Am thinking of buying one of these hybrid drives that is 500gig and SDD (4gig I think) with the notion that I could partition the drive into 2 drives, the SSD part being c: and the OS, XP, being squeezed onto the SSD partition to allow quick booting, and the d: for apps/data. Would that be possible?

http://www.ebuyer.com/222310-seagate-500gb-momentus-xt-2-5-hybrid-ssd-hdd- sata-ii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-st95005620as?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products

Quote OneWorld:

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Am thinking of buying one of these hybrid drives that is 500gig and SDD (4gig I think) with the notion that I could partition the drive into 2 drives, the SSD part being c: and the OS, XP, being squeezed onto the SSD partition to allow quick booting, and the d: for apps/data. Would that be possible?

http://www.ebuyer.com/222310-seagate-500gb-momentus-xt-2-5-hybrid-ssd-hdd- sata-ii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-st95005620as?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products

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No it doesn't work that way. The SSD part is actually very small and is used as a cache which, over time, speeds up file access on commonly used files. If you look at the numbers the improvements aren't all that amazing, so you'd still be better off with a separate SSD + mechanical drive.

Thanks, actually I came a cross a website and there was a screen by screen comparison of HDD, SSD, and Hybrid, and it still took 23secs to boot to Win7, the SSD was about 20secs, so not a lot of difference and I thought an SSD might boot in about 10secs, HDD was about 27secs, so in the greater scheme of things, saving 7 or 8 seconds doesn't amount to much in the greater scheme of things

I rarely boot my computers - only when patches etc require it. Other times, they just go to sleep, so can "wake" in a second or two.

In other words, I care not about boot time

Quote chris...:

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I rarely boot my computers - only when patches etc require it. Other times, they just go to sleep, so can "wake" in a second or two.

In other words, I care not about boot time

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But isn't that a waste of electric, especially if only used a few times a week, and the cost of energy and the fact that in the West we are exclusively wasteful of natural resources which electricity generation uses a lot of?

Quote OneWorld:

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Thanks, actually I came a cross a website and there was a screen by screen comparison of HDD, SSD, and Hybrid, and it still took 23secs to boot to Win7, the SSD was about 20secs, so not a lot of difference and I thought an SSD might boot in about 10secs, HDD was about 27secs, so in the greater scheme of things, saving 7 or 8 seconds doesn't amount to much in the greater scheme of things

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Well 27 seconds is very fast for a HDD and suggests not much is installed on the computer. In my experience going to a fast ssd (Samsung 830) has made the computer feel a zillion times more responsive. When switching programs, loading large sample banks, nebula presets etc the ssd really takes the frustration out of it.

Quote OneWorld:

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But isn't that a waste of electric

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For what it's worth, I measured my laptop as using 1W asleep (with the lid closed).

Not too bad.

Quote chris...:

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Quote OneWorld:

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But isn't that a waste of electric

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For what it's worth, I measured my laptop as using 1W asleep (with the lid closed).

Not too bad.

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Damn Chris you must have a lot of time on your hands ...

Yep - I have plenty of time as I don't waste time waiting for computers to boot...

If you want a more serious answer, then Maplin were flogging power meters cheap a while back. So I thought I'd:

- see what's really drawing power at home, hurting the wallet + environment

- bust some "stand-by" myths in the process

I went through the same process, and my desktop PC consumes around 7 watts in its standby state and wakes up in a few seconds.

Ironically, even when you 'switch it off' it will probably consume roughly the same, as the motherboard stays active (most have an LED that's still illuminated). Only if you physically pull the plug or switch off at the PSU on the rear panel will your power consumption drop to zero.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

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I went through the same process, and my desktop PC consumes around 7 watts in its standby state and wakes up in a few seconds.

Ironically, even when you 'switch it off' it will probably consume roughly the same, as the motherboard stays active (most have an LED that's still illuminated). Only if you physically pull the plug or switch off at the PSU on the rear panel will your power consumption drop to zero.


Martin

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Right, am going to tell 'er indoors that yes, it is perfectly ok to leave a PC on standyby and tell her you said so LOL - she would have me fitting a circuit breaker to cut all power in the house when not used if I hadn't convinced that messing about with such things is the Devil's Work!

Quote Martin Walker:

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I went through the same process, and my desktop PC consumes around 7 watts in its standby state and wakes up in a few seconds.
Ironically, even when you 'switch it off' it will probably consume roughly the same, as the motherboard stays active (most have an LED that's still illuminated). Only if you physically pull the plug or switch off at the PSU on the rear panel will your power consumption drop to zero.

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The amount of power your system consumes when ‘off’ and when in the idle or standby states is influenced by the design of the power supply. 7W is relatively high although at such low wattages there is also the issue of how accurate your meter is. From my experience modern power supplies are more efficient in these states. I bought a meter from Maplins many years ago and have noticed that power consumption in these states has creeped lower and the difference between off and standby is now often 1W or less.
BTW Maplin whilst generally expensive often have good offers and I paid around £7 for the meter.

Asda's also doing meters at the moment for about a tenner if you haven't got a local Maplin anymore.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog