Originally posted by QuizzicalThe PS3 kind of had 7 cores, but they weren't seven completely independent cores that could do completely independent things at the same time. It was one main core and six helper cores. And that was a nuisance to program for.But look what Microsoft and Sony did with their recent consoles. The Xbox One and PS4 each went with eight cores clocked below 2 GHz. The Jaguar cores in those consoles aren't half as fast on a per-core basis as the Piledriver cores in an FX-6300. They could have had four Piledriver cores instead if they wanted them, and had more total CPU performance even in workloads that scale well to many cores, as well as only needing four cores instead of eight for workloads that don't scale well to so many cores. But they decided that for gaming, more than four cores made more sense, even if it meant weaker cores. And they were right, at least if you don't have the graphics API overhead of legacy APIs. Which PCs soon won't.
Priceless...
Yeah, they should have gone with Piledriver so they could sell the consoles as game & breakfest toaster machines - 4 cores for each side of the toast!
You can't make a bootable drive from the HDD with the OS on, lmao.
You need a USB Drive, like USB stick. Download the Windows 10 ISO image, put it on the USB stick with a program like Rufus.
Buy new PC, set boot sequence to USB stick in the BIOS, boot and you install Windows 10.
If you've never mounted an ISO image, buy Windows 7 or windows 8, and wait for the windows 10 consumer launch, the launch is in the fall somewhere, it will be a free upgrade.
1) That Pavillion is nothing ancient. It is 2012 computer.
Yes, 5 years old HDD wouldn't be reliable...in server system running intensive read/write operations 24/7. Since this isn't server system, there is no issue.
2) Yep, there is like 10% performance increase so if you going to decompress 10GB files, you will save that 8s or so.
Completely irrelevant as I said.
3) You do not know what you talk about in that paragraph, do you? You just had to say "something", right?
I was pointing out to one very lenghty discussion where Quizzical was adamant about CPU not being able to process more than 1 instruction per cycle. Which is false and it is exactly what Hyperthreading does - on top of regular parallel instruction processing, it can work with instructions of 2 threads at the same time because of additional registers.
There is no point going for 4 slower AMD cores over 4 logical cores of i3. None.
4) Major bottleneck?
Yeah, in a gaming PC I want to spent less time on occasional loading screen and then have low resolution and details... That is what gaming is about, the loading screens...no brainer, eh?
Also, did your funny math of saved "eight days per year" counted in time you will spent managing that insufficient SSD space?
5) About 7% of SSD capacity will/should be reserved for garbage collection and alike(some tests even suggest to keep 25% of drive capacity as free space), 30 GB will be eaten by Windows, so after fresh install you are looking at about 80 GB of usable space. Modern games can take easily up to 50 GB of space. 120 GB SSD is insufficient. Period.
1. Trusting a three-year-old drive to last another five years before you upgrade is a risk. If you would do it, then go for it.
2. Decompressing 10GB files is not what the majority of the tasks the drive will be performing when gaming. Since this is a gaming machine, using sequential read speeds for comparison is irrelevant. Random read/write speeds are what SSDs excel at when compared to hard drives, and that's what games need.
3. Yes, I had to say something. Quizzical makes a good point about physical cores being more important for the foreseeable future. If Microsoft and Sony didn't think more cores were worth investing their console reputation in, then they would have picked an architecture similar to the i3 so they could get the Hyperthreading you seem to value so much. You clearly know more than Sony and Microsoft engineers, so I won't argue with you on the merits of hyperthreading vs physical cores.
4. It depends on the game you play and how you play it. For example, Dragon Age Inquisition has long loading screens and short quests. If you go back to the base every time a War Table mission finishes, that can add up to a lot of loading screens.
Two minutes times four times per hour times four hours per day times 365 days per year equals eight days, two hours, forty minutes. If a game can't hold your attention for more than a week, you'll be uninstalling things at blazing fast SSD speeds and still only spend 4 hours, 20 minutes per year uninstalling things if it takes you 5 minutes to uninstall (not likely) per week.
5. I'm sorry that you can only be satisfied with games that take up 50GB of hard drive space. There are plenty of great games out there that take up between 10GB and 20GB, like most of the MMOs. I barely have time for one MMO in my life, but if I wanted to, I could live with a 120GB SSD to store one massive 50GB game and two ~15GB MMOs.
Originally posted by syntax42 Originally posted by GdemamiOriginally posted by CalmOceansHe needs the OS on his new HDD, not his old one.
This is so irritating...ppl lacking essential IT knowledge comming here and telling you how you make no sense and ask you to stop providing help.Freaking dumb...This is irritating, expecting everyone to be an IT expert, capable of doing every IT task in the massive field of IT.
Also, the OP bought a new hard drive.
Not to mention it's a flat out pain in the butt - whereas if you have the image on a DVD or thumb drive it's pretty darn painless.
A lot of things are "possible" with computers, but sometimes the barrier to using them is just more steep than using other methods.
1) That Pavillion is nothing ancient. It is 2012 computer.
Yes, 5 years old HDD wouldn't be reliable...in server system running intensive read/write operations 24/7. Since this isn't server system, there is no issue.
2) Yep, there is like 10% performance increase so if you going to decompress 10GB files, you will save that 8s or so.
Completely irrelevant as I said.
3) You do not know what you talk about in that paragraph, do you? You just had to say "something", right?
I was pointing out to one very lenghty discussion where Quizzical was adamant about CPU not being able to process more than 1 instruction per cycle. Which is false and it is exactly what Hyperthreading does - on top of regular parallel instruction processing, it can work with instructions of 2 threads at the same time because of additional registers.
There is no point going for 4 slower AMD cores over 4 logical cores of i3. None.
4) Major bottleneck?
Yeah, in a gaming PC I want to spent less time on occasional loading screen and then have low resolution and details... That is what gaming is about, the loading screens...no brainer, eh?
Also, did your funny math of saved "eight days per year" counted in time you will spent managing that insufficient SSD space?
5) About 7% of SSD capacity will/should be reserved for garbage collection and alike(some tests even suggest to keep 25% of drive capacity as free space), 30 GB will be eaten by Windows, so after fresh install you are looking at about 80 GB of usable space. Modern games can take easily up to 50 GB of space. 120 GB SSD is insufficient. Period.
5. I'm sorry that you can only be satisfied with games that take up 50GB of hard drive space. There are plenty of great games out there that take up between 10GB and 20GB, like most of the MMOs. I barely have time for one MMO in my life, but if I wanted to, I could live with a 120GB SSD to store one massive 50GB game and two ~15GB MMOs.
Its actually more on on the lines of not seeing a need for an SSD for myself. I dont play AAA games. The only games I play is Guild Wars 2, League of legends, & The elder scrolls online. Thats basiclly it. So when it comes to space, no I dont really need 1TB or even 500GB. But if I can get a 1TB harddrive thats reliable with 5+years of health cheaper then an 120GB SSD that by my research have only half the life time of an HHD AND the HHD is cheaper its a no brainer to me. Down the line I can see myself upgrading to an SSD thats both reliable & just as space worthy. But for now an HHD will do.
I have yet to buy my parts for I must wait.. Sadly. But I'm hoping maybe soon the prices will be better or there will be better deals:P We shall see. But I thank everyone for your help, this has been fun & helpful.
First off, I don't know where you got that SSDs only last around 2.5 years (half the 5 year reliability claim you mention for an HDD) - that isn't true in my experience at all.
SSDs do fail, I won't say they are infallible. But I haven't seen a noticable difference in failure rates between SSDs and HDDs - at least with the last few generations of SSDs and HDDs (the jury is still out on the latest generation, as they haven't been around long enough to get good reliability data) you can expect an average of 3-5 years of life for pretty much any storage device you get.
If you are referring to write exhausting on an SSD - it is a real thing, however it is not a concern for a gaming computer or consumer use. It takes a very specific and rare work load in order to make write exhausting an SSD even a legitimate consideration.
1TB hard drives are running on average about $60. $75-80 if you want a higher performance model (and if it's your only drive, you'd definitely be interested in that).
That happens to be almost exactly the same price range for a 120G SSD.
So you aren't really looking at saving any money. The whole "it's more expensive" argument has died in the last 6 months, maybe in the last year. Sure, you can say "less capacity", but you can't make a case that your doing it to save money any more.
That being said, it is your money - if you want to spend it on an HDD, have at it. I would strongly recommend an SSD to anyone, even if all you can fit is a 120G size on your budget - it makes that much difference (to me, at least) in the responsiveness of a computer. I can really notice when I'm on a machine that does not have an SSD, it is immediately apparent and very frustrating, after using primarily SSDs for a long while now..
Originally posted by syntax42 This is irritating, expecting everyone to be an IT expert, capable of doing every IT task in the massive field of IT. Also, the OP bought a new hard drive.
I am not expecting everyone to be an expert, just I am expecting elementary knowledge if one wants to engage in discussion, not to say trying to argue and lecture others...
It was the same guy that though Product ID is the same as Product Key.
1) If that HHD may last 2 more years, and it easily will, there is no need to buy one today...
2) That was a referal to dual channel memory but thanks for confirming my point...
3) He makes this point for almost a decade...and yet, nothing.
Silly theorycrafting is silly, simple as that. You better pay attention to my toaster comment to understand where he is wrong.
4) No it doesnt, because you are grossly exaggerating, making your point ridiculous.
5) Good for you...irrelevant to everyone else. The computer is not being assembled for you but OP.
If you want a decent gaming experience you need at least an i5 cpu and a decent graphics card with 8gb of memory and preferably an SSD (120gb are pretty cheap now). Look for sales. I got my 7870 pretty cheap because Amazon made a mistake on the sale price, but honored all sales made before the page was taken down. I bought my 250 gb SSD for half price on a one day sale. You can save a lot by looking for good deals.
Buying low grade stuff is a total waste of money and you will be dissatisfied with the results. But the good news is that in the not so distant future tablets will be really powerful, use a lot less power, and be far cheaper than the gaming rigs we have today. The first PC that I used cost $5500 (in 1980's dollars) used a 55mgz cpu, a whopping 16 megs of ram, and a huge 7 gb HD. Try doing animation on that baby.
This is irritating, expecting everyone to be an IT expert, capable of doing every IT task in the massive field of IT.
Also, the OP bought a new hard drive.
I am not expecting everyone to be an expert, just I am expecting elementary knowledge if one wants to engage in discussion, not to say trying to argue and lecture others...
It was the same guy that though Product ID is the same as Product Key.
1) If that HHD may last 2 more years, and it easily will, there is no need to buy one today...
2) That was a referal to dual channel memory but thanks for confirming my point...
3) He makes this point for almost a decade...and yet, nothing.
Silly theorycrafting is silly, simple as that. You better pay attention to my toaster comment to understand where he is wrong.
4) No it doesnt, because you are grossly exaggerating, making your point ridiculous.
5) Good for you...irrelevant to everyone else. The computer is not being assembled for you but OP.
While i don't disagree with anything you've said at its face value, just with the details. I really don't see the point in re-using a 3yr old hard drive as anything other than a storage drive. I certainly wouldn't use it as an OS drive or for anything with any potentially important data. While you're right that it probably *won't* fail within the next 2 years, the chance increases greatly.
I've had well over 100 hard drives over the years, i've had some that failed in 6 months, and some that are still going 10 years later. What i have found is that usually the ones that failed were the ones you didnt expect to.
Either way, OP is a big boy he can make his own decisions. But were i in his shoes, id spend $80 bucks on a 12gb SSD, use it as my system drive and to install my most played games on, and use the old hard drive for a storage drive or to install games that i may not play as much.
Also, as far as SSD reliability, the early incarnations were rough, but they've sorted that stuff out. SSD's are more reliable than standard HDD's just inherently by design.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
The first PC that I used cost $5500 (in 1980's dollars) used a 55mgz cpu, a whopping 16 megs of ram, and a huge 7 gb HD. Try doing animation on that baby.
I'm rather curious what computer that was. Because i had a 486dx2 66mhz IBM and the largest (single) hard drive that could be bought at the time was $350 and was a western digital caviar 540MB hard drive. So unless there was some magical fairy 7gb hard drive out there, i'm calling bullshit. That was also in the early 90's.
"Introduced last month, the Caviar AC2540 offers an average seek time of 11 Western Digital's latest Caviar drive offers OEMs a 540MB drive with a 128KB ..."
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Originally posted by Kiyoris You can't do that with an ISO image.You can't just drag your ISO image over to a partition, it needs to be mounted.You also don't just install an OS, and put it in another PC, unless you want nothing but problems.And he also wanted it on his new HDD.
And here we go again...
If you do not understand how it works, stop saying what can't or shouldn't be done.
Originally posted by HrimnirI really don't see the point in re-using a 3yr old hard drive as anything other than a storage drive.
Economy.
He is on a budget, thus savings like salvaging HDD off the old computer and Windows 10 preview are good ways how to get maximum for the money.
Spending 80 or 55 USD on new drive means you need to downgrade some of your components that will be way more expensive and difficult to replace later on, adding new drive later on the other hand is very easy.
Funny note regarding to reliability and getting a new drive - new drives whithin first months have about same failure rate as 5 years old drives
Then again, what matters is the usage, not the time the drive is out of assembly line. "Wearing out" a HDD in home system isn't really happening.
While SSD is nice to have, it is still a luxury component.
Originally posted by Kiyoris Originally posted by GdemamiOriginally posted by RidelynnNot to mention it's a flat out pain in the butt
"Flat out pain in the butt" that takes about 3 minutes...you truly know what you talk about, do you?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QatkOEUjFCA Step by step in video description. If anyone wants to avoid 3rd party apps and want to do it manually with bcdedit(good to know): bcdedit /create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk.ini" bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice partition=E bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath ootoot.sdi bcdedit /create /d "Installation Partition" /application OSLOADER bcdedit /set {GUID} device ramdisk=[E:]sourcesoot.wim,{ramdiskoptions} bcdedit /set {GUID} osdevice ramdisk=[E:]sourcesoot.wim,{ramdiskoptions} bcdedit /set {GUID} path windowssystem32winload.exe bcdedit /set {GUID} systemroot windows bcdedit /set {GUID} winpe yes bcdedit /set {GUID} detecthal yes bcdedit /set {GUID} ems yes bcdedit /displayorder {GUID} /addlast Do not forget to bdcboot c:windows /s e: E: is assumed to be partition with instalation files GUID is generated once you create loader storage " " is text description You never again need to look for instalation media and instalation is super swift.You can't do that with an ISO image.
You can't just drag your ISO image over to a partition, it needs to be mounted.
You also don't just install an OS, and put it in another PC, unless you want nothing but problems.
And he also wanted it on his new HDD.
Let's see - insert DVD/Thumb Drive - restart - install
Versus
All of that John Madden bcdedit, requiring re-sizing a partition on an existing drive (which isn't always possible), and a lot of prep work. GUIDs aren't exactly easy to type in either, and copy/paste in the command prompt isn't obvious to a casual user depending on what your copying from.
I think that certainly qualifies as "pain in the butt" and "Advanced for IT-minded folks". Thanks for providing the illustration.
I will say having installation on separate partition is a good idea though - it's just not exactly easy. Maybe you could write a program that automates this - if it were as simple as running an app and clicking a button that says "Make my install partition from this ISO" - I would be advocating all for it, and you'd then have some way to say it's easy, doesn't require IT knowledge, and would be simply enough that it doesn't require watching a YouTube video (WTF is with a youtube video for that anyway - hard to copy/paste text from a video, and who wants to sit and watch someone else's files copy).
Originally posted by Ridelynn Maybe you could write a program that automates this - if it were as simple as running an app and clicking a button that says "Make my install partition from this ISO"
...maybe application like BCDEasy featured in the video?
That is why I linked the video, for people like you, who are illitrate when it comes to IT but unlike you they are willing to learn something,thus manual method was also provided.
Same as trying to explain to you how CPU and HT works, heh?
Originally posted by Ridelynn WTF is with a youtube video for that anyway - hard to copy/paste text from a video
I really don't see the point in re-using a 3yr old hard drive as anything other than a storage drive.
Economy.
He is on a budget, thus savings like salvaging HDD off the old computer and Windows 10 preview are good ways how to get maximum for the money.
Spending 80 or 55 USD on new drive means you need to downgrade some of your components that will be way more expensive and difficult to replace later on, adding new drive later on the other hand is very easy.
Funny note regarding to reliability and getting a new drive - new drives whithin first months have about same failure rate as 5 years old drives
Then again, what matters is the usage, not the time the drive is out of assembly line. "Wearing out" a HDD in home system isn't really happening.
While SSD is nice to have, it is still a luxury component.
All fair points. As far as reliability, the problem with standards drives in a home situation is they are just fragile finicky little bastards, i guess nowadays that lan parties aren't even remotely commonplace anymore, its likely the PC will sit on a desk a never be moved, so shock and physical jolts and such aren't as much of an issue.
But you are correct, the thing about most electronics is they generally either fail very quickly (usually a bad solder point or something dumb like that, out of the factory), or they last forever, barring any user related failures.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Comments
Priceless...
Yeah, they should have gone with Piledriver so they could sell the consoles as game & breakfest toaster machines - 4 cores for each side of the toast!
So what would I do exactly? Just download Windows 10 on this computer & just pop it in my new one??
You can't make a bootable drive from the HDD with the OS on, lmao.
You need a USB Drive, like USB stick. Download the Windows 10 ISO image, put it on the USB stick with a program like Rufus.
Buy new PC, set boot sequence to USB stick in the BIOS, boot and you install Windows 10.
If you've never mounted an ISO image, buy Windows 7 or windows 8, and wait for the windows 10 consumer launch, the launch is in the fall somewhere, it will be a free upgrade.
Orly? How do you think people run multiple OS on single drive then...?
Please....
You just create new bootable partition and copy instalation files there. Then, within boot manager you pick what partition you want to boot up.
I will write you a guide later today or just link some, there are plenty to find on the internet...
He needs the OS on his new HDD, not his old one.
stop giving advice if you don't know what a boot disk is
This is so irritating...ppl lacking essential IT knowledge comming here and telling you how you make no sense and ask you to stop providing help.
Freaking dumb...
Explain how installing an OS on a partition on his old HDD is going to help him have it on his new PC.
1. Trusting a three-year-old drive to last another five years before you upgrade is a risk. If you would do it, then go for it.
2. Decompressing 10GB files is not what the majority of the tasks the drive will be performing when gaming. Since this is a gaming machine, using sequential read speeds for comparison is irrelevant. Random read/write speeds are what SSDs excel at when compared to hard drives, and that's what games need.
3. Yes, I had to say something. Quizzical makes a good point about physical cores being more important for the foreseeable future. If Microsoft and Sony didn't think more cores were worth investing their console reputation in, then they would have picked an architecture similar to the i3 so they could get the Hyperthreading you seem to value so much. You clearly know more than Sony and Microsoft engineers, so I won't argue with you on the merits of hyperthreading vs physical cores.
4. It depends on the game you play and how you play it. For example, Dragon Age Inquisition has long loading screens and short quests. If you go back to the base every time a War Table mission finishes, that can add up to a lot of loading screens.
Two minutes times four times per hour times four hours per day times 365 days per year equals eight days, two hours, forty minutes. If a game can't hold your attention for more than a week, you'll be uninstalling things at blazing fast SSD speeds and still only spend 4 hours, 20 minutes per year uninstalling things if it takes you 5 minutes to uninstall (not likely) per week.
5. I'm sorry that you can only be satisfied with games that take up 50GB of hard drive space. There are plenty of great games out there that take up between 10GB and 20GB, like most of the MMOs. I barely have time for one MMO in my life, but if I wanted to, I could live with a 120GB SSD to store one massive 50GB game and two ~15GB MMOs.
This is irritating, expecting everyone to be an IT expert, capable of doing every IT task in the massive field of IT.
Also, the OP bought a new hard drive.
This is irritating, expecting everyone to be an IT expert, capable of doing every IT task in the massive field of IT.
Also, the OP bought a new hard drive.
Not to mention it's a flat out pain in the butt - whereas if you have the image on a DVD or thumb drive it's pretty darn painless.
A lot of things are "possible" with computers, but sometimes the barrier to using them is just more steep than using other methods.
Its actually more on on the lines of not seeing a need for an SSD for myself. I dont play AAA games. The only games I play is Guild Wars 2, League of legends, & The elder scrolls online. Thats basiclly it. So when it comes to space, no I dont really need 1TB or even 500GB. But if I can get a 1TB harddrive thats reliable with 5+years of health cheaper then an 120GB SSD that by my research have only half the life time of an HHD AND the HHD is cheaper its a no brainer to me. Down the line I can see myself upgrading to an SSD thats both reliable & just as space worthy. But for now an HHD will do.
I have yet to buy my parts for I must wait.. Sadly. But I'm hoping maybe soon the prices will be better or there will be better deals:P We shall see. But I thank everyone for your help, this has been fun & helpful.
First off, I don't know where you got that SSDs only last around 2.5 years (half the 5 year reliability claim you mention for an HDD) - that isn't true in my experience at all.
SSDs do fail, I won't say they are infallible. But I haven't seen a noticable difference in failure rates between SSDs and HDDs - at least with the last few generations of SSDs and HDDs (the jury is still out on the latest generation, as they haven't been around long enough to get good reliability data) you can expect an average of 3-5 years of life for pretty much any storage device you get.
If you are referring to write exhausting on an SSD - it is a real thing, however it is not a concern for a gaming computer or consumer use. It takes a very specific and rare work load in order to make write exhausting an SSD even a legitimate consideration.
1TB hard drives are running on average about $60. $75-80 if you want a higher performance model (and if it's your only drive, you'd definitely be interested in that).
That happens to be almost exactly the same price range for a 120G SSD.
So you aren't really looking at saving any money. The whole "it's more expensive" argument has died in the last 6 months, maybe in the last year. Sure, you can say "less capacity", but you can't make a case that your doing it to save money any more.
That being said, it is your money - if you want to spend it on an HDD, have at it. I would strongly recommend an SSD to anyone, even if all you can fit is a 120G size on your budget - it makes that much difference (to me, at least) in the responsiveness of a computer. I can really notice when I'm on a machine that does not have an SSD, it is immediately apparent and very frustrating, after using primarily SSDs for a long while now..
"Flat out pain in the butt" that takes about 3 minutes...you truly know what you talk about, do you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QatkOEUjFCA
Step by step in video description.
If anyone wants to avoid 3rd party apps and want to do it manually with bcdedit(good to know):
bcdedit /create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk.ini"
bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice partition=E
bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath ootoot.sdi
bcdedit /create /d "Installation Partition" /application OSLOADER
bcdedit /set {GUID} device ramdisk=[E:]sourcesoot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
bcdedit /set {GUID} osdevice ramdisk=[E:]sourcesoot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
bcdedit /set {GUID} path windowssystem32winload.exe
bcdedit /set {GUID} systemroot windows
bcdedit /set {GUID} winpe yes
bcdedit /set {GUID} detecthal yes
bcdedit /set {GUID} ems yes
bcdedit /displayorder {GUID} /addlast
Do not forget to bdcboot c:windows /s e:
E: is assumed to be partition with instalation files
GUID is generated once you create loader storage
" " is text description
You never again need to look for instalation media and instalation is super swift.
I am not expecting everyone to be an expert, just I am expecting elementary knowledge if one wants to engage in discussion, not to say trying to argue and lecture others...
It was the same guy that though Product ID is the same as Product Key.
1) If that HHD may last 2 more years, and it easily will, there is no need to buy one today...
2) That was a referal to dual channel memory but thanks for confirming my point...
3) He makes this point for almost a decade...and yet, nothing.
Silly theorycrafting is silly, simple as that. You better pay attention to my toaster comment to understand where he is wrong.
4) No it doesnt, because you are grossly exaggerating, making your point ridiculous.
5) Good for you...irrelevant to everyone else. The computer is not being assembled for you but OP.
You can't do that with an ISO image.
You can't just drag your ISO image over to a partition, it needs to be mounted.
You also don't just install an OS, and put it in another PC, unless you want nothing but problems.
And he also wanted it on his new HDD.
If you want a decent gaming experience you need at least an i5 cpu and a decent graphics card with 8gb of memory and preferably an SSD (120gb are pretty cheap now). Look for sales. I got my 7870 pretty cheap because Amazon made a mistake on the sale price, but honored all sales made before the page was taken down. I bought my 250 gb SSD for half price on a one day sale. You can save a lot by looking for good deals.
Buying low grade stuff is a total waste of money and you will be dissatisfied with the results. But the good news is that in the not so distant future tablets will be really powerful, use a lot less power, and be far cheaper than the gaming rigs we have today. The first PC that I used cost $5500 (in 1980's dollars) used a 55mgz cpu, a whopping 16 megs of ram, and a huge 7 gb HD. Try doing animation on that baby.
While i don't disagree with anything you've said at its face value, just with the details. I really don't see the point in re-using a 3yr old hard drive as anything other than a storage drive. I certainly wouldn't use it as an OS drive or for anything with any potentially important data. While you're right that it probably *won't* fail within the next 2 years, the chance increases greatly.
I've had well over 100 hard drives over the years, i've had some that failed in 6 months, and some that are still going 10 years later. What i have found is that usually the ones that failed were the ones you didnt expect to.
Either way, OP is a big boy he can make his own decisions. But were i in his shoes, id spend $80 bucks on a 12gb SSD, use it as my system drive and to install my most played games on, and use the old hard drive for a storage drive or to install games that i may not play as much.
Also, as far as SSD reliability, the early incarnations were rough, but they've sorted that stuff out. SSD's are more reliable than standard HDD's just inherently by design.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I'm rather curious what computer that was. Because i had a 486dx2 66mhz IBM and the largest (single) hard drive that could be bought at the time was $350 and was a western digital caviar 540MB hard drive. So unless there was some magical fairy 7gb hard drive out there, i'm calling bullshit. That was also in the early 90's.
September, 1993, issue of InfoWorld:
https://books.google.com/books?id=4zoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=western+digital+caviar+540mb&source=bl&ots=WaxwFM0Yy6&sig=kUDMuPBWNXE0Y55ifKefz2tj3tE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5J3ZVPD6Mc_nsAST3YFA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=western%20digital%20caviar%20540mb&f=false
"Introduced last month, the Caviar AC2540 offers an average seek time of 11 Western Digital's latest Caviar drive offers OEMs a 540MB drive with a 128KB ..."
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
And here we go again...
If you do not understand how it works, stop saying what can't or shouldn't be done.
Economy.
He is on a budget, thus savings like salvaging HDD off the old computer and Windows 10 preview are good ways how to get maximum for the money.
Spending 80 or 55 USD on new drive means you need to downgrade some of your components that will be way more expensive and difficult to replace later on, adding new drive later on the other hand is very easy.
Funny note regarding to reliability and getting a new drive - new drives whithin first months have about same failure rate as 5 years old drives
Then again, what matters is the usage, not the time the drive is out of assembly line. "Wearing out" a HDD in home system isn't really happening.
While SSD is nice to have, it is still a luxury component.
You can't do that with an ISO image.
You can't just drag your ISO image over to a partition, it needs to be mounted.
You also don't just install an OS, and put it in another PC, unless you want nothing but problems.
And he also wanted it on his new HDD.
Let's see - insert DVD/Thumb Drive - restart - install
Versus
All of that John Madden bcdedit, requiring re-sizing a partition on an existing drive (which isn't always possible), and a lot of prep work. GUIDs aren't exactly easy to type in either, and copy/paste in the command prompt isn't obvious to a casual user depending on what your copying from.
I think that certainly qualifies as "pain in the butt" and "Advanced for IT-minded folks". Thanks for providing the illustration.
I will say having installation on separate partition is a good idea though - it's just not exactly easy. Maybe you could write a program that automates this - if it were as simple as running an app and clicking a button that says "Make my install partition from this ISO" - I would be advocating all for it, and you'd then have some way to say it's easy, doesn't require IT knowledge, and would be simply enough that it doesn't require watching a YouTube video (WTF is with a youtube video for that anyway - hard to copy/paste text from a video, and who wants to sit and watch someone else's files copy).
...maybe application like BCDEasy featured in the video?
That is why I linked the video, for people like you, who are illitrate when it comes to IT but unlike you they are willing to learn something,thus manual method was also provided.
Same as trying to explain to you how CPU and HT works, heh?
You are trying too hard...
All fair points. As far as reliability, the problem with standards drives in a home situation is they are just fragile finicky little bastards, i guess nowadays that lan parties aren't even remotely commonplace anymore, its likely the PC will sit on a desk a never be moved, so shock and physical jolts and such aren't as much of an issue.
But you are correct, the thing about most electronics is they generally either fail very quickly (usually a bad solder point or something dumb like that, out of the factory), or they last forever, barring any user related failures.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche