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Notebook Storage: How Much is Enough?
Posted by anand lalshimpi in Gamer PC | Jan. 28, 2009 10:00 AM
Over the next couple of years we'll see SSD sizes begin to encroach on conventional HDD territories. In the 2.5" form factor we'll see 320GB SSDs by the end of the year, which for many is more than enough on a notebook. At the same time, mechanical disks will get absurdly large in notebooks; it's already possible to get 500GB in a 2.5" mechanical disk and it's looking like 1TB drives will hit in another year or so.
There are performance tradeoffs of course; anyone who has used a well made SSD will attest to the incredible improvement in things like application launch speed and multitasking performance. The downside is obviously cost per GB, which is still unfortunately high.
Today SSDs are too small and too expensive but their prices have been falling and their capacities have been growing. By the end of this year I'd expect to see 160GB SSDs available at sub-$300 price points for the smaller manufacturers and the more expensive drives at below $500.
So let's get to the big question: how much storage is enough on a notebook? Now I tend to use my notebooks more as traveling computers, the bulk of my storage is kept in desktops and file servers. I can get by (although barely) with a 64GB SSD in a notebook, but there are many who are using a notebook as their primary or only PC.
If I were to go notebook-only I don't think a 160GB drive would be enough, I'd need at least 320GB before I could make the switch to an exclusively SSD setup. Even then I'd need to have additional storage in the form of a NAS or file server somewhere at home. I tend to be more of a conventional user in that sense as I've still got a beefy desktop and simply augment it with notebooks.
The questions I've got for you guys are thus two-fold: 1) How do you use your notebook, is it a primary or secondary machine, and 2) How much storage do you need in it? If the answer isn't a lot, then where are you storing the rest of your data? On another machine, NAS, or in the cloud?
As always, your responses here get heard by the very companies that build the notebooks you're buying. Speak away :)
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It depends what you want your notebook for. If you want it for Photoshop, Premier or Director, Illustrator, they really require a lot of memory and hard disk space and as Vista is quite energy consuming, you really need 160 at least.
I'm looking to buy a Pineview netbook and ideally, it would come with a 160GB SSD.
That's more than enough for the data I would want to carry around (music&films).
I expect the performance/power saving advantage to be really big! : )
Well, the answer depends on which laptop you're talking about.
My work laptop (15" thinkpad, probably going bigger display next time) is my primary work computer. It has two 500GB 7,200 rpm drives in it--one in the drive bay replacing the DVD. If larger drives come out, I will upgrade to them. Right now I'm carrying around a mini-NAS with 2x500GB 2.5" drives in it to give me extra storage. Not sure my usage patterns here are remotely typical though. I'll be moving to a 256GB SSD as the main drive sometime soon (ordered an OCZ Vertex on your recommendation). With dual OS's (Windows and Fedora) I don't think I can live with much less than 250GB here.
For my personal laptop, I don't need anywhere near this much. However, I do carry around a certain amount of media these days. Movies to watch on airplanes, TV shows off my Tivo, etc. So although I think a 160GB laptop would be entirely sufficient, I would probably bump up to a 250GB if the price differential weren't too high. But I'd go with a 120GB SSD at the right price point too, given the obvious speed improvements.
For a netbook, where my expectations are different, I'm currently running a 16GB SSD. Not really big enough, so supplemented with a 32GB SDHC card for media. Again, TV shows and such to watch on planes or vacation. I think 32GB is where I'll be starting to look when I buy a Pineview netbook later this year...
My personal laptop/netbook are secondary computers. The main desktop has many TBs of storage.
As far as laptop storage is concerned, i think the difference between using an SSD or a traditional hard drive is not noticeable for an average user. and when i say average user, i mean business users who form a bulk of the laptop community. if i were to choose, i will chose a laptop with a 128gb traditional hard drive and if i need more space, i will get a seagate 500gb external hard drive. i think this would be more than enough and portable too.
I don't own a full-size notebook, only a netbook (AAO)... But I'm rather glad I went with the 160GB HD model back in November rather than the SSD, both because of capacity and performance. That being said, 160GB is more than enough for my netbook for the time being...
I'm actually looking forward to falling SSD prices so I can upgrade to one... I, like Anand, am a pretty conventional user though. Even though I use my netbook a lot at home (on the couch, watching TV) I still use my desktop primarily (which is sitting at 1.5TB of storage between it's various drives).
I've considered adding a NAS device to back up all the different machines in the household to a central location but until I build an HTPC (still quite happy w/a TiVo) it's probably unnecessary. Looking forward to using a SSD as my OS drive on the desktop as well though.
I heavily use my laptop as a secondary computer...that is to say that I probably couldn't get by with a netbook only. For the laptop, I like dual booting and I could get by with anything over 100GB. 100 is just barely do-able, 120 is minimum, 160 would be good (100 windows / 60 linux).
If I moved to laptop-only, I'd say at least 500GB, and I would likely still have a NAS or something...just can't have it all in one place.
For a netbook, I'd say base OS + 20 gigs should be plenty. I'm assuming I'd use the netbook's storage as much more transient than my laptop.
I'll be replacing my spindle in the laptop when 160GB drives are under $200 or if some 320GB ones are reasonable around christmas, and looking for Intel drives.
For a ultra mobile computer 40 gigs of SSD would be enough and sure everyone wants more but you asked what would be enough right? I think what is more important than size is battery life so the SSD and flash type memory that does not drain as much juice is better than a larger drive. The other important thing is ability to store easily on removable memory.
Mobile computers want reliability and low power consumption for the drives versus just sheer size.
It's not so much the size of the storage that matters but the evolution of the applications and programs we have today that makes the difference. Terrabyte technology in laptops is inevitable but more and more people seem to have more and more photos, more videos, more music and more exponentially large files nowadays. A 320 to 500GB looks good for the moment. But like you said, we need additional equally large backup storage options and that's where it starts to hurt.
Unless you are storing tones of movies and videos on your computer 320 GB is rediculous. I can't believe the wasted space that manufactures use pumping 250 GB hard drives into cheep mainstream notebooks. I would be happy with a 64 GB SSD for a travel notebook.
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