# A chicken in every pot and a SSD in every computer



## lilmsmaggie (Apr 9, 2013)

SSD capacity continues to increase ...

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3132_7-57578656-98/crucial-m500-brings-ssd-pricing-to-a-new-low


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## 2n10 (Apr 9, 2013)

This is a very welcome development.


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## dstppy (Apr 9, 2013)

Regardless of what they tell you, this will NOT speed up your chickens.

There's an inherent bus issue with most chickens.


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## 2n10 (Apr 9, 2013)

dstppy said:


> Regardless of what they tell you, this will NOT speed up your chickens.
> 
> There's an inherent bus issue with most chickens.



LOL ;D


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## 3kramd5 (Apr 9, 2013)

lilmsmaggie said:


> SSD capacity continues to increase ...



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227724


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## RLPhoto (Apr 9, 2013)

3kramd5 said:


> lilmsmaggie said:
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> > SSD capacity continues to increase ...
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I Didn't even know this existed. Must be stupendously fast.


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## TexasBadger (Apr 9, 2013)

I just put a Samsung 512gb 840 Pro in my Sony Vaio laptop. The included software cloned my drive and set the parameters for a SSD. Everything transferred over without any problem (OS, applications, files). Now my laptop screams and cold boots in less than 30 seconds. Before it was taking ~ 5 minutes. I then put the HDD I took out of the laptop and put it in a ThermalTake USB 3.0 external drive enclosure. Happy, happy, joy, joy.


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## Halfrack (Apr 9, 2013)

Is it wrong I want to purchase if for no other reason than North Korea being ).( may cause supply issues?


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## coltsfreak18 (Apr 9, 2013)

RLPhoto said:


> 3kramd5 said:
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> > lilmsmaggie said:
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Did somebody say stupendously fast? This isn't even the most recent model...

http://ocz.com/enterprise/z-drive-r4-pcie-ssd/rs-specifications


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 10, 2013)

I just received my Samsung 512 GB SSD 240 PRO Its faster than the Crucial. They were $399. I have it teamed with my 256GB Samsung 830 as a boot disk and the 512 for data. If I needed 1TB, I'd put two of the 840 pros in a raid setup for $800.


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## tbadowski (Apr 10, 2013)

I just returned my Samsung SSD. I built up a system with that as my system drive and a pair of 2 terabyte drives RAID'd for data. After the 2nd time the drive deformatted itself spontaneously, I lost faith. But it was fast when I had it.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 10, 2013)

tbadowski said:


> I just returned my Samsung SSD. I built up a system with that as my system drive and a pair of 2 terabyte drives RAID'd for data. After the 2nd time the drive deformatted itself spontaneously, I lost faith. But it was fast when I had it.


I have nine of them without ever having had a problem. I suppose that a tiny few will fail, but Samsung are the most reliable, dependinng on which model. The 830's and 840 pros are good. The 840's have a different technology, so they are a unknown until there are more users.


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## docholliday (Apr 10, 2013)

In the last year, I have had over two dozen SSDs fail between me and many of my client's boxes. However, the only SSDs that work without a problem (and never had one) are:

Intel SSDs
Samsung 840s
Plextor M3Pro & M5Pro

Everything else, especially the junk-ass Corsair, Crucial, and OCZ drives are just that - junk. Primarily the Corsair drives - I had 3 die in the first 3 weeks of installing it, and of course, they sent me a refurb even though I bought the drive new. So, they send me another, it dies. 

Actually, it's not the manufacturer's fault - it's just that SandForce controllers are weak and horrible, reliability-wise. They are fast, but they also die fast. 

My data cluster on my big box is RAID 6ADG 15K SCSI 300GB disks, and the controllers are mirrored also. That's reliability - never powered off and so far, one cluster is approaching 5 years constant uptime.

My Visual Studio/Lightroom portable? Fujitsu T731, Core i7, 16GB DDR3, Plextor 512GB SSD - fast, smooth, reliable and holds about 13 hours battery life. 

Next drive for the desktop environment: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/display/20130408232555_WD_s_HGST_Unveils_World_s_First_Solid_State_Drives_with_SAS_12Gb_s_Interface.html


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## Rienzphotoz (Apr 10, 2013)

I am aware that SSD will significantly increase the start up times and read/write times but I have a specific question regarding the the performance of Adobe CS6, Lightroom 4.4, Final Cut Pro etc, with an SSD:
I currently have a Mac Book Pro Mid 2010 (OSX 10.8.3) with 16 GB DDR 3 RAM, 750GB HDD, 2.9 GHz intel Core i7 processor, and all of the above programs work perfectly, I have no issue at all, but what I want to know is will upgrading to an SSD will have a significant performance improvement after those programs have been launched?


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## Halfrack (Apr 10, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> I am aware that SSD will significantly increase the start up times and read/write times but I have a specific question regarding the the performance of Adobe CS6, Lightroom 4.4, Final Cut Pro etc, with an SSD:
> I currently have a Mac Book Pro Mid 2010 (OSX 10.8.3) with 16 GB DDR 3 RAM, 750GB HDD, 2.9 GHz intel Core i7 processor, and all of the above programs work perfectly, I have no issue at all, but what I want to know is will upgrading to an SSD will have a significant performance improvement after those programs have been launched?



I'll sum it up for everyone, just do it. Pick your vendor and do it. Don't ask, just do it.


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## RGF (Apr 10, 2013)

Now $0.50/GB down from $1 earlier this year. Hope this trends accelerates - like to see SSD down below $0.25/GB ($250/1TB) and eventually below $0.10/GB ($100/TB).


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## expatinasia (Apr 10, 2013)

This is good news indeed. I have 500GB in my laptop and the two are nearly always full, and I still carry an external with me to events. In fact I actually back up through three different externals so the one I carry with me is always nearly empty (ish).

Having 2 TB inside the machine would be very welcome indeed.


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## 3kramd5 (Apr 10, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> I am aware that SSD will significantly increase the start up times and read/write times but I have a specific question regarding the the performance of Adobe CS6, Lightroom 4.4, Final Cut Pro etc, with an SSD:
> I currently have a Mac Book Pro Mid 2010 (OSX 10.8.3) with 16 GB DDR 3 RAM, 750GB HDD, 2.9 GHz intel Core i7 processor, and all of the above programs work perfectly, I have no issue at all, but what I want to know is will upgrading to an SSD will have a significant performance improvement after those programs have been launched?



That depends on whether those programs are continually reading and writing to that drive (i.e. you don't have an external data drive). 

In my system, I have two SSDs. One is for the OS and applications. The other is where I import photo (and the odd video) sessions to, and for application scratch space (e.g. LR, Photoshop, Edius). Lightroom catalogs get created on that second SSD on a per-shoot basis (e.g. I have SSD\LIGHTROOM\2013-04-10\2013-04-10.lrcat and SSD\DATA\2013-04-10\<DNG files>), and they remain there until my workflow is complete after which I push them to my archival library on a large spinning drive.

It's noticeably faster, particularly for large sessions where my memory (16GB) is quickly consumed and I have to rely on swap (but to be fair, my previous methodology had me working from a 5400RPM drive, so the jump to SATA3 SSD may not be representative of your gains). This is all subjective. I've done no testing.


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## lilmsmaggie (Apr 10, 2013)

This article may help answer your question:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance







Rienzphotoz said:


> I am aware that SSD will significantly increase the start up times and read/write times but I have a specific question regarding the the performance of Adobe CS6, Lightroom 4.4, Final Cut Pro etc, with an SSD:
> I currently have a Mac Book Pro Mid 2010 (OSX 10.8.3) with 16 GB DDR 3 RAM, 750GB HDD, 2.9 GHz intel Core i7 processor, and all of the above programs work perfectly, I have no issue at all, but what I want to know is will upgrading to an SSD will have a significant performance improvement after those programs have been launched?


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## expatinasia (Apr 11, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> I am aware that SSD will significantly increase the start up times and read/write times but I have a specific question regarding the the performance of Adobe CS6, Lightroom 4.4, Final Cut Pro etc, with an SSD:
> I currently have a Mac Book Pro Mid 2010 (OSX 10.8.3) with 16 GB DDR 3 RAM, 750GB HDD, 2.9 GHz intel Core i7 processor, and all of the above programs work perfectly, I have no issue at all, but what I want to know is will upgrading to an SSD will have a significant performance improvement after those programs have been launched?



It is a little like a DSLR, there are many components that make it better.

I am no fan of anything "Apple" and I recommend the high end Lenovo or Dell machines for heavy image, engineering apps and HD video etc.

That aside, it will give you a boost upgrading to an SSD if all the components are correctly in place and aligned. The CPU plays a major part, the video card again is extremely important, your RAM and the type of RAM etc. Plus a lot of people forget the bus, if you connect an SSD to a SATA 2 bus then performance will be limited. I think 3 (GB/s) is the latest (not sure though), so no matter what the SSD claims is the read/write speed if your laptop cannot handle those speeds you just won't get them

My laptop currently has two SSDs in it and could have four, but for me the main advantage with SSD (apart from the speed) is how quiet they are. Really makes a difference to your day if you work somewhere very quiet.

So would I recommend an SSD, definitely. Do I recommend upgrading a current laptop from a 750GB spin drive with all the headaches that that entails? That is the major question imho. Personally, I probably would wait until you want to upgrade your entire laptop. But if you are comfortable technically moving from a 750GB spin to a SSD then why not.


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## Rienzphotoz (Apr 11, 2013)

expatinasia said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
> 
> 
> > I am aware that SSD will significantly increase the start up times and read/write times but I have a specific question regarding the the performance of Adobe CS6, Lightroom 4.4, Final Cut Pro etc, with an SSD:
> ...


Thanks for your reply ... unfortunately it does not answer my question. My question is very specific, i.e. "will upgrading to an SSD have a significant performance improvement specifically for CS6, LR 4.4 & Final Cut Pro, *after* they have been launched?
I also use a Dell Alienware Mx14 (2012 version Core i7) which has a dedicated graphic card, yet the MacBook Pro outperforms but my question, about SSD replacment, remains the same for either systems.


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## expatinasia (Apr 11, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> expatinasia said:
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Your Alienware is nice but it is not the top end Dell or Lenovo I was talking about, they are different beasts entirely. Anyway, my answer does answer your question. Which bit are you unclear of? I say, in extremely brief summary of what I wrote before, that it depends on numerous factors not just the SSD.


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## Maui5150 (Apr 11, 2013)

dstppy said:


> Regardless of what they tell you, this will NOT speed up your chickens.
> 
> There's an inherent bus issue with most chickens.



I disagree. When I inserted this into a chicken's "bus" it speed up quite a bit faster... you might even call it overdrive mode.

Did make considerable much more noise though


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## faidwen (Apr 11, 2013)

You will find that a RAID array might increase your performance more than just an SSD depending on what specifically you are trying to accomplish.

Being able to read the data from more than one location can greatly increase disk heavy performance.

For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels


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## Jay H (Apr 11, 2013)

If your motherboard does not support SATA III - 6mb/sec vs SATA II 3mb/sec - you need something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115075

This will improve both SATA III SSD's and SATA III mechanical drives performance significantly. I have 8 SSD's and 18 HD's. In my experience, with several HD's installed, some not recently accessed ones will spin down, causing a substantial lag when accessed. SSD's do not have this problem.

I prefer to read from SSD's and write to HD's.

Overall, my subjective observation over the last year or so is that Windows boots faster and programs load faster with SSD's. Write times - not so much.


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## 2n10 (Apr 11, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> expatinasia said:
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It will help with program start up but after the program starts for the most part everything is in your RAM. So for the most part no additional help after start up. Write should be faster so that may be the only noticeable increase.


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## InterMurph (Apr 11, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If I needed 1TB, I'd put two of the 840 pros in a raid setup for $800.


Don't put an SSD in a RAID array; it will kill your performance. The SSD firmware does a ton of optimizations to keep itself healthy long-term, and RAID undermines that.


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## InterMurph (Apr 11, 2013)

faidwen said:


> You will find that a RAID array might increase your performance more than just an SSD depending on what specifically you are trying to accomplish.


Can I guess that you don't own an SSD?

Putting spinning drives in a RAID array for performance does not actually increase real-world performance. It looks great on benchmark tests, but does very little for actual usage.

An SSD, on the other hand, makes a HUGE difference.

SSD is for performance, RAID is for reliabiltiy and redundancy.


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## Rienzphotoz (Apr 11, 2013)

2n10 said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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> > expatinasia said:
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Thanks for replying to my specific question ... appreciate that.
Regards


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## Pi (Apr 11, 2013)

There are still mechanical HDs in use?


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## dstppy (Apr 11, 2013)

Maui5150 said:


> dstppy said:
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> 
> > Regardless of what they tell you, this will NOT speed up your chickens.
> ...



There's something you're not sharing. You have to be liquid cooling your chicken otherwise it'd cook in under 10 minutes (you can do this with a turducken, but it's overkill and costs a fortune).

And don't give me that "I'm using the stock heat sink on the chicken" crap, we know better.


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## jcollett (Apr 11, 2013)

SSDs are great for boot drives and program installs. For data storage, it can still be expensive and you must be religious about backing up. (A good idea whether using standard HDD or SSD)

Saw someone bash SandForce. The company does produce good products and now are in many of the lower priced drives. There were issues when the SF-2281 chip was released. Improper firmware was often the culprit. Problems are less of a concern with recent implementations using the chip. 

SandForce uses a compression and encryption routine when writing to the drives so compressible data works well with the drives.

Most issues with the SSD tech have been worked out and it is a good time for non-techies to add them to their computers. Even if the bus in the computer cannot take full advantage of the speed of the drive, the drive will maximize the performance of the bus and the computer's abilities. Remember, the storage system of a computer is by far the slowest element in the machine so improvements in this area are immediately apparent.


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## 3kramd5 (Apr 11, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> 2n10 said:
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Except, say you import a handful of 5Dmk3 raws into photoshop. That alone will likely exceed your memory, and you'll be pushed into virtual memory. Having a faster drive setup (be it 6GB/s SATA3 drives with or without striped or mirrored arrays) will be better than having a slower drive setup (say SATA2 spinning drives).



jcollett said:


> SSDs are great for boot drives and program installs. For data storage, it can still be expensive and you must be religious about backing up. (A good idea whether using standard HDD or SSD)



Anecdotal, I've had a much higher percentage of spinning drives fail than SS. There are far fewer failure modes with SSD.


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## TexasBadger (Apr 12, 2013)

A SSD will improve performance not only when opening applications, but when working with the files. This is readily apparent when using plugins like Nik of OnOne software. You will save a lot of cumulative time with a SSD. :


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## Chosenbydestiny (Apr 12, 2013)

expatinasia said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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I see some good points, but buying a completely new computer doesn't solve or directly answer the OP. I'm sure he or she needs help with his or her existing equipment. I own both low to high end Apple imac and macbook pros and top of the line Dell computers (both XPS laptop and XPS desktop from when I used to work for Dell), as well as a computer built from scratch. By upgrading my old 2009 macbook pro with an SSD I noticed improvements in both the OS and applications for startup. Not so much in final cut and adobe premiere overall performance but it seems that there are less spinning beach balls overall. I do a lot of onsite editing for wedding clients so any boost in performance is very much welcome. I'd even go as close to saying, without scientific testing, that the transcode speed has increased by about 10%. Since I only have 3-4 hours total to cut a wedding video, shaving off about 20 minutes, not including the time saved by being more stable, has helped a lot. Now, by putting an SSD in my high end Dell, I have noticed similar performance, even a little bit better video encoding performance. I have a hybrid drive... momentus XT which I installed on my iMac, and it also performs better than the stock drive but not as much as I expected. Little things like zipping files seem faster. I will say this though, with the right hardware, editing a music video styled project is extremely more efficient with Final Cut X compared to other NLEs on high end systems, which isn't supposed to be compatible with windows.... And when it's installed by unsupported methods, it doesn't work as well  Been there, done that.


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## danski0224 (Apr 12, 2013)

I attempted to install an Intel SSD in a HP tx2000 series laptop, and it didn't work.

The OS would boot and then it would lock up. When it did work, boy it was quick.

After consulting with Intel tech support, they determined that something in the BIOS would not allow the SSD to function and I returned it. There were no available updates.

According to manufacturer specs, the SSD was backwards compatible and I had a SATA HDD.

I guess the moral of the story is there are some instances where the latest hardware won't work on "old" computers.


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## GMCPhotographics (Apr 12, 2013)

If you are using a desktop or a 17" laptop with 2 drive bays (Yeah baby!) it's best to use a fast SSD as a boot / OS/Apps drive and a slower but larger mechanical drive for data. I'm currently using a Vertex III 240gb as my C: and a Western Digital caviar blue 1 TB for my data in a Dell XPS17....and it rocks. Win7 64bit, Quad core I7 and 16gb Ram...it flies through Lightroom Photoshop. With Lightroom, I've set the database and previews to the SSD but the RAW files are stored on the 1TB drive. According to Adobe, there is no performance gain in putting your RAWs on the SSD. And yes...it rocks.


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## docholliday (Apr 12, 2013)

Just do as my desktop: shove an additional 64GB of ram into it, and set it as a ramdisk. Then, set your LR cache to it. Makes a huge difference when rendering 1:1 previews.


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## paulc (Apr 12, 2013)

For a lower $/GB cost, the Seagate Momentus XT drives are everything they claim to be. They're not up to SSD levels, but for most work they're quite good and still head and shoulders above just a straight mechanical drive.


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## dolina (Feb 5, 2014)

240GB Crucial M500 with firmware MU03 on a 2010 13-inch Macbook Pro with Superdrive through SATA 3Gb/s (300MB/s) interface. Clean install of 10.9.1 + other updates. TRIM not enabled as it was recommended by a Crucial employee that the built-in Garbage Collecting is sufficient.




240GB Crucial M500 in 2010 13-inch Macbook Pro by 500px.com/dolina, on Flickr

I was able to source a 2nd HDD bracket so I can make a Fusion Drive.


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## bluenoser1993 (Feb 5, 2014)

I was all set to upgrade my 2009 Mac Book to SSD and RAM, but for not much more ($500) I was able to buy 2012 Mac Air with the SSD, double the RAM as well as newer generation, better screen, and the seller through in an external 500 Mb external HDD. It opened my eyes to the used market. It may not be the speed demon I was dreaming about when I looked at the website, but the key is that it is no longer a dream! Plus my son was the lucky recipient of a computer that wasn't great for Aperture/LR, but far better than he had. If what you have is useful to someone else (or yourself in other applications), the upgrade money might be better spent elsewhere.


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## Rofflesaurrr (Feb 5, 2014)

Someone buy this SSD and let me know how it is. Thinking about buying one if I win the lottery twice. 

http://www.solidstateworks.com/ioDrive-Octal.asp


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## RLPhoto (Feb 5, 2014)

Rofflesaurrr said:


> Someone buy this SSD and let me know how it is. Thinking about buying one if I win the lottery twice.
> 
> http://www.solidstateworks.com/ioDrive-Octal.asp



Give it 4 years then you'll buy two for your computer.


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## Rienzphotoz (Feb 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Rofflesaurrr said:
> 
> 
> > Someone buy this SSD and let me know how it is. Thinking about buying one if I win the lottery twice.
> ...


 ;D ;D ;D ... but enough of this SSD talk ... the subject title also refers to, (in fact starts with) "A chicken in every pot" (which is the main reason I read this thread), but I am very disappointed to note that after 3 pages of comments & 5999 hits (to this thread) no one is talking about the chicken in the pot.


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