[ale] A modest proposal for the times

Wed Apr 9 18:16:33 EDT 2025

Hi Steve,

Somehow the context of "laptop" vs "desktop" got lost in the shuffle along
the way.   I seem to remember the conversation was around "laptops" and,
quite frankly, I do not remember any laptops with 3.5" drives in
them....ever.   I have had several laptops with 2.5" drives.

I also have a NAS server with four 12 TB HDDs, RAID for 24TB effective
storage.

Of course how much you store on your laptop varies with how you manage data
overall.   I have found that I can store almost ALL of my working data on
my laptop because the density of storage has been increasing so fast that
about the time the laptop storage is filled I get a new laptop with new
storage and go back to being 50% full again.   Rinse and repeat.

The biggest issue with my last laptop was that I purchased it in 2007 with
500G of storage total.   By the time I switched to my new laptop late last
year I had 3 TB in the laptop, with 2TB of user data.  The issue was
effectively backing this up with only USB 3.0 speeds available.

Now I have 4TB of storage in the laptop (effectively, with two 4TB NVMe M.2
RAID) but 3TB of user data, so 1TB is still unused.  However I now have a
laptop with a faster transfer rate than USB 3.0, so transfer rate for a
full backup is significantly faster.

I do not back up various "static" storage (CDs, DVDs, etc.) at all or do I
back up anything in Google Cloud.   Also, at my age I am getting to the
point that some backed up data is most easily just deleted.   I do not care
about it and most people I know would not care about it.   It just makes it
harder for me to find the things I do care about.   So my storage needs are
either static or shrinking.

Peace,

md

On Wed, Apr 9, 2025 at 5:21 PM Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2025 18:22:02 -0700
> Ron via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
> > William Bagwell via Ale wrote on 2025-04-07 17:47:
>
>
> > > And when did they drop
> > > optical drives?
> >
> > Optical drives, bays for 3½ inch HDDs, *reset* buttons,...
> >
> >
> > I thought some of these were deal-breakers when I began researching
> > that recent upgrade, turns out "how many times do I press reset?" is
> > vanishingly close to zero, and "how often do I want to read an
> > optical disk?" is even less.
>
> Reset buttons are a menace: The very definition of a disorderly
> shutdown. They are from the days before operating systems (like my
> Heathkit ET6800 Microprocessor Trainer computer). Those wanting an
> optical drive (like me) can buy a USB optical drive. No sweat.
>
> But no 3.5" drive bays? I've never heard of that, and it would
> absolutely be a deal breaker for me. Maybe others can get along with
> just a 4TB NVMe, but I've been at >10TB for ten years now (admittedly
> via multiple disks 2014-2020), and I'm not going back.
>
> The setup I like is a 1TB NVMe acting as my root partition and
> containing /usr, with everything else mounted or bind mounted from 7200
> RPM spinning rust.
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
>
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