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[Freddy]

Me neither.  So what are the lifespans of the SSDs then ?

[Data]

As far as I can find out nobody really knows how long an SSD life span will be. The only sure way to know is with time. All we have to go on right now are lab test simulating what the expected wear will be.

This is a very in-depth article about SSD, Im still reading it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738

[Carl2]

Freddy,
  a link to you'r question
http://www.imation.com/PageFiles/83/SSD-Reliability-Lifetime-White-Paper.pdf
  The answers are at the end naturally. 
Datahopa,
  There is already a Sata 3 card out $29.00 with good reviews,  thanks.  Read the review and learned what trim is at last.  Learned a few things about the SSD's.  I'm not really worried about lifetime,  I'm using 32 Gb of 148 Gb on C and about 6 Gb of 60 Gb on D.  I believe more free space means more space to rewrite  which will increase the life.  I can backup on the original hard drive and place temp things on the hard drive.  There are files that should be moved to a standard hard drive like internet explorer temp files ect.
Carl2

[Freddy]

Thanks guys, looks like I have some reading to do. 

[Data]

Just when you think you are winning they come along with something new to learn about.

[Carl2]

  You won in the fact that you waited till gen 2.  The indexing should also be moved to a standard drive and there are others.
  Just read about a $4000 conputer sys thay built at Tomshardware,  Intel 965, watercooled, running at 4.2 Ghz.  $1000 for the CPU, two 80 gb SSD's in raid 0 costs $800 at the time of the build.
  Well Happy Easter.
Carl2

[Data]

  The indexing should also be moved to a standard drive and there are others.

Do you mean you should set the windows 7 search indexing location to an HDD Carl2?

If so I guess that’s to stop the SSD from writing over and over to the same place.

[Freddy]

So what are SSD's made of then ?  No moving parts I get, but is it like RAM or something ?

Also on a slightly related thing, I was looking at this :

http://www.saverstore.com/product/20038109/Freecom-USB-Memory-160GB-External-18-USB-20-Portable-Hard-Drive

I can't work out if that has moving parts or does it use USB flash memory ?

Is that the same idea as SSD ?

And yes, I thought I was doing well there, but now there's a whole new chapter to read 

[Carl2]

  You can either just stop indexing or move the resulting data to the standard drive,  Control panel, indexing ,advanced, indexing location.  Same thing with internet options,  general, browsing  history, settings, move folder.  Backups and restores should go to a different drive.  Heard page filling should also be moved.  
  I'm putting documents, pics, videos on the standard drive also.  I went through this thing of moving files to another drive a long time ago when virus's caused problems, Formated the drive and reinstalled the OS except for the worms that needed a tool to remove.  These days I have Norton 360 which I like and seems to do a good job.
  What size drive do you have?
Freddy,
  I'd say it is close to flash memory, to make it R and W faster they use the controller that provides parallel paths for the data transfers,  I know it also has ECC and the wear leveling software built in and the cache memory. 
  SCL has 10 times the lifetime, R and W are faster but is much more expensive.
To my understanding MCL is a 3 state device and offers more memory per cell.
Carl2
  

[Carl2]

Freddy,
  Did a search, New egg used to carry freecom, low ratings.  A review to something similar, I think?
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/external-hard-drives/270892/freecom-usb-memory-120gb
  Expert reviews said it was a 1.8 external hard drive at 4,000 to 5,000 rpm. Low transfer rates.
Not familiar with your pricing so I have no idea in US dollers.
Carl2

[Data]

Carl you beet me,  this is what I was going to say.

I understand basically how most of a PC works, not in depth understanding but a grasp of what is going on, SSD however I find much harder to understand, how can a chip keep the data in it when the power if off, how do flash drives actually work.


Freddy that external drive must be an HDD at that price, it has one of the small form factor drives inside. That isn’t mentioned on the page though.

I have an internal HDD 320GB, that’s for games windows programs, and an External 320GB for my files and work oh and TV recordings, as I only us media center for TV these days.

[Freddy]

Hmm thanks chaps, well I don't really know what to get.  I have no real need for it.  I have an internal 80GB drive that I use for XP and storage.  It's working out fine that way, so I will probably stick to that.  I don't save TV shows or anything like that.

[Carl2]

 Datahopa,
   Worked in electronics ages ago, A transistor: in most circuits you put current in the base and out the emitter, this allows current to flow from the collector to the emitter, the base current compared to the collector is amplified, called beta.
A resistor or load between V+ and the collector form a voltage divider for a voltage output.
  The field effect transistor, IGFET or Insulated gate feild effect transistor, JFET Junction Fet, work on the gate as the control input, The source is comparable to the collector of the transistor, the drain is comparable to the emitter of a transistor.  The big difference is the fet uses voltage on the gate to control current flow from the source to the drain.  Input resistance of the drain is very high therfore almost no current flow,  A voltage put on the gate stays there like a voltage on a capacitor so if it is truned on it stays turned on.  No voltage is off and it stays off.  I forget how long SSD's can do this about 6 months to a year.
  USB flash has been doing this for ages,  I can remember talking to a salesman in the computer dept, He was talking about putting OS on flash drives about 4 years ago.
  I hope I was able to explain this so it could be understood.
Datahopa,  didn't mean to beat you.  I think you're talking about !.8 Hard drive.
Freddy, is your motherboard Ide, sata, ahci?  AHCI is needed for trim support.
Save your money till the dust settles.
Carl2

[Freddy]

Yes there is a glimmer of remembering about that kind of thing from when I did electronics, it made some sense to me.  Thanks.

My board is IDE and SATA (six of those).  I don't know what trim support is so I won't miss it.  I don't plan on upgrading this MB for a while, so I would be looking at SATA drives when eventually I do want to swap over.

Waiting for the dust to settle sounds like good advice !

[Data]

Im in Freddys boat, I studied electrical engineering for a couple of years and your explanation makes some sense to me too, I think I now have a basic understanding of how this flash memory works.

Thanks Carl2

Im thinking I will wait about a year and then look at SSD drives for my personal use.

But this thread has given me some insight into SSD should a customer of mine require it. 

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