SSD Only Laptop

Just purchased a Dell XPS 13 for my son as his high school graduation present. He'll be using it in college, taking it from classroom to classroom, taking notes and whatnot. He'll also be using it for his music making -- video and audio editing -- as well as LR and PS.

The laptop is equipped with 256GB M.2 PCle SSD and no HDD. One question I have is what's the most efficient way to manage this SSD space? Should he lump operating programs with other "shelf" storage items like photos, videos, and documents, or separate them by using the shelf items in an external hard drive or a flash drive or iCloud?

SYS wrote in post #18295267
Just purchased a Dell XPS 13 for my son as his high school graduation present. He'll be using it in college, taking it from classroom to classroom, taking notes and whatnot. He'll also be using it for his music making -- video and audio editing -- as well as LR and PS.

The laptop is equipped with 256GB M.2 PCle SSD and no HDD. One question I have is what's the most efficient way to manage this SSD space? Should he lump operating programs with other "shelf" storage items like photos, videos, and documents, or separate them by using the shelf items in an external hard drive or a flash drive or iCloud?

I have used an SSD-only HP laptop for business travel internationally for over 5 years, due to its thinness and low weight and long battery life (7 hours/charge).
I prefer to put Win 7 O/S and application programs on the SSD, but I put most of my data onto an SD card that fits unobtrusively in the SD slot in the laptop. That way I can rapidly swap out SD cards as needed...I have an SD for business files, another SD for personal files, and virtually unlimited storage capacity limited only by how many SD cards I want to carry with me (which is not an issue with the size and weight of the SD!)

I usually put my operating system and applications on one partition, then all data on another.
Makes recovery and backup nice and simple.

In your scenario, I'd add an SSD HD in the spare slot, and dump my data on there. (do note that it will be significantly(!) slower than the m.2 NVMe PCIe SSD on the XPS13. Throughput rates for a standard SATA SSD drive (Samsung 840/850 EVO/Pro) is in the 500-540mbps, vs. 2500-3500mbps for the PCIe devices.

Personally, I'd pull the original PCIe SSD, and replace it with a 1Tb Samsung SM961 for all apps, data, etc, and put a slower 1Tb SSD in the HDD bay for backup/extra data if needed.

Wilt wrote in post #18295273
I have used an SSD-only HP laptop for business travel internationally for over 5 years, due to its thinness and low weight and long battery life (7 hours/charge).
I prefer to put Win 7 O/S and application programs on the SSD, but I put most of my data onto an SD card that fits unobtrusively in the SD slot in the laptop. That way I can rapidly swap out SD cards as needed...I have an SD for business files, another SD for personal files, and virtually unlimited storage capacity limited only by how many SD cards I want to carry with me (which is not an issue with the size and weight of the SD!)

That's an idea! Knowing my son's terribly unorganized lifestyle, I'm a bit wary that he'd manage to lose the SD cards but that's his responsibility. Thanks, Wilt, for the idea.

Are there any particular SD cards that you'd recommend?

SYS wrote in post #18295317
Are there any particular SD cards that you'd recommend?

Unfortunate that the Rob Galbraith read/write testing of memory in cameras is no longer published on the web and kept up to date! Consulting the results of CF cards showed that the Lexar and Sandisk were generally among the fastest CF, and Sandisk was generally among the fastest SD memory.

But I did find this, and it still seems to hold true that Sandisk is still generally among the fastest SD

https://www.cameramemo​ryspeed.com/canon-80d/sd-card-comparison/

adamo99 wrote in post #18295313
I usually put my operating system and applications on one partition, then all data on another.
Makes recovery and backup nice and simple.

In your scenario, I'd add an SSD HD in the spare slot, and dump my data on there. (do note that it will be significantly(!) slower than the m.2 NVMe PCIe SSD on the XPS13. Throughput rates for a standard SATA SSD drive (Samsung 840/850 EVO/Pro) is in the 500-540mbps, vs. 2500-3500mbps for the PCIe devices.

Personally, I'd pull the original PCIe SSD, and replace it with a 1Tb Samsung SM961 for all apps, data, etc, and put a slower 1Tb SSD in the HDD bay for backup/extra data if needed.

This could be a solution down the road, depending on how my son uses his laptop. The way he's been using it in the past (very little data accumulation), I'll wait to see. With his desire to get into video music making, as well as photography, his needs might change. Not knowing the latest methods of laptop manufacturing, I'm assuming that your suggestions are a simple matter of swapping.

Wilt wrote in post #18295327
Unfortunate that the Rob Galbraith read/write testing of memory in cameras is no longer published on the web and kept up to date! Consulting the results of CF cards showed that the Lexar and Sandisk were generally among the fastest CF, and Sandisk was generally among the fastest SD memory.

But I did find this, and it still seems to hold true that Sandisk is still generally among the fastest SD

https://www.cameramemo​ryspeed.com/canon-80d/sd-card-comparison/

Great, thanks, Wilt, much appreciated!

This sounds like premature optimisation. Use the SSD for everything, for now. If it fills up you can think about options, which could include an external disk or cloud storage for rarely used data.

adamo99 wrote in post #18295313
In your scenario, I'd add an SSD HD in the spare slot, and dump my data on there. (do note that it will be significantly(!) slower than the m.2 NVMe PCIe SSD on the XPS13. Throughput rates for a standard SATA SSD drive (Samsung 840/850 EVO/Pro) is in the 500-540mbps, vs. 2500-3500mbps for the PCIe devices

In theory this may be true and a consideration, but with real world scenarios the difference IMO would be hardly noticeable.

Tim2017 wrote in post #18295750
BTW SSD is also a HARD DRIVE only faster and more sophisticated without any moving parts.

In a classic sense, an SSD is not a hard drive, though it serves the same function. Hard disk drives (HDD) are defined as non-volatile computer storage devices containing magnetic disks or platters rotating at high speeds.

John from PA wrote in post #18295722
In theory this may be true and a consideration, but with real world scenarios the difference IMO would be hardly noticeable.

I use both regularly- and depending on the file sizes transferred and moved around- the difference can be quite substantial.

the other option is to also upgrade the SSD to 500mb or 1TB. This will give the flexibility to put programs and files on the one drive.

If you do this you can then teach your son to keep current projects on the laptop and backup to a slower spinning disk or to a SD card in the SD slot.

it would be important to teach the idea that backups are important and something that people need to do on a ongoing basis. Even SSD's fail. Even with Trim enabled it can be harder to get data back.

adamo99 wrote in post #18296552
I use both regularly- and depending on the file sizes transferred and moved around- the difference can be quite substantial.

I do as well with the XPS 13 coupled to a Samsung T3 SSD at the USB type C port and see very little difference. I've never checked it on the USB 3.0 ports.

256gb is not very large if your son starts editing music and video. Further, it is not a good idea to fill up an SSD (or physical hard drive,) as performance and lifetime both take a hit. I suggest either a) replacing the SSD with a larger one, or b) adding a 1tb hard drive (if the XPS 13 has a second slot.)

I have a Dell XPS 13 and love it (compared to all previous laptops). At first I was a bit worried about filling up the 256 GB SSD which seemed to be of limited size compared (say) to my desktop. But after about a year, that has not happened. Obviously it depends on how much stuff you have, but I would just use the computer and enjoy it and worry about space if/when it starts to fill up.

In the meantime, buy a cheap 1 TB USB hard drive for $50 and use it for backups.

I like Wilt's idea of plugging in multiple SD cards, but would actually not go that route unless the SSD gets full, or there might be some private files needing different treatment.