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With many thanks to all of you for your advice on the laptop question I posed the other day, I ended up going with the Dell for which I posted that link. I have been working with it for two days now, and I a very pleased.
One more question, though (with a few sub-questions): What should I be doing in order to make sure it lasts, and keeps running optimally for as long as possible?
I am thinking particularly about the battery. Should I be using it without it being plugged in, and only plugging it in when it needs charging? Or is it okay to use plugged in most of the time? Are there charging hints you would suggest for longer and better battery life?
What about memory use? If I save 90% of what I do to the cloud, will the space-savings make a difference to the machine's operation?
Any other hints you might offer? I have had many laptops in my life, but I no longer have money to throw around, so am trying to be particularly conscientious about maintaining this one as best I can.
Should I be using it without it being plugged in, and only plugging it in when it needs charging? Or is it okay to use plugged in most of the time? Are there charging hints you would suggest for longer and better battery life?
Arguably yes, it's generally healthy to let batteries be batteries occasionally. My Dell's battery has spent its life on charge and it is utterly sodded, but it's 14 years old so...
Devil's advocate answer: if it lives on your desk, does it matter?
What about memory use? If I save 90% of what I do to the cloud, will the space-savings make a difference to the machine’s operation?
To the machine's operation, none whatsoever. It's good practice though.
Any other hints you might offer?
When it says Windows Updates are available, say yes.
Ditto with the Dell wizardy-thing.
Take whatever foisterware shite trial antivirus software it came bundled with and uninstall it with extreme prejudice.
Check the keyboard area for debris before closing the lid. The single biggest cause of screen death at work was ballpoint pens.
My Lenovo has a battery saver option so it stays charged, but not fully. Might be worth seeing if your Dell has a similar feature.
Basically everything cougar said.
I'm slightly confused as to how best to preserve battery longevity on laptops, as I don't know much about it. It kind of makes sense to let it drain very low once a while and trickle charge it, as opposed to having it plugged into the mains 24/7 or 'fast charging' it constantly... but I really dont know enough to comment and that's a whole other topic.
The simple answer is "it's complicated." 😁 Battery technology changes more often than my underpants, we're a long way past NiCads and trickle chargers though.
My Lenovo has a battery saver option so it stays charged, but not fully. Might be worth seeing if your Dell has a similar feature.
They say that's a good strategy on mobile phones too, to trickle charge rather than 'fast charge' and to keep the charge between say 20% and 80% charged.. but different batteries are different, especially with modern harware, as the software on modern phones for example, will allow fast charge up to a certain % and then to get to 100% it will slow the rate of charging speed down a bit. Or something.
It's a bit of a mine field really, but typically a laptop will spend most of it's life 'unplugged' because it's a laptop.
EDIT: a decent modern laptop should just run off the mains whilst plugged in, and gently top up the battery unless it's really low, but that's more a software/battery management thing.
I have a Dell laptop and use their battery manager utility. No idea if it has helped though!
I use a charging utility app so when its plugged in on the desktop it stops at 60% and the laptop runs off the charger. ( some pc laptops have this utility as standard but mines an old apple)
this stops the battery getting hot on a max charge and 60% is I think where batteries are in a happy place.
you should not keep them at 100% all the time
If I am taking it out I just let it top up and go.
boring stuff below
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
PS other hint is never update anything but the security updates in a hurry, wait till othere updates have been around for a while unless you like living on the bleeding edge... 🙂
this little script gives you an easy way to turn off/remove and add things to the bloaty win OS if you want to tweak things.
have a read and as always back up anything important
https://christitus.com/windows-tool/
Download a new Windows image onto a USB or CD/DVD (or a 10ft stack of floppies if retro is your thing)
Do a clean install of Windows and Windows Update aka Check For Updates to bring it up to date. You'll now have a clean PC with none of the bloatware that Dell was paid to install. The licence sticker for Windows should be somewhere on the machine.
Re memory use - do you mean memory or storage? If storage by all means put stuff in the cloud if you're running out of space on disk.
And make sure you have a backup strategy - backup your files (but probably not the programs) to a USB drive, NAS or an online service like Backblaze. If your house burns down or your laptop dies a horrible smoking death you'll be glad you have a backup.
I am thinking particularly about the battery. Should I be using it without it being plugged in, and only plugging it in when it needs charging? Or is it okay to use plugged in most of the time? Are there charging hints you would suggest for longer and better battery life?
It is safe, and in fact preferable, to leave it plugged in all or most of the time. In the very old days of car batteries and NiCad batteries for radio controlled cars etc, in the 90s, chargers were dumb and they would keep on banging current into a battery. Eventually that could over charge it. Of course, in 2022 a laptop is a high tech device and will stop charging when it's full. The battery will then be dormant. If you use the battery, even only part of it, and plug it back in, this counts as a 'charge cycle' and your battery has a limitd number of charge cycles. Of course a deep charge/discharge cycle is worse than a partial one but still.
It may help to limit the battery to 80%. You would need a utility to do this, I suppose. I have not had a Windows laptop that did it but this Mac does.
What really kills Lithium Ion batteries the most is heat, particularly whilst charging. Your laptop should be essentially cold to the touch or every so slighly lukewarm when you are just using Word or similar. The fans should not be running. If they are, something is running in the background and causing it. The most common cause for this is a website with loads of animated crap and adverts on it - like STW, if you aren't a premium member. So before you feel the back or listen for fans - close webpages.
What about memory use? If I save 90% of what I do to the cloud, will the space-savings make a difference to the machine’s operation?
Firstly, do you mean RAM or storage? RAM is the computer's working memory and disappears when you shut it down. That is always nearly full these days, because Windows is pre-loading stuff you use frequently just in case you need it. Nothing to worry about.
Storage can get full, of course, and yes, using the cloud helps with this.
IMPORTANT BIT
When you sign into Windows, you should link it to a Windows account that ties loads of useful stuff together. It will have asked you to do this when you started it up. You did do that, didn't you? It can be an Outlook account, GMail, or various other email or other account providers. Microsoft will create a One Drive account for that. This is your cloud storage. It will automatically shadow this to your 'My Documents' folder on your computer. So everything you save in My Documents and My Pictures etc etc will be saved to the cloud in your One Drive. The clever part is that they are synchronised, so that you will see links to your One Drive files on any computer you log into with that account, and when you open it it downloads the file there and then. And, you can restrict how much of your hard drive is used by One Drive. So if you have 1TB of stuff in One Drive and only 128Gb of storage, it won't try and download it all.
TL;DR - save everything into your My Documents/My Pictures etc and it will automatically be safe, backed up (yes, really) and available from anywhere including your phone or any web browser on anyone's computer. The only possible exception to this is large files like videos. It will work, but if you have rubbish broadband it can take weeks to synchronise it to the cloud and can clog up the broadband for everyone else.
Other tips:
- Don't install anti-virus, and if there's one pre-installed (Norton, Symantec etc) remove it. Windows has built in security these days.
- You could use an external drive to back up but it's a lot easier with One Drive and this is enough, in my view. In the old days it wasn't, but now it versions your files so even if you delete something or delete huge chunks of a document you can roll back to an earlier version.
- I can take a look and see if there is any rubbish you don't need on there, if you like.
- I know you are on a budget but the family edition of MS Office 365 is an outstanding deal. You pay I think £7.99/mo and get 5 installs of full Office on different computers, and 1TB of cloud storage each. I think there are other deals for people in education etc, not sure. Your free One Drive is limited to 5Gb I think which is enough for documents but not videos and pictures probably.
this little script gives you an easy way to turn off/remove and add things to the bloaty win OS if you want to tweak things.
I wouldn't go near that with a bargepole. (There is a longer form of this response if you want it.)
Download a new Windows image onto a USB or CD/DVD (or a 10ft stack of floppies if retro is your thing)
Do a clean install of Windows
I wouldn't do that with an in-warranty PC either.
If you have an office365 subscription and have set your computer to save documents/desktop to OneDrive then windows will do it's best to keep stuff you don't use very often in the cloud and stuff you use a lot in the cloud AND on your machine to be available quickly. It's a nice feature if you only have a smaller SSD at 255gb and stops you running out of hard drive space.
Other than that stay away from anything designed to 'optimise' your machine
Oh, and as above, remove Norton/McAfee/whatever free AV came with the machine
Any other hints you might offer?
Ban myself from having drinks anywhere near it. I can't be trusted.
Because of spillage or what you might post? 😁
It may help to limit the battery to 80%. You would need a utility to do this, I suppose. I have not had a Windows laptop that did it but this Mac does.
Dell have a battery management app that does this, I assume all major PC makers have the same. You should be able to set it in the Power Management settings to "Always Plugged In". That will keep it partially charged to protect the battery.
I wouldn’t go near that with a bargepole. (There is a longer form of this response if you want it.)
well... its that strange limbo time between xmas and NY so go ahead 🙂
Oo ooo, can I add a supplementary question please...?
It's about One Drive 'synchronisation' as mentioned above by Moly. This has bothered me for a while.
Does it mean 2 way or 1 way? Ie what happens if I delete from the machine and not the cloud? Does it get auto reinstated to the machine or auto deleted from the cloud or...? And what happens if I delete from the cloud but not the machine? Logic says it would/should be backed up to the cloud again but does it get auto deleted from the machine?
Depends what 'synchronisation' means in this instance dunt it?
I’d add that onedrive is not a backup product, depending on the critically of your data you may want to consider a actual backup product.
Also as a minimum I would ensure that onedrive is configured to always keep data on your local drive as well as the cloud.
Cougar
Full Member
Because of spillage or what you might post? 😁
These days, bloody both to be honest.😂
Does it mean 2 way or 1 way?
I think it's two way, but the cloud has the version history. So if you delete it in the cloud you can get it back by looking at the version history of the folder it was in.
I’d add that onedrive is not a backup product, depending on the critically of your data you may want to consider a actual backup product.
Expand on that? I would argue it's enough for most purposes. You are protected against deletion and corruption. The only problem is if you find yourself without internet access or somehow you lose access to your MS account and you need access to a backup at the same time.
Does it mean 2 way or 1 way? Ie what happens if I delete from the machine and not the cloud? Does it get auto reinstated to the machine or auto deleted from the cloud or…?
If you have configured the "backup" of your Documents, Pictures and Desktop folders in the OD settings it will delete them everywhere when you delete (although they will still be available in the OD recycle bin for 30 days afterwards). When you first set this up you get a warning when you delete stuff that it will be deleted everywhere but you can click "Don't show this again" and then it just deletes without warning...
Similarly if you have just linked your OD folders to your PC (ie you can see the OD in the file explorer menu) then obviously files in your Documents, Pictures and on the Desktop won't be synced BUT if you delete things from the OD folder in Windows Explorer then it will also get deleted in the cloud. It is for this reason that people often recommend that you backup the OD independently.
Download a new Windows image onto a USB or CD/DVD (or a 10ft stack of floppies if retro is your thing)
Do a clean install of Windows
I wouldn’t do that with an in-warranty PC either.
Absolutely - no need at all to install a clean version of Windows on it unless it is seriously knackered. If you do that you will have all sorts of issues trying to locate the correct drivers for things like Bluetooth or fingerprint readers etc. While Windows is pretty good a installing most drivers automatically you will definitely have a few yellow splats in Device Manager if you install a basic W10/11 image on it. You will then need to go to the DELL website and try and work out which of the hundreds of drivers you actually need. If you are happy to start getting device IDs and checking the contents of the .inf files to make sure they match then fine - it's laborious but quite rewarding in a funny kind of way! I used to spend hours finding drivers to create SCCM task sequences so trust me when I say don't do it unless you need to!!!
Similarly if you have just linked your OD folders to your PC (ie you can see the OD in the file explorer menu) then obviously files in your Documents, Pictures and on the Desktop won’t be synced BUT if you delete things from the OD folder in Windows Explorer then it will also get deleted in the cloud. It is for this reason that people often recommend that you backup the OD independently.
I don't think this is the case these days. A new install of Windows has your documents synced to one drive by default.
I don’t think this is the case these days. A new install of Windows has your documents synced to one drive by default.
If you sign in with a Microsoft account then you will get the OD icon in Windows Explorer but it will not specifically back up your Documents, Pictures and Desktop folders unless you configure it. It's easy enough to check - just right click the OD icon, click "Settings" and then under "Sync and backup" select "Manage backup" - here you select which of the three folders you want synced. It might ask you to do this when you do the very first sign in though actually so maybe you can have it on "by default".
You will then need to go to the DELL website and try and work out which of the hundreds of drivers you actually need.
Dell have an app that will do all this for you. Doesn't mean that you should nuke it and start again, but you generally don't have to do everything manually.
You can also download and save all the drivers to a flash disk before you nuke the current installation.
I don't recall what I did. When I got my Surface Pro 4 it had a separate One Drive folder, but when I reinstalled a more recent copy of Windows the behaviour changed and My Documents etc became the One Drive folder and I don't recall having to do anything. This did not happen as part of an update but 9noy when reinstalling, so I assume they elected not to change behaviour on an existing system.
Dell have an app that will do all this for you
True - DELL are pretty good at driver packs.
I wouldn’t go near that with a bargepole. (There is a longer form of this response if you want it.)
well… its that strange limbo time between xmas and NY so go ahead 🙂
Alright.
[ol]
[li]Out of the gate, it's plain unnecessary. There was a time where PC optimisation was an essential black art and I could have written pages on that. But that time was twenty years ago. If today you've got a W10 machine with a 1TB SSD, 16GB of RAM and a six core CPU and you're finding yourself trying to uninstall Solitaire for performance reasons, it's broken.[/li]
[li]Do you know what it actually does? What the ramifications are of 'cleaning' whatever it deems to be somehow dirty? I don't. I only skimmed the web page but it was awash with warnings and disclaimers about what it might break. This is a problem inherent with this sort of utility, at best they do nothing of any value and at worst there's a very real chance that they will hose your system. If - IF - there is a place for these things, it's in the hands of technicians and enthusiasts, not people who will blindly tick every option box and then hit Go. I wince every time someone on STW recommends CCleaner for exactly this reason.[/li]
[li]Do you trust it? I've little reason to think it's malicious but by turns I can't guarantee that it isn't. The website looks like it's escaped from Geocities, do we trust that the codebase hasn't been tampered with? Do we trust that the author knows what they're doing reliably enough to not release broken code by accident which deletes %windir%?[/li]
[/ol]
But, really, [1], the rest is gravy. There's just no need for it. There is value in uninstalling whatever trial nonsense comes bundled with a system if only to get rid of nag screens trying to get you to buy shit. Beyond that, meh, we're not running Windows 95 any more.
Expand on that? I would argue [OneDrive is] enough for most purposes. You are protected against deletion and corruption. The only problem is if you find yourself without internet access or somehow you lose access to your MS account and you need access to a backup at the same time.
Ransomware will actively seek out live 'backups' like this.
Absolutely – no need at all to install a clean version of Windows on it unless it is seriously knackered. If you do that you will have all sorts of issues trying to locate the correct drivers for things like Bluetooth or fingerprint readers etc.
I was thinking more for support purposes. It goes tits up, you ring Dell, they direct you to the recovery partition...
I don’t recall what I did. When I got my Surface Pro 4 it had a separate One Drive folder, but when I reinstalled a more recent copy of Windows the behaviour changed and My Documents etc became the One Drive folder and I don’t recall having to do anything.
It's as oceanskipper says. If you sign in with a Microsoft account then it sets up the sync automagically, if it's just a local user account then it doesn't.
True – DELL are pretty good at driver packs.
IME, most OEMs are pretty good with "install our service app, it'll blat in all the drivers for you" - so long as the OS matches. If you buy a system with (say) Windows 10 and then stick W11 on it, you're likely on your own.
Expand on that? I would argue it’s enough for most purposes. You are protected against deletion and corruption. The only problem is if you find yourself without internet access or somehow you lose access to your MS account and you need access to a backup at the same time.
Ransomware actively targets this kind of sync storage.
Accidental deletion that isn’t noticed within the retention window.
Those that don’t keep a local copy of the data & have access removed for a policy violation.
File corruption that isn’t noticed can be an issue.
My experience has been that folk are even less likely to test there file sync replication than they are with backups.
Beyond that, meh, we’re not running Windows 95 any more.
Speak for yourself. I had the pleasure of a car wash terminal crashing on me when I went to pay. It was running WinXP, visible from the splash screen when it rebooted. Sitting there trapped while Windows XP rebooted, hoping it didn't go into a deathloop.
OK. So is the consensus that we use One Drive to replicate data that's held locally with the local copy being the primary (ie the 'true' version that is being copied to the cloud) and a separate (data only?) backup is made? Is that right?
Obv follow ups if 'yes': what are we using to backup, what to (bearing in mind the vulnerability called out above) and what sort of frequency pls?
Ta and sorry for the slight hijack. Hopefully of some use to the OP as well.
I’m likely not the best placed to answer on a windows platform as I moved over to Mac over 10 years ago & have found time machine backups sufficient.
That said I used to use Acronis True Image which I see has been replaced by Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office, I understand it’s still a good product but unfortunately as with much software today they have moved over to a subscription model, which is fine for some software but not for backups imho.
Arc7 also has a good reputation, is a simple license product & allows both local backups to a usb or nas device & cloud based backups if needed.
Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Editon is free & also has a good reputation though I believe the free version limits you to usb storage only (but this may have changed)
R-Drive Image Standalone Also gets positive feedback.
With backups it’s worth understanding the process & types & also you need to test the restore process to ensure they are working & you understand the restore process.
Things to consider/investigate for yourself.
System vs file backups, do you want your whole system including your os installation or just data files backed up?
Full, Incremental or Differential Backups, You always start the first backup with a full backup of either your whole system
or data files.
The next backup can then be either of the three options, full takes the most space & time but will have the quickest restore time as each time you backup you have a full backup & only need to restore from the backup on the date in question.
Incremental backs up the difference since the last backup bet that full or incremental, so you do a full on Monday, incremental Tuesday-Sunday & notice that you lost some data Saturday, you have to have Monday’s full backup & the incremental on the days the file changes all available to restore to Saturday.
This uses the least space but can take the longest to restore, btw the backup sw manages the restore process you’re not expected to track what incremental backups are needed to restore.
Lastly The difference in incremental vs. differential backup is that, while an incremental backup only includes the data that has changed since the previous backup, a differential backup contains all of the data that has changed since the last full backup. Uses more space than Incremental but obviously needs less time & backup files to be available.
Making these choices really comes down to data volumes, importance, the impact of restore times & appetite for risk & cost.
For most home users a file/data backup is sufficient, the os backup is (generally) more focused on commercial situations where you need to get replacement systems up & running again asap, or where you have complex software setups that are time consuming to recreate.
The need to have point in time restores are not only but mainly: File deletion/corruption, if all you do is copy one disk to another repeatedly & you have a file corruption you have no way to go back to a good version, the same if data is inadvertently deleted & that’s missed once you over write you backup drive it’s gone.
Viruses/ransomware now have a nasty habit of infecting systems but not fully activating for some time, folk complain of restoring from a copy type backup you are suggesting that the virus/ransomware come back again & again, this is because your restoring data that’s already infected but dormant.
Point in time backups allow you to go back 10, 20, 60, etc days to discover a point free from infection.
But all of these points come down to individual appetite for risk & the old saying any backup is better than no backup (as long as it’s tested) 😉
Ransomware will actively seek out live ‘backups’ like this.
How?
Looking in my One Drive I see versions of files going back to 2017, and according to the internet it keeps 25 previous versions. So I guess it could make 26 changes to your files and wipe them out that way.
So is the consensus that we use One Drive to replicate data that’s held locally with the local copy being the primary (ie the ‘true’ version that is being copied to the cloud) and a separate (data only?) backup is made? Is that right?
Other way round, the remote copy will be the primary, because you can be editing the file on multiple devices and it would all sync back to that. It seems that there are limitations on what I thought One Drive did so perhaps you can take another backup as well.
I've probably destroyed my credibility now, if I ever had any, by being wrong about One Drive but I would not use a paid-for backup solution because if it becomes discontinued you may not be able to get your backups back. Windows has a built-in backup solution besides One Drive, that would be sufficient I would say.
It is a faff to keep plugging an external drive into a laptop, but if you also have a desktop as the OP does, you could plug the drive into that and when you use it it will do the backup of the same files that you've worked on your laptop, thanks to One Drive sync.
Well this is puzzling me. I am 100% certain I read and even tested out one of these systems where you looked at the version history of a folder and it would show delete files that you could recover, but I have just checked One Drive, Google Drive and the one we use at work and it doesn't appear to be a feature in any of them.
EDIT seems that I might be thinking of 'file history' which is apparently the recommended thing for Windows backups rather than the original backup utility. Still requires an external drive though.
Cougar
Alright.
Fair enough I get where you are coming from, but that little bit of code is as trustworthy as anything that MS produces... 😉
Many of the features and default settings are open to exploitation, reading a bit about these tools can
be useful to become familiar with these. A standard win setup has loads of mostly unwanted background network stuff going on and a whole heap of processes launch at startup that granted a modern PC will run quite happily, but I think its just a pointless waste of possible performance for most people, depends what you are doing with it I suppose. Plug n Pray is not for everyone 🙂
regarding backups. get a external drive (or 2), copy your precious files to it, sleep well.
A standard win setup has loads of mostly unwanted background network stuff going on and a whole heap of processes launch at startup that granted a modern PC will run quite happily, but I think its just a pointless waste of possible performance for most people
A waste of resources? Most background stuff isn't doing anything, and if it is, it doesn't do it when you are doing stuff in the foreground.
These days there isn't any point in going through the OS disabling stuff. Sometimes, a manufacturer ships actually bad software with a laptop - that is badly coded and chewing CPU - but Windows isn't really doing that any more.
I am 100% certain I read and even tested out one of these systems where you looked at the version history of a folder and it would show delete files that you could recover, but I have just checked One Drive, Google Drive and the one we use at work and it doesn’t appear to be a feature in any of them.
I can see a Version History on my OneDrive files when viewed from Windows Explorer. Right click the file, select One Drive icon and three options are available "Share", "View Online" and "Version History". Clicking Version History brings up a list if files available to recover... Looks to be about 25 or so...
In the online version, select the three ellipses next to the file and a drop down appears with lots of options, one of which is Version History.
Here you go - found instructions…
I can see a Version History on my OneDrive files when viewed from Windows Explorer
Yeah but you cannot do that if the file's deleted, of course. However, in Windows local file history which is the modern backup util, you can get the history of a folder and this will allow you to see files that were previously in it but have been deleted. But this is a feature of Windows local file history and not One Drive, which is where I got confused. One Drive only keeps things in a recycle bin for 30 days.
Curious that people are suggesting external HDD's for backups. I thought the very idea of HDD's gave everyone the galloping heebie jeebies now SSD's were flavour du jour...
Time to dig out the old Zip/Jazz/tape drives out mebbies 🙃
HDDs alright for backuo, probably, but you can get external SSDs too.
@molgrips - Ah I see what you mean - If you want to see previous versions of whole folders in Windows I think you will need an external device connected and then to enable File History in Control Panel>File History.
[ransomware] How?
If you can see it, so can a malicious application.
Windows has a built-in backup solution besides One Drive, that would be sufficient I would say.
It's probably better these days but Windows' own backup has always been terrible. My belt & braces backup for cloud data is a manual backup to an external hard disk that lives at my mum's.
A standard win setup has loads of mostly unwanted background network stuff going on and a whole heap of processes launch at startup that granted a modern PC will run quite happily, but I think its just a pointless waste of possible performance for most people, depends what you are doing with it I suppose. Plug n Pray is not for everyone 🙂
Go build two identical PCs to a reasonable modern spec. "Optimise" one of them. If "most people" can tell the difference in a blind test based purely on performance I'll give you my bike.
You're correct as far as it goes in that there's stuff going on in the background. But it simply doesn't matter. There's a longer form answer to this question too. 😁
Curious that people are suggesting external HDD’s for backups. I thought the very idea of HDD’s gave everyone the galloping heebie jeebies now SSD’s were flavour du jour…
Cloud services use mainly conventional HDDs, some use magic crystals but they charge a premium.
HDD can often be recovered, and usually gives some warning Dead SSD is dead. and they do it in an instant.
Go build two identical PCs to a reasonable modern spec. “Optimise” one of them. If “most people” can tell the difference in a blind test based purely on performance I’ll give you my bike.
granted nearly nobody! no room for more bikes anyway!
I resurrected quite a few "old" pcs over the lockdown for students to use. stripping the fat of the OS and using lightweight browsers and other apps on an SSD they performed fine, on a standard instal with all the latest apps they were like treacle.. on a cold day. Fast modern PC will run OK, but gains are there to be had if the user wants them.
Cloud services use mainly conventional HDDs, some use magic crystals but they charge a premium.
HDD can often be recovered, and usually gives some warning Dead SSD is dead. and they do it in an instant.
Apples and oranges.
Conventional HDDs are cheap and easy to replace. No cloud provider in their right mind would ever be performing data recovery on a failed disk, they'd just pull it out of the RAID stack and replace it. One would hope that there's sufficient High Availability redundancy to lose an entire datacentre and keep on ticking.
At worst they'd be recovering from backups rather than attempting recovery.
I resurrected quite a few “old” pcs over the lockdown for students to use. stripping the fat of the OS and using lightweight browsers and other apps on an SSD they performed fine, on a standard instal with all the latest apps they were like treacle.. on a cold day.
If it got to that point I'd be sticking Linux on them instead.
yeah but Spot*fy, much as I hate it....kidz...
yeah but Spot*fy, much as I hate it….kidz…
You can run it on Linux
I have 11 and 12 year old laptops, they work fine with standard Windows installs and SSDs.
Just a heads up here Battery is warrantied for 12 months all the dells we have had we wrongly assumed would be covered for 3 years as per their on site service included in the purchase price of the laptop , it transpires this is not the case and a battery is a wear item.
That being the only exception we have had no problems with Dell.
You can get a detailed battery report in HTML format by typing the below in an elevated command prompt (type cmd in the search bar and then when the command window shows up select "Run as Administrator). Then type the below.
powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\battery_report.html"
Once it's created you can browse to it and double click to open.
I have 11 and 12 year old laptops, they work fine with standard Windows installs and SSDs.
Win8 and 10 were basically Win7 with a lot of tidying up and interface changes. Win7 was basically Win Vista Service Pack 3. Any machine that could run Win7 or Win8 should run Win10 just fine. If you have 8 GB RAM and an SSD, running general apps and web stuff will be fine.