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paulz
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# Posted: 5 Jan 2016 10:50am
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I do the same things on my desktop pc running Windows as on my tablet running Android. Web surfing, playing music or videos, email. Why does my desktop need to constantly use the hard disc drive when the Android can do the same stuff without one? The hard drive makes a lot of noise at night, even when I am not doing anything.
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KelVarnsen
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# Posted: 5 Jan 2016 11:16am - Edited by: KelVarnsen
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From the beginning of the desktop computer era computers have used mechanical drives. Mechanical drives have a physically spinning disk with an armature that moves across the disks to read and write data. Within the last several years solid state drives (SSD) have really come down in price and become much more popular. Here is an article explaining the differences (article). Solid state drives have several advantages over mechanical drives, such as lower power consumption, no noise, increased speed. Actually if you replace a mechanical drive in an older computer with a SSD you will be very suprised at how much better the computer performs. I've resurrected several old laptops by installing an SSD instead of mechanical drive.
As for your Android device it would have some sort of non-mechanical flash storage. It may access the storage constantly as well, you just wouldn't be aware of it because of the lack of noise. Memory sticks, SD cards are other examples of flash based storage.
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bobrok
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# Posted: 5 Jan 2016 12:04pm - Edited by: bobrok
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Quoting: paulz I do the same things on my desktop pc running Windows as on my tablet running Android.
I try to and for the most part it works, but, geez, I wish designers would pay a little more attention to optimizing their Web sites for mobile.
Every once in a while you stumble on a site that totally breaks down when you're trying to access via mobile, or submitting forms.
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paulz
Member
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# Posted: 5 Jan 2016 12:42pm
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Thanks guys. I didn't notice in the article anything about replacing a HDD with a SSD, would that be possible on my desktop without a lot of fuss? I just upgraded from XP to Windows 7, that's how far behind the curve I am. 
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KelVarnsen
Member
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# Posted: 5 Jan 2016 12:50pm
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I'm not going to say that you can do it "without a lot of fuss". It depends on the age of your computer (connection types, etc.) and your knowledge. There are a lot of articles if you Google it. I would suggest that you enlist a friend with technical expertise or find a local shop. Otherwise buy yourself a new computer as a New Year's present. Although it wouldn't be as much fun as other cabin toys that you could buy.
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 5 Jan 2016 02:36pm - Edited by: MtnDon
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Is it the actual hard drive that is noisy or is it the fan that is helping to cool it? Or maybe the CPU fan? We have some external hard drives and it is their cooling fan that is making some noise, not the HDD itself.
SSD's allow the computer to boot so fast!! Seconds instead of minutes. I have two machines with them; both laptops. Increased battery life is also a bonus.
You may find this info helpful with regards to installing an SSD in a desktop computer. My SSD's are Crucial brand.
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Wilbour
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# Posted: 6 Jan 2016 09:40am
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My limited foray into SSD I discovered a few things. SSD allows your PC to boot faster because the program loads from the SSD into ram quickly.
Other programs will LOAD faster as well but the execution of each task still relies on the ram. That means it is restricted by the amount of ram, the speed of your ram and the bus speed of your motherboard. Not to mention the CPU.
As mentioned above, most of the noise is generated by the fans. I doubt any SSD will lower the use of the fans even though your SSD runs cooler.
Most people will not see an improvement on performance or noise by installing an SSD.
The upgrade is possible but not something the general user should tinker with. Get someone who has done this before.
Buying a new pc is probably the best alternative. A Netbook or Apple product with a keyboard would suffice. Most data is stored on a cloud or USB drive now
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KelVarnsen
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# Posted: 6 Jan 2016 11:25am
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Quoting: Wilbour Most people will not see an improvement on performance or noise by installing an SSD.
While I agree that most noise is caused by fans rather than disks I respectfully disagree that most people won't see a performance improvement. Much of what a typical user does on a daily basis relies heavily on reading and writing to and from the drive and will dramatically improve the usability of an older computer if migrated to SSD.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 6 Jan 2016 01:43pm
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Reading off an SSD is one thing but a constant writing or rewriting will compromise the drive.
My understanding is that most people just surf the Web. Any background hard drive access is typically windows utilities. I could be wrong though.
I had contemplated upgrading my home brew PVR to an SSD with a data hard drive. All those who have tried it before agreed it booted faster but did not make a difference when recording or viewing videos.
The PVRs typically never shuts down and therefore never boots so that advantage is negated.
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 6 Jan 2016 06:48pm
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Quoting: Wilbour I had contemplated upgrading my home brew PVR
Wilbour... what is your PVR? (If I understand correctly, PVR = a Personal Video Recorder... to record TV? Hardware? What software? I use a Win7 PC running Windows Media Center and would like to run Win10 to keep all the PC's running the same software. But Win10 does not have WMC. Thanks.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 6 Jan 2016 08:54pm - Edited by: Wilbour
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Well this may surprise you but the hardware is a business Dell pc. It is still running Vista OS. The tuner card is set up to capture digital OTA signals.
What makes it rock is the free software Next PVR.
As a dedicated PVR it works well.
Sorry OP for taking over the post
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 7 Jan 2016 09:40am
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thanks
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