Some of you know that I set up Windows Vista Home Premium on this Netbook earlier and you can read that here.  I was glad to say goodbye to  XP and see Vista running on this little machine.  Well the day after Thanksgiving I was able to get the family pack of Windows 7 Home Premium for $150.  It was time to upgrade the Mini, I knew my fiance would love the new features and I wanted to see how much better it would run on there.  So again I went to work.  

Here is some background, I got this Netbook because it is light and portable, not to just check e-mail and look cool.  This thing is very light.  I would suggest any of the HP Netbooks if you are interested in them.  This one is an HP Mini 1000 the true model number is the 1030NR.  I have read that the best thing you can do to these computers that run Intel Atom processors is to upgrade the ram and I did just that, I upgraded it to 2Gb.  Other than that this thing is still stock.  

The upgrade was much simpler than putting Vista on this and I would say that anyone could do this very easily.  I had purchased an external DVD drive when I got the Mini so I attached it to it and booted off of the Windows 7 install disc.  The Mini will only support 32bit versions of Windows. I booted off of the 32bit disc and formated the hard drive and installed Windows,  it was simple.  Afterward I ran Windows Updates and installed Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate.  Total Windows, Office and a few programs fills up the 16Gb Solid State hard drive.  Just a few gigs free when it is all said and done.  I again disabled System Restore and set to a manual page file size instead of letting the OS manage it.  

Windows 7 on HP Mini 1030NR

This was an easy install, the Device Manager was clear from the end of installation.  However a basic mouse driver was installed.  If you want the scroll function, download the Vista mouse driver from another HP laptop that used a Synaptics driver.  

All in all this Mini seems faster with 7 installed than with Vista.  The numbers are interesting, below is the Scores from Windows 7, check out my other blog here for windows Vista’s numbers on the same machine. Remember in Vista the highest score was a 5.9, in Windows 7 the highest score is a 7.9 

Again I ran the Passmark Performance Test and Vista got a 172, while Windows 7 gets a 178.8, not a big jump but it is still a performance increase and you notice it on the Mini, the system is much more responsive. 

So if you bought that Netbook on Black Friday or have an older one  I would suggest a Windows 7 upgrade.  If you do not have an external DVD drive you can look into local computer service shops to do an upgrade for you.  Windows 7 takes everything good about Vista and makes it better, as well as taking the bad and making it great. This upgrade is simple and recommended.

Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Funding Type: Discretionary,Grant
Total Available: N/A
Award Ceiling: N/A
Deadline: 10.31.10
Eligibility: Unrestricted

Description:
This multidisciplinary program supports basic research in solid state and materials chemistry comprising the elucidation of the atomic and molecular basis for material development and properties in the solid state from the nanoscale to the bulk. General areas of interest include but are not limited to innovative approaches to design, synthesis, bulk crystal and/or film growth, and characterization of novel organic, inorganic, and hybrid materials, as well as liquid crystal materials and multi-component material systems exhibiting new phenomena and/or providing new scientific insights into structure/composition/property relationships in the solid state. Relevant topics include original material design principles, new approaches to assembly or crystalline material growth, characterization of new material phenomena or superior behavior, investigations of surface and interfacial effects on material system structures and properties, and unraveling the relationships between structure/composition (e.g. self- or program-assembled materials, crystalline material growth, and nanostructured material systems) and properties (e.g. charge, ionic, thermal or spin transport, exciton diffusion, chemical reactivity and selectivity, etc.). Development of new organic solid state materials, environmentally-safe and sustainable materials, and fundamental studies of novel material and material systems for efficient energy harvesting, conversion and storage are encouraged. The SSMC program works closely with other programs within the Division of Materials Research (DMR) and in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Engineering (ENG) directorates to accommodate the multidisciplinary nature of proposal submissions.

There have been a number of complaints in the flash memory industry accusing Apple of manipulating the market. They are apparently doing this by requesting a certain amount of flash memory and then purchases a lesser amount than originally requested.

If this is true, it would drive down the prices and allow Apple to secure orders at a lower price because competitors are competing to move chips.

Flash Memory

VIVAnews – OCZ Technology Group, Inc., salah satu pemain di industri memori dan media simpan berbasis flash menghadirkan media simpan terbarunya. Colossus, yang merupakan Solid State Drive 3.5 inci didesain untuk memenuhi kebutuhan pengguna desktop high end dan kalangan enterprise.

Yang menarik, OCZ menghadirkan berbagai versi kapasitas hingga berukuran 1 Terabyte. Kapasitas tersebut merupakan yang terbesar di industri solid state drive saat ini.

“Colossus series didesain untuk meningkatkan performa desktop dan workstation,” kata Eugene Chang, Vice President of Product Management OCZ Technology Group, pada keterangan resminya, 23 November 2009. “Pengguna yang membutuhkan kecepatan, kehandalan, dan kapasitas simpan maksimum juga dapat memanfaatkan produk ini,” ucapnya.

Untuk mengimbangi kapasitas besar yang disediakan, OCZ Colossus juga diperkuat dari sisi performa. Arsitektur RAID 0 ditanamkan pada storage yang terpasang di dalam. Dengan demikian, OCZ mengklaim bahwa pemrosesan data bisa dilakukan secara lebih cepat pada aplikasi umum seperti email, internet, dan transfer file.

Colossus SSD tersedia dalam kapasitas 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, dan 1 TB. Form factornya yang tidak lazim, yakni 3,5 inci seperti harddisk untuk PC desktop atau server, dan bukan 2,5 inci seperti harddisk untuk notebook disebutkan untuk menampung kebutuhan yang lebih luas. Misalnya untuk dipasang pada server dan lain-lain.

OCZ berani mengklaim bahwa solid state drive ini mampu bekerja salama 1,5 juta jam sebelum mengalami kerusakan. Garansi selama 3 tahun tersedia lengkap dengan dukungan teknis. Sayangnya belum ada informasi seputar harga dan ketersediaan produk ini dari distributor resminya di pasaran Indonesia.

So mancher Käufer der kleinen Minimobilen durfte im Rechneralltag feststellen, dass die Performance doch ein wenig mager ausfällt. Da lässt sich ein wenig nachhelfen.

Der erste große Netbook-Wurf war der Eee PC. Weil der in zweistelliger Millionenauflage gekauft wurde, wendet sich die Nachrüstplatine “Active SaberTooth S4 SATA Mini PCIe SSD” in erster Linie an die Eee-Modelle 900, 900A, 901 und 1000.
Dank sequentieller Lese-Algorithmen komme das Flashlaufwerk auf interne Datenübertragungsraten von bis zu 130 MB/s. Das sollte im täglichen Netbook-Betrieb durchaus für spürbaren Tempozuwachs reichen.
Das Nachrüstlaufwerk mit dem ach so griffigen Namen gibt es wahlweise in den Kapazitäten 16, 32 sowie 64 GByte und kostet dabei von knapp 50 bis rund 140 Dollar. Eine durchaus erschwingliche Tuningmaßnahme. [Ralf]

[PClaunches]

Brauchst Du? Softwaretool zum Säubern von SSD-Laufwerken

Intel: Preissturz jetzt auch bei SSDs

Externe Aviator USB 3.0 SSD kommt noch vor Jahresende

Toshiba gibt klassische Festplatte nicht auf

Asus: Eee kommt auch mit Windows 7

If you’re a scientist, or have experience with this technology, or a reliable source that is verifiable, I’d love to hear from you. because this is just plausible enough to scare me and exhilarate me at the same time… and leave me feeling like this might be a fake.

I mean, this is some really awesome technology, if it exists. think about what it could mean for places like the Sudan, or even rural areas in that battered, (and much face-palmed) but good hearted, old lady, my own U.S. of A.?

And that’s just for something like lighting a room for things like studying at night (Lincoln wouldn’t have had to wear glasses with these babies around, lol) . . . What about the other applications? extreme fuel efficiency, for instance? after all, think about how much heat comes off of a car’s engine, exhaust pipe, drivetrain, etc. … if all of that were kicking back into a hybrid’s fuel cell, we actually might get a car that would do three or four hundred miles to the gallon…

*boggles*

So before I get my hopes up, please come along and smash them ^^

’cause… yeah. *wants to do a “Fiddler On The Roof” dance to the beat from ‘If I Were A Rich Man’*

[Andrew] wrote in to show us how he upgraded a broken Zune to solid state. He had one that was giving the Error code 5 when it booted. This means the hard drive is bad. He was able to find a compatible solid state 32Gb drive that, with a little bit of case modification, he made fit. Everything fit back into the Zune and looked completely stock. This was all done for less than $130. He seems pretty proud of getting a 32GB Zune for $150, and we don’t think that’s too big of a deal. We found a bunch of them on eBay for under $100. He even states that he doesn’t see any performance or battery life improvements. So why do we post this? Well, we like to see stuff split open and we actually like the idea of a no-moving-parts mp3 player. We’re hard on our electronics and the thought of that platter getting jarred over and over and over and over really bothers us. Great job [Andrew].

An important member of my grandparents’ nondescript fish-and-rice life was their Bush solid state radio. Don’t know when and where from they brought it but I remember them always having it.

Bushism, as we knew it.

The rectangular talking box sat on a wood and glass showcase and chattered, sang and crackled through the day. The nagging AIR signature tune prodded my brother and me out of bed. Thankfully, I don’t get to hear the tune much these days. It still gives me the creeps and jolts me out of absent-mindedness.

Dadabhai, that’s what I called my grandpa, was a Gandhian and a disciplinarian. He steadfastly refused to compromise on the wake-up call. The next few hours were devoted to getting ready for school against the backdrop of a Bush solid state soliloquy.

Atulbabu’s choice of radio station was conservative and he only heard from Akashvani Kolkata. No Yuvavani or Vividh Bharati, radio stations that had more variety and aired pop music.

As we readied for school and the pressure cooker rustled up a standard meal of boiled potatoes (served mashed with mustard oil, a sprinkling of salt and green chillies) and rice, the newsreader gave us the morning news. The radio babbled endlessly as we went about our lives. Grandpa poured through newspapers, grandma shuffled around the house — fussy that she was — complaining, whining, griping and scolding no one in particular.

Around 8 am, when we reached the dining table laid out with piping hot rice, one sunny side up egg and a mashed potato ball, the newscast would end and Bush solid state would switch to Rabindra sangeet. Surely, the same numbers didn’t play on all days, but they sounded similar.

Such was the poignancy of the mix and the moment –- the rush for school, steaming rice that always scalded my tongue, the strong mustard oil aroma, the sunny side up and Tagore songs —that it has left a permanent imprint in my mind.

Only the other day at home, when we opted for a frugal spread of rice, boiled eggs, boiled dal and mashed potatoes, I heard the lost gargle.

My grandma fawned over her precious talking box and always kept its milk-white body covered in a tablecloth. She was a liberal Hindu but a staunch Brahmin. Her prayer sessions were interminable and she talked loudly to her deities who were from all religions. All this was to the accompaniment of Palli Samaj (farming tips).

I grudged her prayer sittings. They were weird. She made sure we didn’t make a din or dart around lest she loses concentration. Yet, the radio went gaga in the background extolling the virtues of urea-based fertilizer.

Her husband, I am sure was Japanese in his past life. Why else was his tea drinking so ceremonial? In the evenings, he and his wife sat on their roomy four-poster bed, spread out a newspaper neatly, put their little white porcelain pot on it and counted minutes for the tea leaves to sink into the boiling water. Every step was calibrated. The brew — only after it got the correct sunset colour and gave off the expected aroma — was poured into warmed porcelain cups. The couple sipped it, smacked their lips and heard Debdulal Bandopadhyay read out sthaniyo shangbad (local news).

Around 8.30 every night, the shruti natika (audio drama) came on air. This signalled to me the end to the day’s academic pursuits. I studied with my brother in the adjoining room and upon hearing the announcer officiously read out whose play was being staged and who’d take part, I shut my books and slunk into their room.

Atulbabu and his missus were enthusiastic fruit eaters. They freaked out on raw, green guavas neatly diced and sprinkled with salt and pepper. This was one part of the day when they heard Bush solid state with rapt attention and my creeping into the room went unnoticed. As they chewed and spat out the seeds, they closed their eyes and listened.

When the clock struck 10, grandpa declared curfew. But that was after the late-night bulletin was heard. After dinner was served and eaten in silence, he tweaked the cylindrical tuning knob and put Bush solid state to sleep. Lights out, we were all in bed.

Those were days with Bush solid state. The radio died with my grandparents.

Most of you don’t know that I am engaged, not too long ago my girlfriend’s laptop was stolen and it was time to get her a new one and she only had one request, that it be light.  She has back problems and did not like lugging her laptop around to class.  So I looked into Netbooks and found a HP Mini 1030NR at Best Buy for a good price.  I did not have much money so the $299 price was in my range and a friend told me he would help me out.  I chose the Mini because of its screen, the solid state hard drive, the 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, and I liked the keyboard better than the other ones I had tried, it was much easier to type on.  Now if you know me you know I can’t leave any computer stock so I maxed out the ram at 2Gb.  And then I did some research.  I found that the Mini has an integrated Intel graphics chipset that supports Windows Aero Glass.  Also the Intel Atom processor only supports 32bit versions of Windows.  The Mini comes with Windows XP, but I figured that the Mini might support Windows Vista but it would take some doing , and so I went to work. 

HP Mini 1000 Netbook running Windows Vista Home Premium

Now the Mini does not have a DVD rom drive so I bought an external one for it.  I then booted up and formated the hardrive with Vista Home Premium.  The Mini has a 16Gb solid state drive in it and I knew that would be a problem later on.  Vista installed without any problems, once the desktop was loaded I went to the Device Manager, and it was a mess.  HP’s website does not have much Vista drivers for the Mini so I had to go to the manufactures of the different components.  I was able to get graphic, network, wireless, chipset, and the quick play buttons all installed but I noticed something.  A generic mouse driver was installed and it did not support the scroll function of the touch pad.  Some might say this is not an important feature but I love it.  I found that the same mouse pad was used on other HP laptops and downloaded the Vista driver from another model 

Clean Device Manager on Netbook with Vista installed

Now I had a clean Device Manager (pictured above), next was to update Windows.  This was a chore since I had also installed Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate and her antivirus software.  I got Service Pack 1 for Vista installed but there was no room for Service Pack 2.  So I ran the service pack cleanup tool which removes the backed up files and then ran SP2 and ran the tool again after that.  All the other updates installed fine for Vista, but then Service Pack 2 for Office would not install.  In the long run I figured that System Restore was going to have to be disabled.  I also set a limit to the Page File as well so it would not get out of hand.  That did it I was able to install all updates I wanted and after removing the temporary files with Crap Cleaner I had over 2Gb of free space. 

I will say Vista actually runs well on this little Netbook, it is not as fast as my laptop but it works and it is light and gives my girlfriend all the functionality she needs, while staying protected with Vista’s advanced security features.  It took some doing but I am glad I did it and I can’t wait to get Windows 7 installed on there next.  That little Netbook runs Aero Glass just fine.  Now it’s not the fastest computer as you can see by the Windows Experience  Index below.  In Vista the highest score you can get is a 5.9, so it holds its own. I ran PassMark Preformance Test on it and on my low end Compaq Presario C700 (C712NR)  which also runs Windows Vista Home Premium, and the Mini gets a 172 overall score while the Compaq only gets a 393.3  The Mini keeps up in 3D graphics and keeps up with 2D, but  the Compaq does better with the processor and memory.   The weak point is the Intel Atom processor.  While the Intel Atom N270 runs at 1.6 GHz it is still not as fast as Intel’s mobile chips in laptops.  As the Atom evolves these Netbooks will become much better machines further blurring that line between Netbook and Laptop. 

Windows Experience Index on HP Mini in Vista

I am a computer technician and I like performance.  I love using her Netbook, Vista runs fine on there.  I don’t understand why the Netbooks with traditional hard drives in them don’t have Vista running on them by default.  I can understand why XP is on the ones with small solid state hard drives because of the space restrictions.  I would suggest to anyone that has the ability to do it to install Vista on their Netbook and try it for themselves.  Also since Windows Vista runs on here then Windows 7 will as well.  I have since updated to Windows 7 which you can read here.

Lassan, de biztosan ért be az Oh, Sleeper 2007-es lemeze minden idők legnagyobb alkotásai közé számomra. A Solid State-es szupergrup epikus albumát sodró lendülete, metálos témái, gyönyörű dalszövegei tették felejthetetlenné. Íme hát a folytatás, melytől mindenki sokat várt……konkrétan egy év lemezét. Történt ugye egy tagcsere a két év alatt, hiszen Ryan Conley dobos kiszállt a bandából, helyét a kisebb névvel, de annál nagyobb tudással rendelkező Matt Davis vette át. Bár nem a legkritikusabb poszt a bandában, azért mindenféle változás egy kis félelmet kelthetett a rajongókban, hogy ez már nem lesz ugyanakorra durranás, mint volt a debütnagylemez.

Hamar kikerültek a dalszövegek a netre, melyből már kiderülhetett, hogy ezen a téren újból nem kell csalódnunk Micah Kinard-ban. A lemez alapkoncepciója az ember és Isten, illetve az ördög és Isten harcán alapul. Az első számban a Sátán emeli fel a szavát Isten ellen, mind őt, mind az embereket becsmérelve. Csak néhány sorig, a tiszta éneknél válaszol Isten ezekre a vádakra. Az egész lemez úgy van megoldva egyébként, hogy míg az ordítások az emberek, illetve az ördög nézőpontja a dolgokról, addig a lágy, dallamos ének Isten válasza ezekre. A remek befejezésben azonban Isten válaszol a Sátánnak az első dalra visszautalva, igen kemény szavakkal. A záró “I’ll cut off your horns” a breakdown alatt hörögve pedig nyomatékosítja, hogy Istennel szemben semmi esélye sincs. Ezt egyébként nem én találtam ki, egy nemrégiben közzétett vlog-ban mondta el Micah a lemez koncepcióját.

Mint már mondtam, szövegileg ismét egy zseniálisan felépített dologgal állunk szemben, azonban zeneileg több dolog is feltűnhet, de leginkább az, hogy a legendás gitárfutamok száma egy kicsit kevesebb lett az albumon, több a sima riff alá érkező hörgés, és a breakdown. Persze a powa’ még ott van, de néhol olyan érzése van az embernek, hogy itt és itt kifogytak az ötletekből, és valami egyszerű akkordot alápakoltak, hogy mégis legyen ott valami. Ez persze alig észrevehető, de sokadik hallgatásra már feltűnőbb. A másik, hogy végre nem szégyelltek bőven adni a dallamos éneknek teret, mert mint az előző lemeznél is említettem, sokat hozzátett az emésztési folyamathoz, hogy egy-egy stabilabb kapaszkodó segítségével jobban meg lehetett szeretni egy dalt. Remek dallamok egyébként egytől-egyig, és ismerős hang is felcsendül a harmadik nótában Cody Bonette személyében (ex-As Cities Burn).

Amivel bajom akad, az a lemez hossza. Mert nagyon rövidke ez az alig több, mint félóra. Bár az előző lemez is csak 6 perccel volt hosszabb, talán még egy epikusabb számmal, mint ezen a Reveries Of Flight, vagy az előzőről a The Color Theft adni lehetett volna még egy kicsit az érzéseknek. Szinte mindig úgy ér véget a lemez, hogy olyan érzésem van, mintha egy EP-t hallgattam volna. Mindenesetre legalább nem lett unalmas.

Egyébként pedig hatalmas dalok kaptak helyet a lemezen, a már említett Reveries Of Flight váltása brutális, a nyitószám ledarál mindent a helyéről, akárcsak a zárótétel. A köztes számokat hagyni kell hatni, de mindegyikbe sikerült valami kis pluszt csempészni. Nem lett jobb, mint a When I Am God. Sőt, még olyan jó se lett. Azonban biztos, hogy nagyon küzdeni fog év végén a legjobb lemezért járó díjért. Nem sablon, annak ellenére, hogy sok tucat elemet is felhasználtak. Elsőre nem emészthető, de idővel kedvenccé válhat, akárcask az előző.

“If death is victory how afraid of life can we be?”

Pont: 9,8/10

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In my philanthropic work with persons with mood disorders I have come to see a structure to mood.  Mood is affected by how we react to the stress of a problem and this puts us into a solution state.  People have a range of mood states that extend from the suicidal (nullity), stable (singularity) and psychotic (plurality).  Stress pushes us either upward or downward from a singular state.  This is not a linear transition, but an exponential Lorentz transformation that ultimately forms a bell curve (if you give this diagram another half).  Consequently, you have unipolar and bipolar individuals who experience a wider range of moods than the majority.

I have been doing considerable research and experiment regarding psychiatric classifications over the past three years.  In particular, bipolar affective disorder an unipolar affective disorder and have reached the following conclusions:

• psychiatric states are dependent upon how an individual reacts to stress when encountering a problem
• a non-polar individual encounters multiple solutions (stable), which I call singularity
• a unipolar individual encounters zero solutions (suicide), which I call nullity, or one solution (stable), which I call singularity
• a bipolar individual encounters either zero solutions (suicide), which I call nullity, one solution (stable), which I call a singularity, or infinite solutions (mania), which I call a plurality

Both unipolar and bipolar individuals enter nullity states, singularity states  and plurality states due to avoidance of a Maslovian need, a complex.

Neither medication, hospitalization, incarceration nor electrocution (ECT) are the solutions to a complex.

Solving a complex and consequently the nullity, singularity or plurality requires concerted peer support, exercise, nutrition and sleep at state onset until the complex is confronted by the individual and resolved.  Upon resolution, a normal emotional range is restored.

If you read the work of Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. you will discover the “spirituality” you seek, the “good” you seek, is in the right hemisphere of your brain. The left hemisphere of your brain is discrete processing. The right hemisphere of your brain is concrete processing.

In fact, in my work with people with mental health problems (the word “issues” is bullshit) I find that unipolar (depression) and bipolar (manic-depressive) people appear to be either severely left brain dominant in the case of unipolarity or alternating between left and right brain dominance in the case of bipolarity. There is no physical or chemical evidence of any difference between a “stable” person, a unipolar person and a bipolar person. Stress simply pushes mental dominance to the right or left hemisphere.

Két fantasztikus csapat is megörvendeztetett minket vadonatúj videójával, melyeket most Veletek is megosztunk, fogadjátok sok szeretettel! Elsőként itt van legendás Death by Stereo zsírúj klipje, amit a Serjical Strike kiadónál megjelent “Death is my Only Friend” album “I Sing for You” című dalához forgattak a srácok:

Második fogásként pedig kóstoljatok bele a nemrég hazánkban is megfordult August Burns Red “Meddler” című videójába, amit a Solid State Records kiadónál megjelent “Constellations” albumról emeltek ki a srácok. A videót a csapat MySpace-én tekinthetitek meg ide kattintva!

Tascam annuncia la release dell’aggiornamento firmware 1.01, disponibile per l’HD-R1 solid-state audio recorder.

L’aggiornamento è disponibile sulla pagina download del sito.

You may have heard of Solid State Drives, the next generation of data storage devices. They are set to finally replace the good ol’ spinning platter kind of drive that we’ve had for years and years. So what’s so great about them and why do they cost so much?

In the world of technology, moving parts (unless referring to a robot or other device specifically designed to move) are the enemy. The ball mouse left millions of users in despair, constantly having to pop out their mice’s internals to clean them out. Apple’s all-in-one ‘click wheel’, the epitome of MP3-player simplicity, was heralded for its lack of moving parts, therefore having fewer areas in which to go wrong. It was only a matter of time before the spinning hard disk drive would be replaced in favour of a non-moving-part alternative.

Solid State Drives, as the name suggests, are in a solid, non-changing state. Spinning platter drives, however, are particularly vulnerable to drops from heights, which would result in the magnetic read/write head skewering  the storage medium. Sudden motion sensors and auto-retracting heads were invented to prevent this kind of damage, but there were still plenty of moving bits to break.

Because of their lack of moving/movable parts, SSDs are inherently more reliable and hard wearing.

A very common delay in response that is experienced with spinning platter drives is the spin-up time. HDDs won’t read or write any data until their platter has reached full-speed, which is an issue with external drives and laptop drives, both of which usually spin-down after a while to preserve power (depending on the operating system’s settings). SSDs don’t have any kind of delay like this, since there are no moving parts to set into motion.

Due to the lack of a magnetic head, SSDs are also much better at simultaneous file access. An HDD, on the other hand, can only read or write in one location at a time, due to the nature of the moving magnetic head. SSDs are also a heck of a lot faster at reading and writing, which is always a good thing.

All of these technological improvements are pretty cutting edge, hence the high price per GB for SSDs. Spinning platter drives are here to stay for quite some time, due to their much lower cost. HDDs actually have longer read/write cycle lifetimes, so as long as the moving bits don’t break, they will actually last a lot longer. SSDs will easily make it through the average lifetime of a computer, however, so don’t worry.

This YouTube video (silent), made by Samsung, demonstrates real-world comparisons in performance between an SSD and its equivalent HDD counterpart. Note that some of the tests are played back in fast-forward (such as the Windows Vista boot-up, thank goodness), so watch the timers.

Storage disk icons from the Apple website