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jducoeurSo I spent a fair while yesterday writing a post that predicted the rise of Hybrid Drives on laptops, that would marry a high-capacity disk drive with a reasonable-capacity flash drive. The idea is catching on for desktops due to improved access speeds; my theory was that it would also catch on for laptops, due to improved battery life. Intelligent drivers on the hard drive would migrate the most-used apps onto the flash part, so it would only spin up the hard drive when it was accessing less-used files.
I wound up throwing it out, though, because I'm not sure of a critical question: how much capacity are laptops going to need in the future? They're already starting to build solid-state laptops with 32GB of flash drive. My first reaction was that that isn't enough -- after all, it's far less than most current desktops. My second reaction was that I was full of it: I'm not currently using 32GB on my own laptop, and I don't really expect to need more than that soon.
So let's step back and ask the underlying questions: how much disk space are you using on your laptop, if you have one? Is that all necessary, or is the disk just filling up because the space is available? How much capacity do you expect to need in the foreseeable future? Do you think that 32GB would be enough for you for the next few years? And would you pay, say, a few hundred bucks extra for a laptop that used a solid-state 32GB drive (which would presumably be a shade more rugged, run a bit faster, and have somewhat better battery life)? I'm trying to figure out if solid-state drives are about to do to hard drives what LCD monitors did to CRTs -- be a bit pricier at first, but better enough that they slowly displace the old technology.
Just to start off: the honest answer for me is that 32GB is probably plenty for now -- the only reason I can see wanting more would be to rip my entire CD collection to my iPod, and there are other ways to deal with that. The fact is, my laptop is increasingly used as a network-access device, which doesn't require tons of local disk. So the solid-state notebook is really kind of appealing to me...
I wound up throwing it out, though, because I'm not sure of a critical question: how much capacity are laptops going to need in the future? They're already starting to build solid-state laptops with 32GB of flash drive. My first reaction was that that isn't enough -- after all, it's far less than most current desktops. My second reaction was that I was full of it: I'm not currently using 32GB on my own laptop, and I don't really expect to need more than that soon.
So let's step back and ask the underlying questions: how much disk space are you using on your laptop, if you have one? Is that all necessary, or is the disk just filling up because the space is available? How much capacity do you expect to need in the foreseeable future? Do you think that 32GB would be enough for you for the next few years? And would you pay, say, a few hundred bucks extra for a laptop that used a solid-state 32GB drive (which would presumably be a shade more rugged, run a bit faster, and have somewhat better battery life)? I'm trying to figure out if solid-state drives are about to do to hard drives what LCD monitors did to CRTs -- be a bit pricier at first, but better enough that they slowly displace the old technology.
Just to start off: the honest answer for me is that 32GB is probably plenty for now -- the only reason I can see wanting more would be to rip my entire CD collection to my iPod, and there are other ways to deal with that. The fact is, my laptop is increasingly used as a network-access device, which doesn't require tons of local disk. So the solid-state notebook is really kind of appealing to me...
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 05:31 pm (UTC)All depends what you're doing.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 05:32 pm (UTC)In general I use 80-90% of all available space on any primary drive. This is a 120GB drive, so I'm in the realm of usual.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 05:37 pm (UTC)So no, I'd laugh in the general direction of a 32GB laptop HD. But this is my main computer...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 05:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 06:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 06:36 pm (UTC)My laptop has about 30 GB and I'm not close enough to filling it to notice.
It seems that there are 2 purposes to laptops: a desktop that you can move, or a portable computer. I suspect that people who use their laptops as the former will laugh at a 32GB laptop, while those in the latter category (like myself) will jump for it.
We each have a desktop for any heavy computing - finances, games, etc. Soon, we'll have a file server in the basement for our music and pictures (but currently they're on the desktops - there's some issue with getting the new box to read N's drive). We each also have a tiny Vaio laptop that's mostly used to connect to the network - email, web surfing, the printer is networked, so we can print from the laptops, etc.
We carry the Vaios all over the house (and mine goes all over the country with me), so being able to get a more rugged machine (without sacrificing in size - ours are small enough that people still call them 'cute') would ease my worries about dropping it off the couch [1] and such. Plus the extended battery life could ease some of the annoyances about keeping track of the power cords we have scattered throughout the house.
[1] Though my sweetie hit the height of geekiness last week when he told me that he decided to relax in the bathtub with his laptop. Luckily, it didn't go into the water. *sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 07:11 pm (UTC)But it's interesting to see how many people are moving towards a laptop-centric world, and the implications of that...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 08:33 pm (UTC)We see it also in the cell phone market - you can get cell phones with cameras, music players, datebooks, etc, or you can get a device that does each.
And... thinking about it... I tend to have a LOT of devices rather than trying to combine the functions of any of them. To go back to the computer thing, a laptop with a decent sized monitor would become a PitA to carry around, but I'd never want to do budgeting on my tiny laptop screen. The more modular desktop lends itself to gradual upgrades (which are more in my budget than replacing my whole machine to keep up with the latest games).
From your other responses, it seems like people are carrying either their music or their work around. My music collection isn't bigger than my iPod, and my work isn't of a type that allows me to carry it around.
Sorry for rambling, it's interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-21 12:41 am (UTC)The "computer room" has since been turned into a guest room/library thing, which is much more soothing and relaxing on all counts. And the laptops fit in there fine when we want to work back there.
But using a laptop also means I can use my computer in the kitchen, which is the room with the best light. As I am using my computer primarily for art (the music collection just takes up a lot of space), this is important. I have a large-screen laptop, but basically, it's not for serious carrying around. It's just a really compact desktop, which fits my activities better.
Given the limitations on space in my life right now, I prefer to have multi-taskers rather than uni-taskers. If space and money were no object, I'd surely have a desktop machine as well as a laptop. I would love to have one of those gigantic monitors from heck. (;
I don't use my computer to game much.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 06:52 pm (UTC)But I'm considering moving back to a desktop at home for the rationale of an always on system, that can do duty as a light server. With a system like that _in addition_ to the laptop, the laptop will fall down to being primarily a network access device.
It's only recently that laptops have fallen in price enough for most people to justify owning a laptop and a desktop at home. Us technophiles are the exception there.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 06:55 pm (UTC)Of course, I haven't cleaned it up in a while...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 07:21 pm (UTC)I use 44GB on my main home workstation. I could reduce it.
My main workstation at work uses 30GB.
I would say that I could use a 32GB solid state disk without much of a problem, but I would prefer 48 or 64GB.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 08:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 09:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-20 09:22 pm (UTC)Frankly, I think "permanently installed" storage is a thing of the past. I'd love a purely solid-state notebook for my setup, when I finally get a USB or Friewire external drive and attach/share it from my Linux system. And now that Microsoft's in that same game, the ease of doing so for anyone is only growing...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-21 03:39 am (UTC)Secondary/primary
Date: 2007-06-21 01:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, good summary. My previous laptop had 10GB, and that was fine; then, last fall, I got a new one, which became my primary machine (partly because we needed the space, partly because it was faster than my desktop). It's got a 120GB drive, and the /home partition is down to under 5GB free—primarily because I've taken to ripping DVDs. (For portable audio, I use 64kbps Ogg, and we've got only about 200 CDs, so my music collection fits in under 2GB.) Now that it's getting full, I'll probably have to winnow the movie collection, making my desktop machine the primary store. (Fortunately, I just set it up with three 500GB drives, in a RAID configuration, giving me about 850GB of free space.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-22 01:45 am (UTC)