User:LadyGeek

My Background
I have absolutely no experience in investing or finance whatsoever except from what I read on this site, some internet research, and talking to friends. However, I do own the Bogleheads' Guide to Investing and The Four Pillars of Investing.

What is my area of expertise? Engineering (electronics). If you have questions on home theater, radio and TV, or computers, just ask.

OK, I have a question. Do you think hard drives in PCs will soon be replaced by flash memory? If not, why not? If so, when? Sewall 13:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The question is, at what price? A few years ago, I would have said that the technology wasn't there. Flash memory had much longer access times and just wasn't designed for the high amount of read/write cycles as a hard drive. Fast forward to today, and you can now buy Solid State Drives (Solid State Disks) online at places such as Newegg or Amazon. Here's the Wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive The cost/MB breakpoint in terms of SSD vs. Hard drive is still well in favor of the Hard drive. LadyGeek 04:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I wonder how much longer it will take for it to be cost effective. I have a ~5 year old desktop machine that works fine, handles all the apps I use, but is starting to feel slow. I'll probably seek to replace in a few years but would hate to miss a flash memory machine by a year or two. Sewall 02:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

You may be trying to solve the wrong problem. I think your PC is too old. The reason it's appearing slow is because the software developers are taking advantage of the latest hardware technology. Remember that consumer electronics work on the scale of months, not years. Quad core CPUs and dual GPU (2 video cards) configurations are the norm these days. Although Windows XP only supports 3 GB of RAM, 64 bit Vista (Business edition) can support 128+ GB of RAM. Memory is cheap.

Specifically regarding Solid State Drives, you may be out of luck. The IDE and ATA interfaces are going away in favor of SATA (Serial ATA). Your PC may be too old to support a SATA hard drive interface. In any case, I would not decide on anything until you are ready to replace your PC. You may find it more cost effective to simply replace the entire PC.

On the other hand, Linux is a great OS for older PCs. If you can run your applications on Linux (Thunderbird, Firefox, Open Office), you may want to go that route. I like Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE interface), it looks like MS Windows. You can "test run" with a live CD to see if you like it. A live CD will boot into Linux, but not modify anything on your PC.
 * kubuntu

LadyGeek 03:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. We've partially misunderstood each other but the main message is clear. I'll buy a new PC when I'm really sick and tired of this one. I think I can probably last a few more years though... Sewall 01:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Why?
Why am I contributing to the Wiki? As the saying goes, "The best way to learn a topic is to try to teach it".

Contributing allows me to help others while learning more about investing. I'll flag material for review if needed.