Computer Club: HP Pavilion Case Study

This is one of the most common scenarios in today's middle-class America; that of the old family PC gift. There are literally scores of machine like this sitting in the closets, attics and garages of suburbia. They can be HP, Dell, Acer..... the brand matters little. They are very much like this one; 2, 3 maybe 4 generations old. They are consumer machines that sell by brand recognition and whichever is shinier/cooler looking than the others on the shelves of Best Buy and Walmart. These aren't bad machine, they're just limited and in today's world of 5th, 6th generation "Core" computers, they are basically "on their last legs". However, this is what one of my students brought in today. So lets take a look at it and see what we can do with it.

 

At the center of this machine is the LGA-775 and in it sits the Intel Core2Quad Q6600. This motherboard engenders some givens.

Four sockets that take DDR2 memory of 667Mhz spec. As typical of memory from this era, there's a chipset limitation of 8Gb total. It also means a full complement of 6 SATA sockets. Along with the obvious limitations, there are also some opportunities as well.

What about the most important part; the graphics sub-system? This machine came equipped with the nVidia GeForce 8500GT. For that day and age, it wasn't "bad" equipment. Far from it! But for today, it's barely adequate to run YouTube videos, but certainly not games of today. So.... what to do?

I would do this, in the following order:

• I'd start with the drive situation; buying as much SSD as my budget will allow. That'd probably something in the 256Gb range. Not huge, but big enough to hold a reload of the OS and the important software.This will do more than anything to make the machine run like something much newer.

  

• Then, I'd move on to this; a new graphics card. I'd do something along the lines of the nVidia GTX650, or an AMD equivalent. Something giving modern graphics ability, but not requiring additional power. 

That's it. Really...... that's all I'd do. The machine already has 4Gb of RAM in it (occupying all it's memory sockets), so in order to add more, it would require losing at least 2Gb. I'll probably advise my student to not bother with the RAM unless he has extra money or happens to come across a great deal on 8Gb of DDR2 memory.  It's really a pretty easy case. The hard part will be to save up his money to do a true full-on build!

From The Ridiculous To The Sublime!

 

It's pretty much all over, but the "cry'in".... With the exception of "mass storage" and I do mean MASS, as in 2Tb or over.... the day of the spinning hard disk drive is over. With the price that they're at today, there's absolutely no reason to not have one in your machine. If you keep an eye out for the constant sales going one, it's not even that challenging to find a 240/256Gb SSD for under a $100! And I don't mean one of those "no-names". I'm talking Sandisk, Mushkin, Crucial, and even some Samsung. It really hit home last week when I was replacing a failed hard drive for a client. I had done some estimates for him between $200 on the low end and $375 on the high of the range from using a "small" (240Gb) SSD for the OS and programs and using first his onboard SD reader for file storage then on to the mSATA later. He decided to go this route because the 1Tb SSDs are still too expensive. While I was shopping for a good drive and SD card, I realized that I could do a 480/512Gb SSD for the combined cost of the original concept! I was able to pick up a Micron C400, 480Gb drive for just short of $140. Sure it's "last gen", but still a nice drive and a huge upgrade from his failing mechanical 500Gb Hitachi HDD. And since his ThinkPad T430 has an onboard mSATA connector, he'll be able to add one of those for more internal storage down the road.

Speaking of....  while shopping for his drive, I came across one of these. A Crucial M500 mSATA drive of 480Gb capacity for $149. I picked it up and plan on cloning the 256Gb, Crucial M4 in my ThinkPad over to it.

In addition, I'm going to take the 600Gb, Intel 320 that was in my wife's (now retired) ThinkPad T500 and put it in the 2.5" drive bay of the X1 giving me over a Terabyte of solid state storage in a sub-1", sub-5lb Ultrabook! Sure, that drive is a SATA-II, but it's file storage, so I think it'll be "OK". I'm not even sure what to do with all that storage, but hey; it's there if I need it!

In the middle of this, my wife's new machine, a ThinkPad T530, got a 480Gb, Intel Pro 2500. Not the fastest SSD, but dead reliable. 

So, what does all this SSD shuffling tell you? Am I just nuts? Maybe, but it's really that the capacity of today's solid state drives have them in a place to replace virtually all mechanical drives not used in mass storage. Here's the telling thing: in no case, did I pay more than $150 for any of these drives! And additional benefit? They are so fast, that just the one change, allows machines that are several years old to be completely usable and even down-right fast and inexpensive! There's just NO reason to still be running a machine with a mechanical hard drive!

The State of Solid State

The Fall (as in season), of 2011 will be recorded as the fall of the hard disk drive (otherwise known as HDD) in the annals of computing history. "Neck-deep" flooding in the Bang Pa-In, Thailand brought the vast majority of world production to a screeching halt and doubled the price of drives within a space of days. Why do you care?

From 1956, when IBM (yes, that IBM), introduced them as the secondary (there was a time when Floppy was king) point of storage for computers, these things have become increasingly dominant in the industry as our society has become increasingly digitized. In that day and age, virtually all computers were mainframes and most off-line mass storage as done on tape. Remember those old movies showing the "computer room" with banks of cabinets and big reels of tape spinning?

At MIT where a lot of this type of technology was developed, virtually no one was even allowed into these rooms. If you wanted to run a program, you had to hand it over to one of the "priest" (swear to Jobs, that's what they called them) and those guys would run the "stack" and you'd get a green-sheeted print-out. My first job in college was at Texas A&M in the Teague building doing card punch for a professor and running the resulting program! I guess I was an Aggie Priest! Anyway, as things progress from the 70's into the 80's, computers got the big "packs", removable hard drives in a cake carrier size..... just like the picture above. We had a "mini-computer" at my first job after college which used these things.

At that job, I generally worked on an IBM PC AT. It was a 286 and had the then crazy expensive and extravagantly sized 60Mb hard drive in it! My boss at that cotton company was a little technology crazy and spent a lot of money on such things, so we had the AT, an XT, AND a Compaq Portable. You remember, the clone with a folding keyboard when closed up looked remarkably like a Singer sewing machine ready for travel!

So, is this post about old storage mediums? No: as close as that is to my heart (I know, it's a weird unexplainable thing), that isn't the case. I've recently gotten to the point where my little computer side-business is even starting to go in this direction. The last three machines I sold were equipped with SSDs instead of traditional hard drives. When Joe-blow on the street is opting for it instead of the older, more capacious, and cheaper mechanical drives, then it's time must have arrived.

 

What brought this on all of a sudden? Well....yesterday, I took my last system with a mechanical boot drive "off-line". Our home server built in this Silverstone PS07 case, with the Asus E350-M1pro (AMD APU 350 Brazos chip), had a 500Gb Seagate Momentus XT in it. Yes, I know; it's a "hybrid" drive, but the NAND part of it was just a big cache and didn't really function as an actual SSD. It's being replaced by a 160Gb, Intel 320. It got me to thinking.

It's been a long road, from 2011 till now. It started with this little drive. It's all I could afford at the time, 64Gb Mushkin Callisto in the 1st Blackbird build. Over the course of the last 3 years, that machine has gotten 128Gb, and 256Gb SSDs; with the most recent rebuild I installed my very first SATA-III drive. A 240Gb Sandisk Extreme. That changeover didn't just change Blackbird; it's 256Gb Samsung SSD went into my wife's T500, the temporary 128Gb SSD went into the Viking HTPC replacing a 64Gb Samsung. This last weekend, I just upgraded our living room HTPC to a 128Gb SSD as well. Last month, my personal X301 got an Intel 320, 160Gb that has a TRIM function to replace the older Samsung 128Gb drive that did not. As you can see here, this isn't "1st Generation" replacement, I'm now in the 2G with bigger, faster drives displacing older, slower and smaller drives.

It's undeniable that SSDs was faster, but they were way expensive. So what happened? It wasn't quite this dramatic, but we are back to the top now. In 2011, the floods in Thailand didn't just drive up the price of hard drives, it changed the landscape of computer storage overall. In years past, the industry would have just borne the brunt of the high costs caused by the shrunken supply and then return to normal when the factories came back on line. However, in this case; there was an alternative in the budding SSD industry. Solid State Drive manufacturer's response to the "disaster" was to aggressively ramp up production while cutting prices to penetrate the market. Basically, every 9 to 12 months, the capacity of drives would double at the same price-point.

As the capacity was rising and the prices were dropping on SSDs, we can add the arrival of the "Cloud". This perfect storm (no pun intended) of technologies is spelling the end of the mechanical hard drive in it's traditional role. What has now happened is that in many cases, the SSD have taken over as boot, or only drive with commonly found capacities of 480Gb and beyond. Yes, they are still expensive compared to the spinning platters, which is why you often see the boot drive/storage drive (SSD/HDD) combination. 

Why am I writing about this now? It's that there's a "sea change" out there. You can feel it. SSDs are now the accepted norm for users who want performance. As I pointed out earlier; the last 3 laptops that I sold; one a Dell Latitude E6400, the other two ThinkPads, T61 and T500 all went out with 64Gb SSDs. What makes this remarkable is that I deal in value. My clients want something that will run well for as little as they can pay for it. However, they know the difference between a "cheap" consumer machine from Wal-Buy (my word), and something made well that should last. They also want performance if they don't have to pay too much for it. I offered all of them the machines with a regular HDD, but offered them all an alternative of a small 64Gb SSD for $50 more. After seeing a machine with an SSD run, they all chose less capacity, but better performance, despite the additional $50. These were "regular guys", not gamers, or Tech Gurus. Their use of them is from daily working computer to sit by the recliner check email/web-surfer. They just want their machines to be snappy!

Back in 2008, when the ThinkPad X300 was introduced, the thing that set it apart wasn't the thinness (the MacBook Air was slightly thinner AND beat it to market), it wasn't the uncommon at the time, Hi-Res LED lit screen. It wasn't even the still not standard, ridiculously slim 7mm optical drive that the MBA didn't have.....still doesn't. If you blow that picture up; it's item "N", the 64Gb SSD! The X300 was the lone machine on the market at that time that only came with an SSD! Now 5/6 years down the road, it's a tide that is beginning to wash away the HDD dominance. Ironically, the old hard disk drive has be relegated back to it's original role......that of secondary storage.

Propellerhead Gear: Suits Me To A "T"

The IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad "T" and I go back a loooong way. Actually, back to the beginning......Y2K. Remember that? Anyway, it was my first real full-time IT job and the responsibility of making sure that my department's technology, at the University of Illinois-Chicago was Y2K compliant. It was a poke in the eye, but hey, I got to make the call on, and order up my very first laptops. I replaced the aging ThinkPad 380ED with brand new T20 for our mobile workers. Let me tell ya; I was the IT guru/hero immediately! I learned to love that machine and almost every "T" thereafter. By that point in my mobile computing life, the ThinkPad roots already ran deep. I had bought a legendary 701c a few years earlier, which was followed by the phenominal 600. When the "T" (for titanium) came out in 2000, I understood that in order to get under the $4000 price-point, IBM had to do away with some of the little refinements that had always been there, like covering the ports, and many of the rubberized surfaces, etc. Remember the old days when every ThinkPad came with a form that the owner filled out and mailed in so they would send you an engraved little plaque with your name on it? Be that as it may, the new "T" was an amazing performer and extremely well put together. And in IBM tradition, it was filled with innovations ranging from the titanium infused casing (hence the T), to the "Thinklight" to give you just a little bit of illumination when typing in the dark. At right around 5 pounds complete with optical drive, this computer defined the "Thin and Light" category of mobile computing. I was able to use the T20 at work for my 2 years at UIC, but later would personally own every model of that series, T21, T22 and finally the excellent T23. The later machines introduced me to the world of "high resolution" at 1400 x 1040 (SXGA+) in a 14.1" screen and I've been addicted every since.

Then came the T30 of 2002. I owned it, I used it, but unlike my other "T" ThinkPads; I did NOT love it. Let's just say that the smoking hot P4 was just not a good fit for the "T" Series philosophy.......as witness by the "big butt" on this machine as compared to the T23 which came before and the T40 that came after! This model is probably responsible for me diverging and getting involved with the "X" machines.... but that's a different post.

I think IBM recognized it's mistake and replaced the T30 the following year with the T40. With it, the design went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Kinda like the supermodel in the little black dress. Don't get me wrong; it looked great, and I loved carrying it, but they made it so thin that the chassis flex, combined with the hotter GPU begat the infamous ATI, BGA failure issue. I never had it happen to me, since I was ultra-careful not to stress the bottom of my T40, T41, T42p, or T43, but it was a common failure and gave IBM a substantial "black-eye", although pretty much every manufacturer in the industry suffered similar failures. At this point, I'll have to admit that I personally jumped ship and went with the X300 for my next personal laptop (which I've already written about).

Although, I had already personally moved on, the T60 and T61 of 2006 and 2007 were important machines in several ways. Sadly, 2005 brought the sale of the ThinkPad brand by IBM to Lenovo. Although, many of us loved our ThinkPads, IBM was basically loosing money on every computer it sold, so the hand-writing had been on the wall for some time.

Business aside; what about the machines? Those of you who are sharp-eyed, might have already noticed that I put the images in reverse order. Why? We bought them that way! Before I had gone over to the X300, my wife had been using ThinkPads out of the lower-end of the corporate line; the "A" Series, the "R" Series and the "Z" Series. So instead of the T60, she was using the Z61m which was essentially a widescreen version of the same machine. So a couple of years ago, I picked up a T61 for her, installed a big (in those days) 240Gb SSD and she was set.

I really like this series of machines (T60/61). While not as thin and light as the T4x, neither did they suffer from the same chassis flex and heat issues of the T4x. Lenovo went to a rigid internal "roll-cage" design which made these some of the most rugged laptops ever designed. The only real "black mark" were the high-end models' use of the nVidia GPU which often failed leaving a completely dead machine. Of course, this was an industry-wide issue and that video chip manufacturer would end up paying settlements in the billions over it! Up until recently, we had 3 (2 with the nVidia GPU), outfitted with SSDs and 4Gb of RAM. They've been excellent machines for us. Last year, we finally got into the T60 game when my brother sent me some of his old machines for use in my wife's classroom. Yup; they are older and somewhat slower, but they are just as rugged and serviceable on a day-to-day basis.

2014 dawned a new age in our house, when the T500 came to replace my wife's T61. If I hadn't told her about the switch, she probably wouldn't have noticed the difference! The machines are almost identical in looks and performance..... at least for what she does with it. The screen resolution is the same, although I think the newer panel is a little bit better than the old one, but the new keyboard isn't quite the equal of the old one, so it's a "wash". I do like that the newer chipset uses the current standard DDR3 RAM which makes upgrades cheaper. So now, both she (T500) and I (X301) both use the same spec of memory, which I prefer. I have a single 4Gb module in her machine which will allow me to easily get to up to 6 or 8Gb in the future.

For the better part of 15 years, between myself and my family, we've used/owned all 12 models of the "T" series from the original T20 to the T500. I'm certain that we'll get around to the newer T510/520/530 as well, when the time comes!

Today's Sweet Spot in Daily Laptops

Yesterday, as I was discussing updates it occurred to me that I haven't updated that which this Blog is pretty much all about! ...... What's the best technology deals out there right now for the average "Joe". A few posts back, I had briefly discussed the Dell Latitude E6400 and how it was a really good deal for my clients, but even then I didn't get into the nitty-gritty of the specs and what-all that means. 

In my opinion, right at this moment, there's not a better deal than the Intel Core 2 Duo processor'd machines. We're at a point where many (if not most) mainstream software can take advantage of more than one processor core. And the ones that can't, can run on one, while the machine can continue to do other tasks. Now this is anecdotal evidence of course, but on a fairly regular basis, I work on people's machines (as well as our stable of them too). As far as doing things on them, I can break them down into 3 groups. Single core, P4/P4-M, and Pentium M machines. "Core" Duo/Quad machines, and newer i3/i5/i7. Although, I don't deal with the latter much; I do, on occasion end up working on them as well. What I've found to be the case is that there's a huge difference between the 1st and 2nd group, but little between the 2nd and 3rd. Now before you get yourself into a twist, let me note that, we are talking about, a decent amount of RAM (3 to 4Gb), running an operating system that won't bog it down, meaning XPP for P4/P-M, and Windows 7 for Core Duo/2nd Gen Core machines, AND doing typical tasks, like downloads, Internet, etc. NOT, Photoshop and transcoding video! 

The big factor is this; an adequate amount of RAM that isn't going to kill your budget. Not only do P4-M/P-M machines run slow, single-core processors, they use the older spec DDR (or DDR1) RAM in them. Sure, you can get 1Gb sticks, and get those machines up to 2Gbs total, but the cost of 1Gb DDR is pretty much the same as 2Gb DDR2! So, the irony is that the cheaper machine to buy is more expensive to upgrade. Besides which, the chipsets typically limit them to 2Gb total anyway, even if you could afford to buy bigger modules. So, here's how it works out in $$. You can go buy a T42 for say, $50, then you want to max out the RAM so it'll run decent with XP/SP3. That'll cost you about $70, making your total $120. Whereas on any given day, you can buy a T60 for about $75, or better yet, the T61 that I just bought for $90. You and put 2Gb of RAM into it for anywhere from $25-30 making your total somewhere around $100, or if you want to spend as much as you would have on that maxed out T42, you'd have a T60/T61 with 4Gb of RAM in it. Plus it'll have a Core Duo, or might even have a Core 2 Duo in it which is WAY faster than your P-M. ....And I haven't even gotten into the cost to size differential between the PATA that the T42 uses versus, the SATA that the T60/T61 uses!

The thing that made it jump out at me was that last week, I had a client who asked for a decent laptop to use for the next 2-3 years. They had a $200-250 budget, so I started looking around in the C2D type of corporate machines which are about 3 years old. Within minutes of each other, I was able to find both a Dell Latitude E6400, and a ThinkPad T61 for less than $100 shipped. Both were fully equipped, with hard drives, at least 3Gb of RAM. The ThinkPad had a bigger 15.4" screen and the dell had the bigger hard drive. I got them the Dell because it was smaller and lighter. If it hadn't been someone who was expecting to travel constantly with their machine, I'd have probably done the more rugged ThinkPad with the magnesium skeleton, instead of the Dell with the Magnesium outer casing. These are both "business class" machines that sold for between $1500 and $2000 originally. They'll certainly be tougher than the typical notebook that they'd been able to buy at Walmart for $400-500!

These are the computers I recommend because they offer the most "bang-for-the-buck" and they are what I have my family using. Both my wife and son use the bigger 15.4" ThinkPad T61. Granted they are the higher end ones with discrete graphics chips, high resolution screens and have upgraded SSD boot drives, but the guts of those machines aren't any different. 

I have my daughter on the X61 from the same generation. Similar technology, but in a smaller package that's easier for her to handle. These things are also great deals, in that they are often found in the sub-$100 range as well. Yes, I have her RAM maxed out and an SSD in there as a boot drive as well, but those are pretty cheap upgrades if you know where and how to buy.

In the meantime, I'm already scouting out what we are going to do when it's time to upgrade. There'll come the day when DDR2 won't be worth it to buy compared to DDR3, so it pays to be prepared! But for right now: this is the Sweet Spot!

The Other Side of the Great (Technological) Divide

This is the consequence of crossing the technological Rubicon that I posted on a while ago. The other day, I found myself discussing and defending the ThinkPads that we're issued at work. I was part of the first group of teachers when the school district made the decision to move from desktops to laptops and was issued a ThinkPad R60. We were told at the time, the "cycle" would be 4 years which is going to be typical and understandable for a money-strapped public entity like a school district vs. a corporation (typically 3 years). Unfortunately the cycle went to 5 years which isn't good, but workable for a machine running XPP. After all, the mission of these machines was to do "office" type applications, email and browser oriented functions. These were dual core machines and could handle those tasks well, however, the powers that be in charge of sourcing and spec'ding these machine are.....shall we say.....lacking in expertise with hardware? Which is where I'm going with this post. It's not a rant regarding them (although their lack of understanding in this area given their jobs is inexcusable), but more so a general issue that's out there among most if not all buyers. I'll just point out that they ordered them with 512Mb of RAM and 40Gb HDD.

We are an "Ebook" school, meaning that the district made the decision some years ago to purchase computers for issue to students and attendant electronic versions of the text, vs. physical books. Given the price, weight and rapidity of change in texts in today's world, it looked to be the right decision. Although ultimately this project is doomed to be abandoned (partially due to circumstances beyond anyone's control), lets just say that the implementation was lacking from the get-go. As most anyone who's worked in a corporate environment knows, the implementation of security software is enough to significantly slow down any computer, so certainly they don't need to be further hampered by being purposely crippled in the ordered specifications! 

Three year ago when I moved to the High School, I was duly impressed by the fact that the issued computer to the students were the ThinkPad X200. And for those who aren't familiar with this model, it's basically a shrunken X300 without an optical drive at half the cost! One day, after listening to the students complaining about the slowness, I decided to look at one. I was horrified to find that it was equipped with 1Gb of RAM! Thinking that this was a mistake or that someone had taken out one of the modules, I checked another.....same thing.....then another......same result. To say that I was a little stunned would be putting it mildly. In fact, I got onto the ThinkPad Forum and had a prolong discussion with other members about why Lenovo would even sell a crippled machine like this, customers' wishes not-withstanding! My contention is that just in our district alone, there are over a thousand people who will have the belief that ThinkPads are horrible computers and would never buy another Lenovo product!

OK; I know that so far, it sounds like a "rant", but it's not really. Although, the "professionals" who's jobs it is to purchase those machines are clearly idiots (yes, I know that a little strong, but they are being paid for their expertise), this is a common issue among most computer users today. Most folks simply don't understand what makes a computer "feel" fast or slow. Yes, corporate (or school district) security is an issue, but you can talk memory with people all day long and the vast majority wouldn't know the difference between RAM and storage to save their life. The fact of the matter is that most any computer made within the last 3-5 years will happily run a modern OS (eg. Windows 7) and it's basic apps if given the correct amount of RAM. My "rule of thumb" is to double whatever Microsoft lists as recommended.....then double that every time they come out with a major service pack. 

 

A good example was what happened with Windows XP. It was originally designed to run on 256Mb of RAM. By the time that Service Pack 3 came out, it needed to have 2Gb to run well. So it basically went like this: 

1. Windows XP- 256Mb of RAM
2. Windows XP SP1- 512Mb of RAM
3. Windows XP SP2- 1Gb of RAM
4. Windows XP SP3- 2Gb of RAM

 

With Windows 7, I've set a 2Gb floor and have really only run 4Gb or better on our own machines. However, within the last year, another dynamic has come on the scene. The all-conquering solid state drive (SSD for short). This along with a adequate amount of RAM has become the main ingredient in making a machine feel fast. Boots happen within 15-20 seconds, programs launch instantly and files are accessed almost immediately.

  

The correct combination of these devices can make the sweet-spot of the 3 year-old notebook computer a perfect storm of functionality. Take any corporate level computer of this vintage, ranging from the Dell Latitude E6400 that I've been buying up for clients to the X61 that's destined to be my daughter's replacement for the aging X30 (yes, that's right.....a PIII-M machine). Combine these computers with 2 to 4Gb of RAM, an SSD (stirred, not shaken), add Windows 7 and anyone can have themselves a very nicely functioning notebook for around $250, or less.

Which gets me down to my last point. Our school district finally got it's wits about itself and started buying machines with adequate RAM. The L420 that was issued at the end of last year has 4Gb of  RAM on board. However, this machine is far outperformed based on "feel" day-to-day by my 3 year old X300 and the 4 year old X61 equipped with the same amount of RAM and a SSD!

Crossing the Technological Rubicon

It's not often that we get to do something momentus in terms of technology, especially for someone like me who tends to buy after things hit the "sweet spot". In the last post, I talked about upgrading my X300 and having an extra drive as a result. In the post before that, I discussed the demise of the Mushkin Chronos SSD, which is in the process of being RMA'd. Well, I did it again! While in the process of looking at MacBook Pros, then trying to find a Dell E6400 for a friend the other day; I came across a Craigs List ad for an SSD.......new Samsung 256Gb for $100.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking; I was thinking the same thing. SCAM, not really "new", really a refurb, another one of those "penny auction", "I just sold it, but I can tell you where to get one just like it" things. Turns out, it wasn't any of those things. it was being sold be the same guy who was selling the Dell Latitude E6400 that I was buying for my friend. Apparently, he works for/or with Dell and has access to lots of their "sell-off" type stuff. He picked up a bunch of them to use and sell when Dell decided to move on to the new faster SATA-3 standard. I don't know what he paid for them (it must have been great), but I don't really care since $100 for a new 256Gb SSD is a great price in an of itself. Especially because it's a Samsung which is generally considered to be right up there with Intel on reliability. Given that my machine is older and wouldn't see the benefits of SATA-3 anyway, this is pretty awesome. In fact, it turns out that this particular drive is the sell-to-OEM repackaged Samsung 470 that I used in the Viking mini-HTPC build last month. 

So, along with this situation and the RMA'd Chronos returns, I'll have 3 spare SSDs. This puts me in the unique position of being able to move all of my front-line computers to either a single SSD or an SSD boot drive/mechanical storage drive combo with the exception of the file server. That's 5 laptops: 240Gb Sandisk in my wife's T61, 128Gb Samsung in both my X300 and Z61m mobile workstation, 50Gb in my son's Z60t, and 64Gb in the daughter's X61. That's along with a 256Gb + 1Tb in my desktop workstation, 64Gb + 500Gb in the living room HTPC, and 64Gb + 500Gb in the bedroom HTPC. The amazing this is that it wasn't intentional or extravagant, just an almost imperceptible shift in storage medium that's completely changed everything.
 

A Day "Off"" Blog Post

So anyway......as it turned out, I didn't really work yesterday. The daughter was sick the night before, but as teacher parents, we took her to school anyway just to see if she was over it. Turns out that she wasn't quite ready for a day of school yet (she's the dramatic child), and needed a day home with dad to finish getting over her stomach bug that's been bothering mom and I as well. So, about 9am, I got the call to come and get "it". After frantically scrambling to get things ready for a sub, taking the school bus that I drive in the morning back to the bus lot, I go and get her. Although, most of you are now probably imagining the above, it's really more like the below.....except I don't look that good!

What really ends up happening with these things is that I give her some medicine, feed her lunch and get the TV to the correct channel for her......oh yeah, lay there and listen to her read a book till she falls asleep. Therefore the reality is that I got to spend most of the day stuck in the house, BUT doing what I want! .......which in this case turned out to be the looong put-off SSD upgrade from my trusty laptop.

WAIT! When did the Mac thing happen?!? Never fear, the earth did not stop spinning and I haven't decided to "end it all" due to Mayan doom and gloom. I also spent the day negotiating a deal for one of my long time client-families for a MacBook Christmas present for their son. Did pretty well too! Less than 3 year old MacBook Pro 13" for$525 (good for a Mac that is). Anyway, back to the X300. A few months ago, I came across some Samsung SSDs in the weird 1.8" Micro-SATA spec that's used in the X300/301 (as well as a few other) notebooks. These were the 128Gb versions originally contracted for the X301, and not the 64Gb that was in mine. The price was good (sub-$100) so I bought two. One for my Z61m Ark of the Covenant project and one to upgrade the long-suffering X300. But other projects got in the way and the suffering went on, largely because the X300 kept working without complaint. Well, yesterday, that came to an end! While the daughter napped, I did the long neglected deed! 

The pay-out? Weeeellll; I can't say that there is any. The machine runs exactly as it did before the upgrade. I haven't even looked at the drive "properties" to admire my handiwork. It has simply soldiered on as before. However, what I ended up with was another thought; as I sat holding the old 64Gb SSD in my hand, and thinking......."what do I do with this"? Especially after I realized that I'd also have the Dell 50Gb temporary SSD in hand as well after Mushkin RMA's my Chronos 120Gb back to me. Two spare, "small" SSDs.....hmmmmm

At that point, it hit me! I could upgrade both the kid's computers, which still run XPP by the way. They don't store anything anyway, so all the main computers in the house would be on SSD boot drives and Windows 7. Fast Booting for everybody!!! Not bad for a day off baby-sitting a sick child.