poiihy said:Oh for god sake don't start again!
I don't want to derail, but what is it that you dislike about SSDs? They're quieter, more reliable, and far faster. The obvious evolution of storage technology.
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I don't want to derail, but what is it that you dislike about SSDs? They're quieter, more reliable, and far faster. The obvious evolution of storage technology.
-_-
My MBP has a 500GB hard drive and that is the exact amount I need. MAYBE when the HDD fails I'll get an SSD but I'm not gonna remove a perfectly good HDD and spend hundreds of dollars for an SSD. I need capacity. I don't need speed. The speed is fine.
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At least for 2.5" IDE drives, it's getting to the point where they're really the only viable option if you want high capacity.
2.5" IDE drives larger than 100gb or so are getting really expensive, and have a finite lifetime.
With that said, the most recent Macbook Pro I fixed up got a hybrid drive(small SSD+big platter) because I wanted storage space. I'm planning on putting a 1TB SSD in my main MBP this summer(they are getting affordable).
I can also pretty easily say that they breathed a whole new life into both my Blackbook and my White Macbook.
I saw a 1TB SSD in the Fry's weekly today for $360. I would be tempted if I actually had a laptop with a SATAIII interface.
That's still way to expensive. I barely was able to get a 2Tb hard drive with enclosure for ~$90 for christmas, which we really needed. No way i can persuade to get something a few hundreds of dollars while we have no income atm.
Sorry! I wasn't trying to talk you into buying something. You're correct that spinning disks and hybrid drives offer more GBs per dollar.
Hopefully someday SSD will actually achieve price parity with spinning disks, at which point hard disks will cease to exist entirely.
I completely agree with this, and it's why I still do not own a single SSD in 2015.
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I got two working 3TB HDDs for free in the course of 2 months
Yes they would. Soon we'd have 1TB SSDs for $20. And 20TB SSDs for $400. Or something like that.
Just like LED bulbs are beginning to be cheap enough, SSDs would too.
LED bulbs are pretty much the future of lighting. CFLs are dangerous to make and to handle, so hopefully they will be phased out soon, and LED bulbs are mostly smart and customizable to an extent. Thus those, like my dad, who cannot stand the color that the CFLs give off, they can tune the LED bulbs to the color of the old Halogen bulbs.
I've never liked CFLs, and have a big stash of incandescents put back. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that trying to read by the light of a CFL hurts my eyes-thus my bedside lamp has always had an incandescent in it. There's also the whole thing about CFLs taking a long time to come to full brightness. In inverted applications(like my bathroom light fixture), I've found them to come nowhere close to their promised life-they last about as long as an incandescent.
I've slowly been buying LEDs. Not too long ago, Lowes had 60W equivalent 2900K LEDs for $5 each, and I stocked up on them. I have them in several places. They're fine with a shade over them, but my complaint about them is that the light is somewhat directional when they're put in an "open" fixture(such as my bathroom lamps). For that reason, my 3-lamp bathroom fixture has two LEDs and one incandescent.
I think it's interesting to track the history of the "Energy Saver" icon in OS X. 10.0 up through early versions of 10.5 used a picture of an incandescent. Somewhere between 10.5.0 and 10.5.8(I don't know where exactly) the icon changed to a CFL. 10.9.5 still uses a CFL, but all versions of 10.10(including the public beta) use a picture of an LED.
I'm starting to feel old, but speaking of hard drive prices I remember when they were about $1 per megabyte. I can remember going to Sam's Club with my dad for him to buy a hard drive, because they had a "killer deal" on a 265mb Maxtor for $225 if I remember right.
Yeah, the ones in my parent's room takes about 2 minutes to fully turn on, however, I have one CFL in my desk lamp and it turns on instantly. The other light in my room, or my main lamp, uses a Awox Smart LED bulb that I absolutely love.
That's an interesting thing about the light bulbs in the Energy Saver logo. I never really paid attention to it I guess, lol
Home Depot has been selling these new Philips LED bulbs in two packs for about $4 or $5. Yes, two packs. It's for a limited time for earth day or something, and then they'll be one packs. We got two two-packs and replaced the crap CFLs in the ceiling fan with these. Much better. The fan had 3 bulbs: 2 were Broada brand we got from dollar tree when they were selling a whole range of CFLs for a short time. It was a two pack for a dollar, so 50¢ per bulb. These bulbs were ok. The 3rd bulb was a Greenlite we got from 99 Ranch Market for 33¢ longer ago. This bulb was absolute crap! Weird stuff happened to the coating of the glass case. And when I first used it, there seemed to be some moisture in it. And the light is lousy. But all these were replaced by the Philips bulbs and they're awesome, and cheap!
Why do cheap CFLs start out dim pink and turn white, while more expensive ones (like the ecosmart brand at Home Depot) start white and near full-brightness?
electronupdate did tests and a teardown of the Philips bulbs I am talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTSDjIxlqjk
I didn't expect much from these, but surprisingly, he found they are very good, AND THEY DON'T FLICKER!
Also, soon before we got the Philips, we got a Cree 60w-equiv. bulb which was on sale for $4 or $5. It's the one that "shows true colors"; it has a CRI of 92. I now use it on the table lamp which I use everyday. Before I had an incandescent bulb in the table lamp because the previous LED that I tried game me headaches (it was a slimstyle LED... read on).
And a while back, we found the Philips Slimstyle led bulbs (the flat ugly ones) to be on sale for am amazing price! $3.97 or something, about $4. This was the lowest we have seen for the first time, so naturally we bought a bunch.
Before that, years back, we got our first LED bulbs, the ecosmart (Lighting Science Group) brand 40w-equiv. dimmable LEDs; we got 3 of them; $10 each; cheapest at that time. All those 3 are in the bathroom now.
Anyway, about the slimstyle. Electronupdate did tests and teardown of the slimstyle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp3fVN_hZI
And it is actually not very good! It FLICKERS, and pretty bad!
Unusual for Philips!! That's probably why it gave me headaches when I used one in the table lamp. Which is why I switched to the incandescent. But now the cree is good.Ebay sells a lot of LED bulbs from china. Some are good, some are not. Some use capacitive-dropper PSUs (simple voltage dropper using a capacitor) but the danger of these is that the solder connections of the SMD LEDs are live, and you could get electorcuted if you touch one. This is why the LED "corn" bulbs, or the PAR type lights with the exposed LEDs, are dangerous. If it's covered by glass or something then it's ok.
Other bulbs use switching PSUs with an isolation transformer. These are safe and you won't get hurt if you touch an exposed LED joint.
Many of the cheap bulbs flicker, because they use a simple capacitive-dropper PSU, which doesn't always have much smoothing.
I learned a lot from bigclivedotcom on youtube. The cheap china bulbs are insteresting.
Lol we should have a separate thread for this. LBF would like it.
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Home Depot has been selling these new Philips LED bulbs in two packs for about $4 or $5. Yes, two packs. It's for a limited time for earth day or something, and then they'll be one packs. We got two two-packs and replaced the crap CFLs in the ceiling fan with these. Much better. The fan had 3 bulbs: 2 were Broada brand we got from dollar tree when they were selling a whole range of CFLs for a short time. It was a two pack for a dollar, so 50¢ per bulb. These bulbs were ok. The 3rd bulb was a Greenlite we got from 99 Ranch Market for 33¢ longer ago. This bulb was absolute crap! Weird stuff happened to the coating of the glass case. And when I first used it, there seemed to be some moisture in it. And the light is lousy. But all these were replaced by the Philips bulbs and they're awesome, and cheap!
Why do cheap CFLs start out dim pink and turn white, while more expensive ones (like the ecosmart brand at Home Depot) start white and near full-brightness?
electronupdate did tests and a teardown of the Philips bulbs I am talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTSDjIxlqjk
I didn't expect much from these, but surprisingly, he found they are very good, AND THEY DON'T FLICKER!
Also, soon before we got the Philips, we got a Cree 60w-equiv. bulb which was on sale for $4 or $5. It's the one that "shows true colors"; it has a CRI of 92. I now use it on the table lamp which I use everyday. Before I had an incandescent bulb in the table lamp because the previous LED that I tried game me headaches (it was a slimstyle LED... read on).
And a while back, we found the Philips Slimstyle led bulbs (the flat ugly ones) to be on sale for am amazing price! $3.97 or something, about $4. This was the lowest we have seen for the first time, so naturally we bought a bunch.
Before that, years back, we got our first LED bulbs, the ecosmart (Lighting Science Group) brand 40w-equiv. dimmable LEDs; we got 3 of them; $10 each; cheapest at that time. All those 3 are in the bathroom now.
Anyway, about the slimstyle. Electronupdate did tests and teardown of the slimstyle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp3fVN_hZI
And it is actually not very good! It FLICKERS, and pretty bad!
Ebay sells a lot of LED bulbs from china. Some are good, some are not. Some use capacitive-dropper PSUs (simple voltage dropper using a capacitor) but the danger of these is that the solder connections of the SMD LEDs are live, and you could get electorcuted if you touch one. This is why the LED "corn" bulbs, or the PAR type lights with the exposed LEDs, are dangerous. If it's covered by glass or something then it's ok.
Other bulbs use switching PSUs with an isolation transformer. These are safe and you won't get hurt if you touch an exposed LED joint.
Many of the cheap bulbs flicker, because they use a simple capacitive-dropper PSU, which doesn't always have much smoothing.
I learned a lot from bigclivedotcom on youtube. The cheap china bulbs are insteresting.
Lol we should have a separate thread for this. LBF would like it.
LBF is my source for all my light bulb info, great friend of mine.
I'll also throw in that I've had some halogen bulbs with a standard Mazda screw base and with a glass outer envelope in the shape of a standard incandescent.
I actually really like these bulbs. Because they operate at higher temperatures than a standard incandescent, the color temperature is a bit higher. They are more energy efficient, however, and also last a really long time provided that they are usually on long enough to reach their full operating temperature.
I actually really like these bulbs. Because they operate at higher temperatures than a standard incandescent, the color temperature is a bit higher. They are more energy efficient, however, and also last a really long time provided that they are usually on long enough to reach their full operating temperature.
So--USPS decided not to deliver the package. Despite numerous previous instances where they just left the package at my doorstep, this time I received the notice that there was "no secure location" and that a "notice was left" except there was no notice left--my mailbox was clean empty. Who the heck knows where my package is. I called USPS customer service and was on hold for an hour and six minutes (see attachment) before the line dropped--not as in a connection error, but as if somehow the system governing held calls had decided to hang up on me. %#&? USPS. Seriously, what a load of bull%}£.
Attachments
So, was stuff stolen out of your mailbox, or was there just nothing in it? Also, that really sucks. I've never had USPS not deliver a package, whether it was in the mailbox or the front porch. FedEx denied a delivery once because no one was home, and I was fine with it since it was my Computer coming back from HP service.
You're safe Bunns, still just a youngster...
The first HD I ever purchased was a MicroScience 20mb, yes that's mbs, and it set me back just a tad under $1100.
The term gigabyte had'nt even been coined yet.
I often reminisce about those "good ole days" like paying $3600 for a Radio Shack TRS 80 model 3 with a whopping 16mb of memory, 2 floppy drives and no Hard drive..
I wouldn't exactly classify it as old as what your talking about, but the 7300 I just got has a full height, what I'm guessing is 6 platters, Seagate Barracuda HDD with 3.99GBs. Quite the beast... I don't dare want to open it though, although it would be cool to see.
My moved from a Tandy 1000(in which he installed a 20mb HDD) to a 386 around 1990.
The Tandy, unfortunately, is gone but I still have the 386 around and fire it up occasionally. It was my first computer-what I used after my dad upgraded to a 486(with a whopping 800mb hard drive).
In any case, I pulled the factory hard drive out of it a few months back with the intention of copying everything off of it just in case. It sits on my bedside table and-as the saying goes-I need to "get a round tuit" to get the job done(I wonder if Radio Shack sells those
). That drive is full height IDE, and is 40mb. Incidentally, the 265mb HDD I mentioned above is still in that computer. The dead SCSI drive I pulled out of m SE is also full height, and only 20mb.
I actually was able to do some neat stuff with the 386. My dad-somewhere along the way-bought a couple of disk drives that combined both a 3 1/2" and 5 1/4" drive in a single 5 1/4" bay. I put one of those in to replace both the 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" drives, then put an LS-120 drive where the 3 1/2" drive had been. I'll have to double check, but I think I may have needed to install an IDE controller card in it to make it work. I know somewhere or another, my dad picked up a really neat full-length ISA controller card that had two ATA busses, a floppy bus, and two fans.
Unlike Macs, which have always had great sound built in(for their time) this was a typically PC of the era and only had a little piezo buzzer on the board to give the POST beeps. My dad tracked down a Soundblaster that came with an external CD-ROM drive. The whole thing was actually a really unusual set-up. The PCI card had a single DB-50 port on it, and it led to an external box that had all the audio input and output(no speakers built in, but at least a place to hook them up) as well as a CD-ROM drive. I still have that kicking around somewhere too. Getting the Sound Blaster to work in Windows 3.1-as well as in DOS games-was a whole lot of fun.
I eventually moved that particular Sounblaster-in later years-to an all-in-one 486 that I got for free from school(they were getting rid of them, and I was offered one). I remember being super excited on the 486 when I found out how to overclock it
. Most 486sx processors were 33mhz, but for whatever reason this particular model had been underclocked to 25mhz. The same computer was made in both 25mhz and 33mhz(the computer lab had both) and the one I had ran fine at 33mhz. I thought I was a real hot-shot with that computer when someone gave me a box of 486 parts, and I found a math coprocessor in it(the all in one had a socket for it). If I remember right, the main difference between the 486sx and 486dx is that the dx integrated a coprocessor on the die. And, while I'm rambling, does anyone remember the "Turbo" button that use to be on a lot of older computers? If I remember right, when the button/switch was on, the computer would run at its default clock speed. When it was off, the system would slow down to(I think) 8mhz so that programs which used system timing(a lot of older games) would run at the correct speed.
My moved from a Tandy 1000(in which he installed a 20mb HDD) to a 386 around 1990.
The Tandy, unfortunately, is gone but I still have the 386 around and fire it up occasionally. It was my first computer-what I used after my dad upgraded to a 486(with a whopping 800mb hard drive).
In any case, I pulled the factory hard drive out of it a few months back with the intention of copying everything off of it just in case. It sits on my bedside table and-as the saying goes-I need to "get a round tuit" to get the job done(I wonder if Radio Shack sells those
The dead SCSI drive I pulled out of m SE is also full height, and only 20mb.
I actually was able to do some neat stuff with the 386. My dad-somewhere along the way-bought a couple of disk drives that combined both a 3 1/2" and 5 1/4" drive in a single 5 1/4" bay. I put one of those in to replace both the 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" drives, then put an LS-120 drive where the 3 1/2" drive had been. I'll have to double check, but I think I may have needed to install an IDE controller card in it to make it work. I know somewhere or another, my dad picked up a really neat full-length ISA controller card that had two ATA busses, a floppy bus, and two fans.
Unlike Macs, which have always had great sound built in(for their time) this was a typically PC of the era and only had a little piezo buzzer on the board to give the POST beeps. My dad tracked down a Soundblaster that came with an external CD-ROM drive. The whole thing was actually a really unusual set-up. The PCI card had a single DB-50 port on it, and it led to an external box that had all the audio input and output(no speakers built in, but at least a place to hook them up) as well as a CD-ROM drive. I still have that kicking around somewhere too. Getting the Sound Blaster to work in Windows 3.1-as well as in DOS games-was a whole lot of fun.
I eventually moved that particular Sounblaster-in later years-to an all-in-one 486 that I got for free from school(they were getting rid of them, and I was offered one). I remember being super excited on the 486 when I found out how to overclock it
And, while I'm rambling, does anyone remember the "Turbo" button that use to be on a lot of older computers? If I remember right, when the button/switch was on, the computer would run at its default clock speed. When it was off, the system would slow down to(I think) 8mhz so that programs which used system timing(a lot of older games) would run at the correct speed.
Wow, lots of good info here. I'm too young to remember any turbo buttons. I'm sure they were part of the 486 era, which by the time I was around, were already forgotten about. First system was a Dell XPS T500 with a P///, 12GB HDD and 256MB RAM. Still have it today, accept it has triple the RAM, and a P// instead since the P/// died. Also had a pretty nice DiamondMax GFX card. That computer was my entire childhood. I love it so much...
Man first systems eh? Mine was an IBM Thinkpad A31 with a P/// and 512MB of RAM. It was faster than our desktop computer for some odd reason. The battery was gone, along with the PCMIA card slot. It has a 20GB hard drive, 10GB for Ubuntu 8.04 and 10GB for XP (which was reskinned to Vista(which was reskinned to OS X)).
So much LED talk LOL! LEDs have a long way to go (the Light emitting diode is fine its how you use it that matters and right now its being used incorrectly a lot) recently there has been some interesting developments on LEDs that use a Load of blue LEDs on a ceramic substrate that are then coated with phosphor and then suspend in a normal glass bulb and look a bit like a tungsten lamp but they have a helium atmosphere for heat sinking so in the end they actually look good with good efficiency (100LMW+) with out any visible heatsink and the fact its a load of LEDs in a string is the voltage drop is nice and high so the driver can be made compact and put in the cap of the lamp (if you want to see some examples google filament LED ) my main Desk light if any one is wondering is a 5ft T12 fluorescent tube a F65T12 for you US guys. (T12 12 8th of an inch diameter and 65 being 65W) and as you might of gathered I am a LightBulb collector and enthusiast heh (my oldest light bulb is from c1893 still works too)
Maybe even 16Kb?
First one I bought with my own money was a secondhand IBM PS/2 Model 80 tower when I went to University in the mid 90s. 386 processor, 6MB RAM (4MB on an MCA card) and an 80MB 5.25in full height ESDI HDD. Oh and the tower weighed about 25Kg and had a carrying handle.
Oh yeah! The filament LEDs and the bulbs made out of them! Very cool!
The filament is a tiny string of LEDs wired in series, and coated with phosphor.
Most of them have a white base, but I don't like those. I like the ones that have no white base and have all the electronics in the edison base. They look very much like an incandescent bulb.
mikeselectricstuff made a video of an LED filament bulb and talked all about LED filaments, but he talked quite fast and crazy and it was funny
Couldn't understand what he was saying.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_XiunR-cAQ
So, you said they have hydrogen gas to conduct heat to cool the LEDs, and these are more efficient? I didn't know that! Are these the most efficient bulbs out there today?
I vote for an LED light bulb thread!