# Why SSDs aren't so great (Dropped my laptop)



## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

I managed to drop my laptop out of my bag while running to the station today, laptop flew out and did some hefty damage to the case on the pavement, it was dropped from a meter up and it's still working albeit slowly (My dad was complaining about that this morning though before I dropped it). I'm pretty sure that one of the main marketing points of SSDs is that if you drop the laptop it's not going to fail, thing is I dropped this from a meter up and it's still working fine so surely it kind of negates that marketing point. The case is pretty bashed up, as in a part of the motherboard's going to be poking out the corner if I don't put a cr*p load of black tape on to keep the corner on the case.


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## WhiteLotus (Dec 1, 2008)

crazy pyro said:


> I managed to drop my laptop out of my bag while running to the station today, laptop flew out and did some hefty damage to the case on the pavement, it was dropped from a meter up and it's still working albeit slowly (My dad was complaining about that this morning though before I dropped it).* I'm pretty sure that one of the main marketing points of SSDs is that if you drop the laptop it's not going to fail, thing is I dropped this from a meter up and it's still working fine so surely it kind of negates that marketing point.* The case is pretty bashed up, as in a part of the motherboard's going to be poking out the corner if I don't put a cr*p load of black tape on to keep the corner on the case.




hang on you say SSDs aren't great yet still when you dropped it, it still works?


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

Mechanical HDD in the Laptop, not SSD, pretty much removes the main reason I'd have considered buying a laptop with an SSD.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

sorry but SSD's are what exactly?

im not upto date with all the short hand lettering, lol.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

Solid State Drive?

Not only did you drop it from a meter high... it would of also gone with some force... as it wasn't just dropped it was pretty much thrown out of the bag with the motion of you running.


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## KBD (Dec 1, 2008)

mc-dexter said:


> Solid State Drive?



yep

thats what they r:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive


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## WhiteLotus (Dec 1, 2008)

crazy pyro said:


> Mechanical HDD in the Laptop, not SSD, pretty much removes the main reason I'd have considered buying a laptop with an SSD.


oh right - i see now!



mc-dexter said:


> Solid State Drive?



yes - no moving parts, hence solid. basically just a really big, fast flash drive. great potential too.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 1, 2008)

mc-dexter said:


> sorry but SSD's are what exactly?
> 
> im not upto date with all the short hand lettering, lol.



solid state disks...basically instead of platters and read/write heads it has a bunch of memory modules (like ram) so no moving parts.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

i did just edit my last post.. not sure its any interest what so ever, just thought i'd let you know, lol.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

WhiteLotus said:


> oh right - i see now!
> 
> 
> 
> yes - no moving parts, hence solid. basically just a really big, fast flash drive. great potential too.



yeah i knew what they are, just didn't know the short way of saying it, but thanks anyway, and will be useful for anyone who doesn't know 

Sorry for posting twice both times, lol, i usually do just edit them like now.


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## WhiteLotus (Dec 1, 2008)

mc-dexter said:


> yeah i knew what they are, just didn't know the short way of saying it, but thanks anyway, and will be useful for anyone who doesn't know
> 
> Sorry for posting twice both times, lol, i usually do just edit them like now.



ah right. Yea these damn acronyms are hard too keep up with some times

CPU, GPU, TPU!


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## human_error (Dec 1, 2008)

The advantage of SSD's over most mechanicals when it comes to surviving drops is when the machine is running - if you drop a laptop with a mechanical hdd when it's spun up and the heads aren't parked you will be extremely lucky to have it running afterwards. 

Some mechanical drives like in Lonovo thinkpads have motion sensors which stop the drive running if you drop the laptop.

Of course if you drop an SSD based laptop you don't have to worry too much as the SSD should be ok (the rest of the machine, especially the fans however...)


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## El Fiendo (Dec 1, 2008)

I look at it this way. My USB Drive has been through hell. I've fished lint out of it (pockets lawl), dried it out, thrown it around, broken every part of it that isn't required and bent the connector all sorts of funny ways. Works like a charm and with 0 errors after 3 years of this. I'm currently working on a laptop with a mechanical hard drive, and when there is too much pressure on the area where the HDD is located it reboots windows.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

doesnt help with my net being worse than dial up this past week 

and whats CPU? GPU is graphics power up, right? andTPU.... obviously. lol.


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## El Fiendo (Dec 1, 2008)

Central Processing Unit
Graphics Processing Unit  (also game power up)


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

CPU= Central processing unit
GPU= Graphics processing Unit
I'm sorry but how the HELL are you going to drop a laptop when it's running unless you're listening to music off it from inside your bag, amazing thing is the lack of padding I had on it (1mm thick polestyrene pretty much.
Just makes me think that SSDs are overpriced.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

yea but CPU is ya processor i know that lol.... but i thought it was actually short for something along the lines of TPU... Tech Power Up


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

Fair enough, people who love SSDs might try and bring things like this up:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j4cK0L__B9U
Thing is though if you're dropping your HDD off a 3 storey building I have 2 questions for you:
Why's it not in a machine if it has important data on that needs to survive a fall like that?
How did you get out of the mental institution where you belong if you want to throw expensive hardware off 3 storey buildings?


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

crazy pyro said:


> Fair enough, people who love SSDs might try and bring things like this up:
> http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j4cK0L__B9U
> Thing is though if you're dropping your HDD off a 3 storey building I have 2 questions for you:
> Why's it not in a machine if it has important data on that needs to survive a fall like that?
> *How did you get out of the mental institution where you belong if you want to throw expensive hardware off 3 storey buildings?*



Its called they have lots more money to waste than the likes of me ... and you with the sounds of it, lol. but its cool i like to see people do things like that... although at the back of my mind im always thinking, i should of asked for that part and let them do it to my old crappy stuff, lol.


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## human_error (Dec 1, 2008)

crazy pyro said:


> I'm sorry but how the HELL are you going to drop a laptop when it's running unless you're listening to music off it from inside your bag



It is surprisingly easy - using it on a desk plugged in and someone tripping up on the power cable, balancing it on your lap whilst multi-tasking, can easy drop off then, carrying it between desks at work and someone bumps into you (can be dropped then and it would still be running).


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## El Fiendo (Dec 1, 2008)

Just because a SSD drive can survive a cataclysmic fall like that doesn't mean its designed with the intent of people doing that. It's just showing that it can and all that it is capable of. Of course they're gonna make things that can overkill and outperform what is expected. "We found the average speed limit in the United States of America is roughly 38 MPH. Thus, we made seatbelts capable of withstanding speeds up to and including 39 MPH. On a completely unrelated note, high speed ejections from cars has increased 500 fold."


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

Ok is anyone having the same problem... everytime i click refresh on my browser... sometimes it will get rid of some posts you lot have posted, untill i click refresh again.


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

Fair enough, I generally try to position myself near a plug so people can't trip over it in lessons (I need to use it since my handwriting is distinctly CRAP), I've only dropped it once before and that's because my dad made me jump and I threw the laptop in the air lol.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 1, 2008)

im not getting it but try this ctrl-shift-F5 or ctrly-shift-click refresh button


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

I'm closing the browser each post and I'm getting no problems (MSN alerts me to new emails and i have my inbox open.)


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

El Fiendo said:


> Just because a SSD drive can survive a cataclysmic fall like that doesn't mean its designed with the intent of people doing that. It's just showing that it can and all that it is capable of. Of course they're gonna make things that can overkill and outperform what is expected. *"We found the average speed limit in the United States of America is roughly 38 MPH. Thus, we made seatbelts capable of withstanding speeds up to and including 39 MPH*. On a completely unrelated note, high speed ejections from cars has increased 500 fold."



seriously... can you understand any reason behind that, 1mph more, fair does it can make a bit of diffrence i suppose but making something withstand that extra 1mph, what is the point, if someone is speeding then they arnt just guna be doing the 1mph more are they.


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## DaMulta (Dec 1, 2008)

Did I miss something?

The title and the thread topic are not about the same thing are they? 

Why SSDs aren't so great (Dropped my laptop)

Yet you didnt have SDD in your laptop.


I'm lost.....










mc-dexter said:


> Ok is anyone having the same problem... everytime i click refresh on my browser... sometimes it will get rid of some posts you lot have posted, untill i click refresh again.





Tell your browser to open the web page new every time.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 1, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Did I miss something?
> 
> The title and the thread topic are not about the same thing are they?
> 
> ...



im lost to because now were talking about seat belts.


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## WhiteLotus (Dec 1, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Post



actually LOL material


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## El Fiendo (Dec 1, 2008)

Marketing.  =p

Mazda can only withstand 38 mph?! Well Toyota can withstand 39!

Either that or someone hit a typo on the tech spec sheet and now all the 38 mph seatbelts are made to the specification of 39 mph. Human error and all.


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## mc-dexter (Dec 1, 2008)

i agree this has gone totally of topic now! ...although i *was *helping that in my own way  lol


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## El Fiendo (Dec 1, 2008)

My seatbelt example was simply to show they aren't designing things to 'just meet' requirements. They don't expect you to drop a laptop 3 stories just like they don't expect people to drive the speed limit with seatbelts. Of course everything is going to be overdone.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 1, 2008)

El Fiendo said:


> My seatbelt example was simply to show they aren't designing things to 'just meet' requirements. They don't expect you to drop a laptop 3 stories just like they don't expect people to drive the speed limit with seatbelts. Of course everything is going to be overdone.



i know i just wanted to play off of damulta because i wnted to post a pic of a crying kid


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

Haha, @ DaMulta I'd got the impression that SSDs were awesome and mechanical hard drives would die if you dropped the laptop, there's no need to have an SSD for general use is the point I was making, also I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that SSDs were guaranteed to survive drops of up to 50 CM, my laptop dropped from twice the height and survived with no problems.


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## DaMulta (Dec 1, 2008)

hahahahah


I guess you have never dropped a running Hard drive before I think I broke 3 of them this year......

They break, and they can even break driving in a car from the bouncing. Not all the time, but it does happen. THEY ARE MOVING PARTS.


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## DaMulta (Dec 1, 2008)

You could try formatting your drive and dropping at the same time. See of you have any damage after that. Bad sectors anything

Or run that program that test your HDD speed, and see if your laptop drive survives the fall.

I'd place money that the SDD could do it over and over, and the normal HDD could not


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## crazy pyro (Dec 1, 2008)

I guess, thing is though that I take care not to let it get dropped when in use, dunno how it managed to fly out of my bag along with the rest of my kit but it did.


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## kysg (Dec 1, 2008)

yea it is possible to drop an mechanical hdd and still see the thing still haul some rear end.
SSD just removes any slight possibility of the thing dying when dropped.

heh crying kid at tx vs ok game...nothing to say there.


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## Wile E (Dec 1, 2008)

This thread is kinda pointless. People dropping running laptops happens all the time. That's why there is a market for not only SSDs, but also the drives with fall sensors that park the heads when they detect a fall.

Besides, it's not just the resistance to breakage from dropping that makes SSDs so great. It's also their vastly superior random access times, and their power saving abilities. Both make for a better experience, especially on a laptop.


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## mrw1986 (Dec 1, 2008)

Wile E said:


> This thread is kinda pointless. People dropping running laptops happens all the time. That's why there is a market for not only SSDs, but also the drives with fall sensors that park the heads when they detect a fall.
> 
> Besides, it's not just the resistance to breakage from dropping that makes SSDs so great. It's also their vastly superior random access times, and their power saving abilities. Both make for a better experience, especially on a laptop.



Agreed, the OP really doesn't get the point. There's a HUGE market for people dropping it while the machine is on. Hell, I've dropped laptops that were OFF and the HDD broke...


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