Paul A. Clayton (paaronclayton@gmail.com) on 12/20/11 wrote:
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>Seni (seniike@hotmail.com) on 12/20/11 wrote:
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>[snip helpful comments]
>>It's practical if you're willing to accept it being slower
>>than a conventional hard drive. Maybe if netbooks make a
>>comeback.
>
>It seems that a lot of wait time for a laptop is read
>dominated (admittedly much of it sequential read), so the
>very bad write behavior might be somewhat tolerable. The
>reduction in access latency would provide a small increase
>in read bandwidth for modest-sized (bursty) reads.

From my experience with a netbook (the poster child for small SSDs), it is indeed the case that most IO is disk reads, and when there are writes they are generally small, so streaming writes are not really an issue. The only exception may be when transferring photos from your camera's memory card (or copying movies if you really like watching them on a 10-inch screen, something which I don't understand).

>One problem that I have with netbooks is the small display
>and keyboard. Of course, I represent a niche of a niche
>(of a niche?), being rather cheap and style-challenged and
>mostly a home-body.

Of course, a netbook can't really be used as a primary computer unless you're masochistic. When you're on a ride or trip it's damn practical, though, and you come to love the form factor.

(besides, a small keyboard is still tons better than no physical keyboard at all :))