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Alex967CW

macrumors newbie
Aug 7, 2019
19
10
Again, it's Windows+HDD that I don't particularly like. They're unbearably slow when stuff actually needs to be swapped between pagefile (on slow HDD) and RAM. Works fine as long as the workload can fit in RAM, though.

I notice the most slowness on my windows computer with HDD right after startup. The computer takes so long to load the desktop and icons while a computer with an SSD loads it in less than 10 seconds. I agree though; I only buy computers with an SSD or an M.2 expansion slot.

Interestingly I never found HDD slow. Like they are slower than SSDs. I completely agree with you but they are not that slow for me. Now at work when compile code is needed operation than yes SSD are better as an option. However at home I have both HDD and SSD on my laptop (both integrated but the laptop just has slots for both HDD and SSD) and I don't find that big of difference. Or to put it it this way - it does not impact my user experience.

I think the rotation speed of the HDD has a significant impact on the speed of it as well. I had two laptops with 5400 RPM HDDs, and they felt so unbearable to use that I upgraded them with SSDs. My desktop, with a 7200 RPM HDD, feels more usable; although it can be slow at times, it's a large improvement over the other laptops. The laptop HDD definitely impacted my experience, but the desktop HDD wasn't as bad.
 

Ungibbed

macrumors 6502a
Dec 13, 2010
765
198
USA
I think the rotation speed of the HDD has a significant impact on the speed of it as well. I had two laptops with 5400 RPM HDDs, and they felt so unbearable to use that I upgraded them with SSDs. My desktop, with a 7200 RPM HDD, feels more usable; although it can be slow at times, it's a large improvement over the other laptops. The laptop HDD definitely impacted my experience, but the desktop HDD wasn't as bad.

The MBP I recently sold (13“ 2010) had come with such a slow HDD that it would only negotiate at half the SATA bus transfer speed supported by the computer itself. I quickly fixed that issue with a 7200 WD Black spinner which was still quite pricey for the time but had sped up the MBP and tripled my storage space on it to boot.

I still have an old Win 7 tablet PC powered with an Intel Atom but it has an SSD. Boot up times are still impressive for it’s age and meager specs.
 

secretk

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2018
1,494
1,228
I notice the most slowness on my windows computer with HDD right after startup. The computer takes so long to load the desktop and icons while a computer with an SSD loads it in less than 10 seconds. I agree though; I only buy computers with an SSD or an M.2 expansion slot.

True that. Computers with HDD start way slower than computers with SSD. The thing is that I do this only once a day so I cannot say that it impacts me severely. But then there is difference between SSD and SSD. I have SSD in my company desktop machine, SSD on my company laptop and SSD on my personal laptop. The SSD on the desktop is not that fast compared to HDD. The SSDs of the two laptops are comparable or with negligent differences. It has to be noted that I do not shut down my computers though. I put them in Sleep mode.

I think the rotation speed of the HDD has a significant impact on the speed of it as well. I had two laptops with 5400 RPM HDDs, and they felt so unbearable to use that I upgraded them with SSDs. My desktop, with a 7200 RPM HDD, feels more usable; although it can be slow at times, it's a large improvement over the other laptops. The laptop HDD definitely impacted my experience, but the desktop HDD wasn't as bad.

My previous laptop was Lenovo with 5400 RPM HDD. I never found it slow honestly. I had other issues with it. I was not super careful in cleaning and maintenance and at some point I guess dust ended up inside and it started overheating. I still used it for good 4 years before buying the current one. The current one is 2 years old. In other words I did not find my 5400 laptop slow in 2017. And it was definitely not that slow compared to the SSD of the company desktop machine (which kind of tells you how much the SSD on that machine sucks).

Do not get me wrong. SSDs are great but unless you are doing something really intensive on your machines, I don't think that you will see huge difference. I am sorry but I don't buy that HDDs are that slow for the average user that is doing just browsing and watching youtube.
 

MAXiPAD

Suspended
Dec 9, 2019
11
6
Umm yeah I do. And windows 10 is garbage. It’s not the hardware, it is the operating system.

I'd argue that it's also the hardware. I had a ThinkPad with Microsoft Precision Trackpad and it failed what I called 'the Minecraft test'. Load Minecraft, play it with the trackpad. Try turning direction as you're holding W to walk. You can't. It's unplayable. These are supposedly some of the best laptops in the business and dubbed a MacBook Pro alternative on here. Many Windows laptops are the same, even ones costing as much as a MB Pro. Apple hardware can have its issues, but it flies where others fall.
 

fireboy60013

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 25, 2019
96
45
The only issue I have ever had with any Apple hardware was my old iPhone 6 that went swimming in the toilet when I was slightly intoxicated playing drinking games a few years ago..... oh well maybe extremely intoxicated, lol but thank god for Apple care.
 

Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,091
3,855
This thread has turned into a battle of those for and against windows and it's clear who is going to win, we are on macrumors after all. Is all this biased? Of course it is. As biased as are the people on windows fan websites.
Having said that, the comment that sparked all this was about devices' longevity. And I tend to agree with it. But things are changing.
Windows pcs and macs used to last much longer than ipads. Why? Because they were upgradable or were highly specced to begin with. Ipads had very weak hardware, and IOS was optimized (and limited) to work well on that weak hardware.
Things are changing though. Since the very first ipad pro, ipad have moved to powerful CPUs, 4GB of RAM (not all) and SSD storage. And ipadOS made IOS more capable of exploiting those specs. Also, thanks to the better specs apple is upgrading ipads much longer. Meanwhile most laptops are not upgradable anymore.
Having said that you can still increase the longevity of windows/mac device more by buying for instance a 16GB RAM version, a good CPU and enough storage if soldered on. A quad core laptop with 16GB RAM can reasonably last 10 years for average (non pro) use. With ipads RAM is still a limiting factor and even current gen pro may not age that well over the next 10 years (for instance an ipad pro 12.9 with 256GB storage and 4GB RAM with keyboard vs an equally priced laptop with 16GB RAM, a quad core i7 and 256GB SSD)
 
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