Terabyte update 2023

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ISSUE 20.26 • 2023-06-26 Look for our BONUS issue on Monday, July 3, 2023! HARDWARE By Will Fastie There are several important trend lines this year.
[See the full post at: Terabyte update 2023]

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a, Lars220, lmacri, windbg, abbodi86, Alex5723

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From the linked article:

The “buy bigger” advice also applies to devices in which the SSD is built in and cannot be upgraded. You’re going to see more devices like that, so buy wisely (and big).

IMO, “buy wisely” is sage advice, but to me it would mean avoiding these disposable devices at nearly all cost. If you can get the thing for a quarter of what similarly-specced non-disposable would cost, it would be worth considering, but without a deep, deep discount to go along with the non-removable drive, I would not touch it.

Disposable hardware only suffices at disposable prices. A Bic pen does the same job as a nice all-metal, refillable pen, but the Bic costs under a dollar. I would not pay premium prices for a disposable Bic pen, even if it had the same features that fancy refillable pens have, except the one.

My Dell XPS 13 cost ~$1300, out the door, including tax and the extended warranty. It was on sale at a deep discount for Dell’s whateverth anniversary sale, built to order, but I still specced it with the smallest SSD they had available (“none” was not an option). Dell wanted some insane amount for the biggest size they had available, I believe 1 TB… it was something like 800 dollars for the upgrade. That is a huge chunk of the price of the whole thing!

I bought a 2 TB NVMe/PCIe SSD for $220 (they’re cheaper now!) and I got to keep the 250GB drive and my $580, for a drive that is twice the size.

All of the laptops I have bought in the SSD era have come with smallish SSDs (250-500GB), which I have quickly replaced. To get a big drive on a non-custom laptop often means buying the “premium” specced builds, and I don’t want all of that. The cost of that extra drive space is even higher than the exorbitant markup the OEM charges for a larger drive, since you have to get all the bells and whistles to go along with it.

And then there’s the bit about the drives having a limited service life. Five years is not enough of a lifespan for a full price machine to me. I used my Asus F8 laptop for over ten years! I don’t know if I will use any of my current laptops that long, but I would like it at least to be my decision, not one made for me by wearing out NAND flash.

Having to send the laptop to the OEM for warranty service with the drive still installed, with all my stuff on it, even for a problem that is completely unrelated to the SSD, doesn’t sit right. If the data is unencrypted, it’s available to anyone who has physical custody of the laptop, and it is out of my control. But even if it was encrypted, the OEM could decide to replace the motherboard rather than repair it, so if one’s data was not backed up, it was effectively gone as soon as the motherboard failed– even if the integrated SSD is still in perfect condition. Of course, you should back up your data anyway, but if the SSD was not integrated, it would be super simple to pop it out of there and into the replacement.

I remember one case like this where an Apple M2 Macbook owner had the motherboard replaced under warranty, and they had no means to rescue his data. Although completely intact on the integrated SSD (presumably), there was no procedure for extracting the data, even at additional cost to the customer. Apple was only concerned with the hardware.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Sueska, Seattle27

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Ascaris wrote:

Having to send the laptop to the OEM for warranty service with the drive still installed, with all my stuff on it, even for a problem that is completely unrelated to the SSD, doesn’t sit right.

You don’t do that.
What you should do is re-install original SSD (if replaced) and restore the OS to original stat (no data, no software…) and send to OEM.

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Alex5723 wrote:

What you should do is re-install original SSD (if replaced) and restore the OS to original stat (no data, no software…) and send to OEM.

But how do you do that is the drive in the laptop is not removable? That was the point. My post was about why people should avoid buying devices with non-removable drives.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Ascaris wrote:

… but to me it would mean avoiding these disposable devices at nearly all cost.

The mass market is not doing that. The mass market is buying a new phone (with no upgrades for RAM or storage) every couple of years. So once they do that, why would they not do the same for convertibles or laptops? I keep issuing this warning because these are the kinds of systems vendors are offering.

However, I’m not suggesting that vendors stop marketing such systems. Everyone’s value proposition is different. For example, I built my own desktop with full understanding that I would be dealing with individual warranties and support policies for every component, with no support (other than me) for the system as a whole. But I bought my wife a Yoga – no upgrades available – and hedged my bets by also buying a three-year support plan.

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Will Fastie wrote:

The mass market is not doing that.

But that’s the point of giving advice. You can choose not to buy disposable electronics. I agree with your advice to buy wisely… and for me that means “don’t pay much for disposable goods.”

Will Fastie wrote:

The mass market is buying a new phone (with no upgrades for RAM or storage) every couple of years. So once they do that, why would they not do the same for convertibles or laptops?

Because laptops are not phones. You don’t really have a choice between an upgradeable phone and a non-upgradeable phone (though you can choose not to pay premium prices for one).

With laptops, you do have a choice, and choosing to buy a model with a M.2 slot has a number of benefits, which I have attempted to highlight above.

The more people that choose not to buy disposable products, the less likely it will be that it will ever get to the point that there is no other alternative.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Sueska

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Nice article!!! – made me recall life in the 80’s Tech is great – the companies claw at each other for MY benefit, and I love it!!!

Yes, I do buy a “new” phone every few years. Of course, I buy used (ebay with a near 100% seller with free return if not satisfied) which was not what they (manufacturers) wanted, but works for me and I get near latest technology for a song. (current one is a Moto One Ace 5G which I picked up maybe a year ago and is STILL being updated, bless Moto/Verizon/GSM!!! Just got the 12 update a few months ago. And it actually worked. So that should keep me happy for another year then probably another Moto – last 4 Motos have been VERY good for me. Sammy Galaxy, definitely not good at all for me, especially indoors reception-wise through those modern glass windows!!!

As to storage, with this one (Thinkpad P15S) I started to get savvy and got one with an .M2 x4 socket – the ONLY way to go, and paired it with a Sammy 970. Screams. and really, all things considered, not that expensive. The P15s cost me ~400 and the sammy another 100 (they’re cheaper now). Almost bleeding edge for, again, a song. and a couple years from now I will upgrade again. Lenovo Thinkpad and Sammy have been very good for me.

Terabyte software was one of my best buying decisions this year. it also screams(and does mixed win/linux perfectly) , which encourages me to stay current on backups! And externals are also .M2 or at the least, 2.5 ssd. for offsite.

Love it!!!!!

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