ:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/putting-hard-drive-reliability-to-the-test-shows-not-all-disks-are-equal/

It's been said that good judgement comes from experience. And experience
comes from bad judgement. You don't always know until after the fact!
>
>


--
pentapus

On 6/5/2014 6:34 PM, Leon wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 4:22 PM, pentapus wrote:
>> On 6/5/2014 5:00 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>> On 6/4/2014 2:24 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>> On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
>>>>> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>>>>>> From about $1.15 per gb
>>>>>> to less half that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 512gb for under $200.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Finally affordable.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cool.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot
>>>>> drive.
>>>>
>>>> Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
>>>> another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
>>>> grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
>>>> and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.
>>>
>>> Just looked, I've got about 10GB free, there's 20GB of data on it
>>> somewhere which includes a swap file. Win 7 pro, MS Office 2010 full,
>>> video and photo editing software, assorted browsers and a handful of
>>> other programs. 2 or so years old. Data is on a 2 TB which is filling
>>> up, video and images mostly.
>>
>> Deleted temp files and gained about 9GB, so I'm about 2/3 full. Not that
>> I'd suggest buying a 64 now. I remember running windows on a 20MB
>> drive, 80 was big! Along the way windows has surely and steadily gotten
>> to be a pig.
>
>
> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have gone
> that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these days that
> can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.

True.

But I have an Android 4.2.2 which lives happily inside a few GB. The
Raspberry PI is even smaller and the, I believe its Ubuntu, on Beagle
Bone Black does fine in a few GB. All of them can run a browser and Open
Office or something similar, and a photo editor. Most people don't need
much more.

What amazes me are the Android apps. They download and install in
seconds. How small is that?

Windows seemed to be more concerned with piracy and they built an obtuse
code collection with a giant registry which is a near model for obfuscation.

I write software, mostly in PHP, and I can tell you that 360K of source
code is enormous.

--
pentapus

On 6/6/2014 8:57 AM, Leon wrote:
> On 6/6/2014 5:32 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> Leon wrote:
>>> On 6/5/2014 8:22 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>>> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>>>>> "Leon" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>>>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>>>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>>>
>>>>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>>>>
>>>>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
>>>> operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless
>>>> you're talking about very simple operating environments (not the
>>>> same as an OS), that served a single purpose game use.
>>>
>>> I had DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123 on a single 360 disk IIRC. I got soooo
>>> tired of booting with a floppy and then inserting another disk to load
>>> 123. I may have Dollars & Sense on a DOS disk too. I thought I had
>>> solved on of my great time wasters by adding an autoexec.bat file to
>>> that DOS disk so that the program would automatically after the prompt
>>> came up.
>>
>> Different things Leon. DOS 2.0 was an operating environment - could
>> not do
>> a fraction of what you are accustomed to today. 123 was an application.
>>
>
>
> What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____. ;~)
>
> While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing out
> that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do so
> much more.
>
> FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
> under DOS.


<quote>
Windows was once famously described as "32 bit extensions and a
graphical shell [on top of] a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system
originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company,
that can't stand 1 bit of competition."
</quote>

Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
> for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
> earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
> prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the autoexec.bat
> file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows it included the
> command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.


--
pentapus

pentapus wrote:

>
> <quote>
> Windows was once famously described as "32 bit extensions and a
> graphical shell [on top of] a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating
> system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2
> bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition."
> </quote>
>

+1

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

woodchucker wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 9:25 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
>>> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't
>>> grown, but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace
>>> those inefficiencies.
>>
>> Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also
>> lead to decreased software disciplines since the resources were so
>> cheap. We have indeed lost something in this transition.
>>
>
> Absolutely.
>
> I see people storing crap in the db because they think disk is cheap.
> But SAN storage is very expensive. And usually what they are storing
> is never used. But they want to cover themselves.
>
> I see them do unbelievable bad code because they don't know better.
> Where we used to organize statements to most frequent first, least
> last, they do it logically not for performance.
>
> There is a lot of bad code out there. And some very dangerous code
> that can be injected easily.

The problem is that users today have no idea what good code is and what bad
code is. They think that simply because they have googled that in the old
days we operated in 32K of memory, or because they loaded a floppy disk,
that they are computer scientists. The very diciplines of computer science
are quite lost on most of the modern age users - some never even understood
them. The PC was not the first computer to come along and there were a lot
of disciplines and reasons behind what was done in the old days.
Unfortunately, most don't understand programming at all, and worse - they
don't understand anything earlier than the PC.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

woodchucker wrote:
> On 6/5/2014 9:25 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
>>> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
>>> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
>>> inefficiencies.
>>
>> Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also
>> lead to
>> decreased software disciplines since the resources were so cheap. We
>> have
>> indeed lost something in this transition.
>>
>
> Absolutely.
>
> I see people storing crap in the db because they think disk is cheap.
> But SAN storage is very expensive. And usually what they are storing
> is never used. But they want to cover themselves.
>
> I see them do unbelievable bad code because they don't know better.
> Where we used to organize statements to most frequent first, least
> last, they do it logically not for performance.
Performance is not the be-all and end-all of software
development (software engineering text contains explanation).
Unless maybe you want to say, OVERALL-performance.

Cheers,
Bill

>
> There is a lot of bad code out there. And some very dangerous code
> that can be injected easily.
>

On 6/3/2014 11:07 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:G-
> [email protected]:
>
>>
>>
>> If you put one in, a SSD, I have read that you should not run an
>> optimization/derangementer. I don't, at least not in the last 3 years.
>
> Do you mean "defragmenter"? Windows 7 does some sort of defragmentation in
> the background, but I don't remember any of the details. They might turn
> it off for SSD, after all there's no delay as the drive waits for the head
> to move and platter to come to the right point.
>
> Puckdropper
>

Yeah Deframenterifenter!

On 6/5/2014 8:25 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>
>>
>> Modern data and its processing leads to larger software, memory and
>> storage needs. Not to say that software inefficiencies haven't grown,
>> but the hardware has improved faster than needed to outpace those
>> inefficiencies.
>
> Largely agreed, but those increased hardware capacities have also lead to
> decreased software disciplines since the resources were so cheap. We have
> indeed lost something in this transition.
>


While I will not argue that point, you also have to consider that it is
not unusual for perhaps a hundred programs to be on a HD and in my case
a minimum of 18 programs are running in the back ground at boot up. So
I can understand a bit of bloat to accommodate so many varieties of
software.

On 6/4/2014 11:14 AM, pentapus wrote:
> On 6/3/2014 10:39 AM, woodchucker wrote:
>> From about $1.15 per gb
>> to less half that.
>>
>> 512gb for under $200.
>>
>> Where 256gb was over $256 recently.
>>
>> Finally affordable.
>
> Cool.
>>
> Crucial 64GB for about $100 a few years back. Fabulous for a boot drive.

Well maybe not. My primary SSD was 128 gig and I keep my data on
another internal drive. If you are using Windows you will quickly out
grow 64 gig. My 128 was 82% full just from security updates, the OS,
and program files. I recently went to a 256 for my primary drive.




>
> My understanding at the time is that you don't get as many write cycles
> on a SSD as a HD. They have wear leveling software in them for that
> purpose. Not so much an issue as to counter the clear benefits. And I
> suspect they are improving. Many thumbs drives are purely driven by cost
> and seem to be getting worse!
>

On 6/6/2014 12:00 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Jun 2014 07:57:46 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
> wrote:
>
>> On 6/6/2014 5:32 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>> Leon wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/2014 8:22 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>>>> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>>>>>> "Leon" wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Well while Windows does use a lot of storage space, they all have
>>>>>>> gone that route. You don't see many main stream OS systems these
>>>>>>> days that can be stored on a 360k floppy anymore.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Remember the days of 64K?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They knew how to write tight code.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> One of the great mis-rememberings of our times. We did not produce
>>>>> operating systems that loaded off of a single 360K floppy. Unless
>>>>> you're talking about very simple operating environments (not the
>>>>> same as an OS), that served a single purpose game use.
>>>>
>>>> I had DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123 on a single 360 disk IIRC. I got soooo
>>>> tired of booting with a floppy and then inserting another disk to load
>>>> 123. I may have Dollars & Sense on a DOS disk too. I thought I had
>>>> solved on of my great time wasters by adding an autoexec.bat file to
>>>> that DOS disk so that the program would automatically after the prompt
>>>> came up.
>>>
>>> Different things Leon. DOS 2.0 was an operating environment - could not do
>>> a fraction of what you are accustomed to today. 123 was an application.
>>>
>>
>>
>> What do you suppose the S stands for Mike? Disk Operating Sy____. ;~)
>>
>> While I agree, it was simple, it was an OS. I was only pointing out
>> that the latest systems seem so much more bloated because they do so
>> much more.
>
> That's quite arguable. IMO, DOS was a file system and program loader.
> It was not an operating system at all. It didn't manage memory or do
> much else than an operating system does.
>
>> FWIW up until the relatively recent, and maybe even now, Windows ran
>> under DOS.
>
> No, the NT variants (of which everything after Win2K is) are/were not
> based on DOS.

Now I know. But Win 95 maybe 98 too and all versions up to that point
loaded after DOS.


>
>> Windows was a program that allowed above all multitasking
>> for the masses with PC's. Windows was loaded after the C:/ prompt and
>> earlier versions of Windows easily allowed you to get back to the C:/
>> prompt to run strictly DOS programs. If you looked at the autoexec.bat
>> file on most computers with earlier versions of Windows it included the
>> command to run Windows after the OS had loaded.
>
> It's arguable whether Windows3x was an OS or not, too. You're right,
> all it did is slap a GUI on top of DOS. WinNT, Win2K, XP, and all,
> are a very different thing.
>

Somewhere around 1990`1992 I ordered a new Gateway computer with Win
3.0. IIRC during boot up it asked if I wanted to load Windows or go to
the c:/ prompt. I also recall that I could get out of Windows to run
PCTools, a very good utility and back up program. At the C:/ prompt I
could load PCTools and literally back up every thing on the HD. When
done I could reload Windows. If I tried to do a back up with PCTools
while in Windows the program would ask to exit Windows.