I never said you shouldn't have a backup. You should always have a backup. Even the most reliable piece of equipment made is still subject to power surges, theft, fire, flood, etc.

A few years ago I had a nice little system set up with two HDDs in RAID 1. The power supply went and took the entire system out with it. I had hoped the drives were still alright, so after I had built a replacement system, I dropped one of the hard drives in and powered it up. The BIOS posted, and then the system froze. Curious, I peeked my head around the side of the computer and saw the hard drive on fire, literally, 4-5" flames coming off of the PCB. I pulled the plug and within a couple of seconds the fire went out. Luckily the drive wasn't close enough to anything else in the system to cause damage, and after pulling the drive out the rest of the system was no worse for the wear, except that the house smelled like burnt electronics for about a week and a half.

http://www.thesuicidaleggroll.com/ho...521_resize.jpg

The point is, you should always have a backup, because hardware can always fail, even if its not its fault.

As I've said a few times in this thread, spend a little less on your processor, a little less on your RAM, put that money into a small SSD for the OS, and you'll have a system that's noticeably faster in nearly every way, costs the same, and still has the same storage capacity and the same backup solution. Unless you have a laptop, this is a win-win scenario. With a laptop, well you just need to experience an SSD for yourself, and you'll make whatever compromises are necessary (be it budget or storage space) to fit one into your laptop, no questions asked.

Thats why I brought that into the equation. I am simply trying to answer this question "I do not understand how anybody continues to build workstations/laptops based on HDDs"

1. Most laptops can only hold one drive, therefore to put in an SSD I would have to have one large enough to hold all my data.
2. The cost of an SSD large enough to hold all my data is > the the cost of two or three HDD's big enough to hold all my data, therefore to spend the $ on an SSD I would have to not buy a backup drive.
3. The laptops I buy generally don't have an option of less processor or video and the cost of ram is small enough as to not offset the cost difference of an SSD, therefore not enough cost savings.

So it comes down to spend $ performance vs backups. I choose backups.

Hi,
Maybe you should research beyond the equipment you have on hand. I have a Dell XPS sitting on my lap that supports two bays. Dell's not the only vendor that provides laptops with multiple bays.

Doable!

Maybe you should look at something other than Dell Latitude.

You might consider Grandfathering off site. How fireproof is that safe?

Not true. Your scope is narrowed to your experiences. As I stated their are vendors that provide multiple bay Laptops. You just need to check for other vendor models, Dell included.

You could get one of these, if you don't need a DVD drive on that machine: http://www.laptopspart.net/2nd-HDD-C...addy-dv25.html
But honestly, on a home-server, where usually the network connection is the bottleneck this doesn't make much sense.

My scope is defined by what meets my needs. I don't need/want to carry an 8lb 15" laptop around just to have two drive bays, my lap isn't even 15" wide. My C400 was the perfect form factor, 12" 3lb with no bays. The DVD/CD drive was plugged in once to load Linux then put away so I didn't have to carry the weight. Extra drives add space and weight.

What you are saying is buy a laptop that doesn't meet my needs just to have a faster more expensive drive. I'm saying thats the reason some don't use SSD, they don't yet meet my needs.

I'm actually having difficulty finding a decent laptop now, there isn't much in the market in the smaller size that are not intentionally crippled to where they can't be a primary system. Nice small ones I like end up having an SSD but not in the standard 2.5" hdd form factor so I can't swap in a drive big enough to hold everything.

My safe is actually quite fireproof, look at the fire rating and cost per square inch of a media safe sold in office stores then look at the rating and cost per square inch of even a low end gun safe, way batter rating than a typical office store safe for just slightly more cost.

Whilst I am aware that this is getting way off topic - have you considered the IBM X60 series, they use SATA disks,standard size are 12" screens and light. They also have cheap docking stations available which take a DVD and probably could be persuaded to take a second HDD instead.

We have the current Lenovo Thinkpads at work and I'm less than impressed with them, the quality has really went down. I need to be able to hold my data on my primary machine without a docking station, as I use mine on my lap, couch, wherever. Secondary machine (server) is on a dock because it doesn't get moved, its just a laptop so it can trickle down to the kids as I upgrade.

Yes there is a quality difference between the old and newer Lenovos.
the X60 series is 'old school' and will give you a spec similar to your current main machine and I think a quality to match or equal it.

I see, its really old. I can just keep using the c400. I'm looking to upgrade my primary machine so this will be a new one. The $100 oldies are for the secondary and kids. I really want something like the ASUS Transformer, always wanted to go back to touch screen like the old GRiD 486 I had in the early 90's but none seem to have any storage space any more.

Only other thing that I could see working is a small light laptop that will accept the thicker 2.5" drive then put in the thin 2.5" drive and a 2.5" form factor SSD on top of that, assuming that wouldn't exceed the temperature specs.

Hi,

I never suggest that you should select a different Laptop. I stated the facts about some Laptops. Your broad statement in that NO laptops have two bays was wrong.

Never said anything of the sort. Re-read my post for understanding so you will see my point that there are several Laptops with 2 bays, even from Dell. Never said you had to purchase or change. Just your statements are incorrect.

I suggest you look beyond the $$ for a Laptop. Setup design criteria to fit your needs. It seems to me you want a machine that will cover server, client and general use. Narrow your search to each specific task(s) to meet the hardware needs.

Grandfathering means to rotate off site in a secure environment. Personally, I would not use my gun safe or even cabinet to secure my data.

Each to his/her own.

i have an 1 tb hybrid

I think you just overlooked where I listed it has to fit my lap, those other models don't fit. Its funny, this is similar to when I switched to Linux, someone was disagreeing with my statement as to how much less Linux cost because of the cost of the MSOffice, etc licenses. They pointed out several Dell models which came with MSOffice for "free" despite many being consumer models or twice the weight. Like you said to each his own, I was simply trying to demonstrate why someone would choose to not run a SSD in their primary system as they do not yet fit my needs. I.e. showing that one solution does not fit all. If $ was not an option I'd have a pair of 1TB SSD's mirrored in the primary hdd spot

My offsite data is 250 miles away on a different media type, the pair of backup hdd's that are alternated between are local. If you want to really derail the thread I can go into why could backups don't yet meet my needs either

Yes the IBM X60.61 is old but at least or better than the ones in your sig.

Asus eeePC 900HA, Intel Atom N270
Dell Latitude D630, Intel® Core™2 Duo processor
Dell Latitude C400, Intel Pentium III-M 1.2 GHz

IBM X60/61
Intel Core Duo processor 1.66GHz, 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz
Supports maximum memory up to 4GB

As for the ASUS Transformer series, I cant find one that matches even your D630 for performance.

I am afraid I simply do not understand what you want or why you are so against SSDs. If you used your network to serve your data and just had you OS and apps on your internal disk you would probably be able to achieve what you want with a considerable performance increase without spending very much.

Note the X60/61 has a Gigabit Ethernet which will transfer data faster than almost all mechanical laptop disks.

Because I'm not always connected to my network, my laptop goes with me (another reason why it needs to be small and light). The network holds a backup copy and I use wireless.

I'm not completely against, I'm trying to show that those who are completely for than it may not always be the right answer. It seems the computer industry is falling into that trap, that everyone who needs a small laptop doesn't need storage, they can just use the cloud, or that everyone who wants a laptop wants them to be 1.5 or more lap-widths so they can watch movies.

Well it appears we can agree on some things.
There are instances where large storage capacity is needed on a laptop.
Cloud storage is not always available and therefore cannot be relied upon.
Not everyone wants wide-screen, I prefer a traditional squarer screen.