Youtube hearted comments of Nicolae Crefelean (@kneekoo).
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Let's see what 360 TBW (TeraBytes Written) means in practice. Assuming 1TB of data being written every single day, the drive would lose its warranty in about 1 year. So this is clearly the wrong choice for people who do a lot of video editing or other storage intensive tasks on a daily basis.
But for the common user, who normally don't overpass 20GB of data written (on average), this translates into a lifespan of around 50 years, which is nuts. Even at 50GB written every single day, a QVO drive would last for around 20 years. And considering all the QVO drives (1/2/4TB) have a MTBF (mean time between failures) of 1.5 million hours (171 years), these drives are a great choice for a lot of users.
Now all we need is for them to become cheap enough for the everyday PC user, and the HDDs will no longer make sense for people who don't need massive amounts of storage capacity. And when this happens, the HDD prices will go up, because of the lower demand. In probably 2-3 years after their prices increase, while the SSD prices would be going down, the HDD/SSD price/capacity ratio will even out and it will make more sense to buy SSDs because of their higher speed. By that time, the SSD will have become what HDDs are today, and NVMe SSDs will be the go to choice for people requiring more performance at a reasonably more expensive price.
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I've been choosing PC parts with power consumption in mind for over 20 years - always custom builds, so I can have maximum control. I have also learned to optimize my resource consumption by disabling unnecessary services and startup programs. There's also the choice of more efficient software that does the same job faster without burning a lot of CPU/GPU power, so it's a good habit to learn skills, not specific software, to be able to migrate to something more lean if opportunity shows up. And I learned to settle for less GPU power, having used iGPUs since they became reasonable enough for HQ multimedia and some gaming.
Many people don't seriously consider the fact that had all of these cool games come out, our lives would've gone just the same, we would've played what we had at hand. My happiness doesn't rely on a flood of newer and newer entertainment, but simply being able to be entertained. There are so many forms of entertainment, including less power hungry gaming, that we could game on for more time that we actually have - if gaming was really that big of a priority.
Of course, not everyone has the luxury of using iGPUs - some people need fast rendering for what they do, but most people don't do that. And many can adjust their habits, expectations, and knowledge, to be able to do a lot with less. And technology keeps improving. Both Intel and AMD now have quite decent iGPUs that can easily support streaming (to Twitch, YouTube, facebook, etc), some fairly decent gaming, rendering and other stuff. So it's always a good idea to check the latest options, to see if something significantly more power efficient can cover our needs. It's a scary thought for some, but then we should always keep in mind that adding a dedicated GPU to our PC is possible, provided it's a desktop PC, but it's also the case of some laptops. Just plan ahead a bit.
Apart from using less energy, some added benefits of using iGPUs is that the PC is quieter (less fan noise), and it generates less heat, which some people try to get rid of by using air conditioning (more power, more money, more noise).
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They only pre-built computers I bought were laptops and the Raspberry Pis. The exception was my first computer, a second-hand one, that I had to buy as such because I couldn't afford anything else. For over 25 years now, I've spent a lot of time deciding what parts to buy. Nowadays, that is what I consider when buying parts for a new PC:
1. The CPU has to have the performance I need at the lowest power consumption possible. This allows me to run the PC for long hours without overspending on electricity.
2. The motherboard must allow:
- CPU upgrades if I ever need more power;
- RAM upgrades if I ever need more (4 slots are best for cheaper upgrades);
- Enough storage device connections, which is important so I can add more storage when necessary;
- The addition of a modern GPU (on the latest or previous generation of PCI-E) if I believe I'll ever need more than integrated graphics.
3. The storage would have to be:
- The fastest (or close to it) and most reliable SSD (most write cycles) that I can buy, only "compromising" on capacity (great performance and durable);
- A large enough HDD for "big data".
Obviously, when it comes to specialized PCs, like a NAS, the priorities shift towards motherboards with more connections for storage devices and no special need for more than 2 slots of RAM, though if I can find a model with 4 slots at a very close price I choose that because it has better value if I ever want to sell it. I've never sold one, though. So as you would expect, I have a (not so) small museum. 😆
P.S. Great video, I loved it! 👍
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I started watching the video and paused it to get some groceries. After the checkout I saw two laptops in a display: one for €199 and the other for €299. Since I'm a PC builder, I came back home disillusioned with the thought that we consider a $500 PC a "budget" (cheaper) one, when two full computers were right there for the price of one without peripherals. I thought that regardless of their specifications, you can actually start doing things with them - no assembly required, no need for a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers, they just work as such. So I started wondering if building PCs is still worth it, and if a $500 budget can still be considered cheap.
But before I could answer that, I went online to check out the specifications of those laptops. Sad to say, those are e-waste under warranty. The €199 laptop has a weak and old Celeron CPU (N4120, launched in 2019), 4GB RAM and 128 GB flash memory on-board, very likely eMMC. Its only redeeming qualities are the extra M.2 2280 slot for a better storage device, although that's S-ATA, not NVMe, and it has a 14" Full HD display, which is reasonable. The one for €299 has a Celeron N4500 (launched in 2021), 8GB RAM and, thankfully, an NVMe SSD, though only 256 GB, with a 15.6" display.
As long as you know what you're doing, and what you get a PC for, there are for sure cheaper options than $500. However, that's pretty much the danger zone when you want the ability to upgrade in the future, let alone the fact that you'd have to be comfortable with reduced productivity until you spend more money. So when it comes to budget PCs, more often than not, you get what you pay for - unless you know someone who can give you good advice (for free 😆).
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Over short distances, across a metropolis, air taxis are more inefficient than airplanes because they fly much lower, where both air drag and gravity are stronger than 12km up. We're still far from having working prototypes that tick all the important check-boxes when it comes to flying machines in low altitude. Gravity, air drag, bigger batteries to compensate, extra weight added by the batteries, redundant systems and even parachutes... so you bet it's hard. Basically, I expect air taxis to be the next step in the evolution of private airplanes, just electric and capable of taking off and landing vertically, but quite expensive due to their cost. We'll have to wait and "see" their noise levels when they become reality, not just computer animations. :P
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