Laptop!

[biscuits]

Do folks have opinions on SSD vs normal hard drives? I'm going to be doing light to moderate work on the little beastie (Word/PP/Excel, probably data crunching in STATA).

[Kadisha]

I know it's hard to wait because a lot of us like to be prepared, but if you wait a little, or even after you officially become a student, your school might have partnerships that offer you a significant discount especially on the software. You can get the student version of Microsoft Office for real cheap, and as well know that's a must.

[33andathirdRPM]

Do folks have opinions on SSD vs normal hard drives? I'm going to be doing light to moderate work on the little beastie (Word/PP/Excel, probably data crunching in STATA).

 

An SSD is nice but unnecessary for most personal computing jobs. Unless you're excited to the point of running off two hard drives just so you can be in the OS environment in 12-15 seconds, I'd pass on the SSD for now. That said, if you have the $$$ to drop on the machine, then by all means go for it.

Edited March 21, 2013 by 33andathirdRPM

[biscuits]

An SSD is nice but unnecessary for most personal computing jobs. Unless you're excited to the point of running off two hard drives just so you can be in the OS environment in 12-15 seconds, I'd pass on the SSD for now. That said, if you have the $$$ to drop on the machine, then by all means go for it.

 

But it's so much quieter and faster...I hate loud, wheezing laptops. And quicker boot-up times are always a plus. 

 

I shall ponder. 

[ANDS!]

The stock HDD on my T430s makes about the same noise as my SSD which is none at all (or rather none that you should notice).  Given that much (if not all) the action on my laptop is done through the HDD, I would say noise isn't an issue.  An SSD is great for system resumes and program performance, but - as mentioned - really isn't all that needed if one isn't really using programs where the bottleneck is read/write speeds.  For data analysis the key will be CPU and Memory.

 

That said, SSD's (which should NEVER be bought from the manufacturer) can be had for sub 200 bucks these days which, considering legacy prices, isn't bad.  I went with a Samsung 840 120GB for 100 bucks.  More than enough OS space.  

[33andathirdRPM]

That said, SSD's (which should NEVER be bought from the manufacturer) can be had for sub 200 bucks these days which, considering legacy prices, isn't bad.  I went with a Samsung 840 120GB for 100 bucks.  More than enough OS space.  

 

This.

 

For what it's worth I haven't heard as many complaints about Crucial SSD drives lately. The prices keep dropping too... I better stop before I get out the credit card. lol

[poissono]

Thanks for all the shared experiences! Ended up going Thinkpad and got 25% off a custom build using a code found on slickdeals. very excited.

[scofield24]

I got an thinkpad. For under 1000, it's a great computer and you can add in a good graphics card.

[selecttext]

Get a Thinkpad, it's a no brainer - but splurge on a solid state hard drive, it is a necessity. SSD will significantly speed up your boot and load time. The difference is that of night and day. Especially if you use software like Matlab or other heavy duties packages and run a lot of processes at once. SSD has especially been a blessing while doing video processing as part of my MSc. I have an OEM SSD from Lenovo at it is great! Also get the  9 cell battery as at the time of purchase it is only a nominal surcharge and will give you 7-9 hours of battery life.

Edited March 22, 2013 by selecttext

[ANDS!]

The running of multiple programs will only be facilitated by more memory and more ram.  An SSD's (and hell am HDD's) main use is read/write speeds - or "how fast can I access that. . ."  For most users a 7200RPM HDD isn't going to seem much different than an SSD in normal use.  

 

This is not to say someone shouldn't update, but if cost is a factor, saving 200 (or 300) bucks on the manufacturers SSD option and holding off on an SSD (to see if you need it) is absolutely a viable option. 

[selecttext]

Of course SSD facilitates multitasking as opening multiple programs is much quicker and an essential task of the data-logged graduate student.

[Swagato]

SSD all the way. Seriously. I went from a late 2008 MBPro (7200RPM HDD I think) to the 2010 MBAir with a 256GB SSD.

 

It's unreal. Photoshop opens with hefty .psd image files in less than 10 seconds. Boot time is something obscene. I've yet to discover an app that I can throw at this and it will cause a startup time exceeding 15 seconds. I typically have in excess of 25-30 tabs open in Chrome at any given time--no problems whatsoever. Seriously, SSD is transformative. 

 

By all means, be assiduous about backing up (Time Machine/Time Capsule is great here) but if you're buying anything in 2012, make sure it has an SSD.

[biscuits]

For ThinkPads, at least, it also appears to be very easy to switch out the hard drive for a third-party SSD. This will save a bundle when you are ordering your new precious. $600 to IBM, or $200 to a reputable third party manufacturer? Easy choice. Plus, you can get a drive that is considerably larger than the ThinkPad's standard SSD model. 

[33andathirdRPM]

Get a Thinkpad, it's a no brainer - but splurge on a solid state hard drive, it is a necessity. SSD will significantly speed up your boot and load time. The difference is that of night and day. Especially if you use software like Matlab or other heavy duties packages and run a lot of processes at once. SSD has especially been a blessing while doing video processing as part of my MSc. I have an OEM SSD from Lenovo at it is great! Also get the  9 cell battery as at the time of purchase it is only a nominal surcharge and will give you 7-9 hours of battery life.

 

I'm a bit lost as to how having an SSD would improve MATLab performance. (Over faster processor, faster/more cache, more RAM)

 

I can see how it could help with video processing if you're putting the files you're working with on the SSD. Wouldn't that result in a lot of write activity on the SSD though? I know that SSDs have increased expected life of the devices these days, but I guess I would still be hesitant to push it even faster to its doom.

[ANDS!]

An SSD isn't going to help something like Matlab perform faster - it will certainly load and shutdown faster, but if that was my only benefit, I certainly would not bother with an SSD.  There is a point where convenience is not worth the price of admission.  For anyone in research, CPU and Memory are going to be what they should go for in a laptop; an SSD is nice to have but it was at the bottom of my list in terms of a new laptop (certainly not splurging for the SSD model that retailers are dishing out).