New laptop

I moved to a new apartment. It doesn't have Internet so I went to apply for a new connection. You usually get great discounts if you buy a new PC with the new connection. So in my case, I was thinking of replacing my slow UL20A with something that suited 2011.

There were only options really. Either get an Asus UX31 or a MacBook Air 13". Both were available so I tried both of them before deciding which one to go for.

The Asus felt so much snappier and it was much easier to use. I felt right at home with Windows 7. However, the track pad was impossible to use. It was jumpy and this was with the updated driver.

Then I compared it to the track pad of the MacBook Air. It was great but kind of slow. But that could be adjusted. However, when I tried to use the laptop, it was so difficult. I didn't know the keyboard shortcuts. (apparently they are long cuts if you look at the default key combinations.) Anyways, when I tried typing on it, it was so much easier. The mouse pad didn't distract my typing.

Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT) for a data drive – worth it?

Background

This all started when Seagate launched the new MomentusXT 750GB drives. I was wondering if getting two of them to replace my 2TB RAID-0 data drive (2x1TB Samsung F3s)  was worth it. After checking the current prices of the MomentusXT drive, I gave up the idea. Each drive cost 18,000 JPY which is outrageous (for just 750GB per drive). Anyways, the “idea of caching” didn’t leave my mind right there.

Instead of getting all new drives, I could buy the OCZ Synapse Cache drives to get the same effect. OCZ have specifically released an SSD for caching. The cache management is done by their proprietary software.  I could not find it online in Japan, but the Newegg prices are pretty steep as well. $150 for 64GB, which is about $2.4/GB. You can get 120GB SSDs almost for that price these days. For example, the OCZ Agility 3 120GB is ~$152 (JPY 11,980) these days.

Antec Kuhler 620 performance with different fans

Hey news flash! I am not happy with the cooling performance of my CPU cooler. But you all know, I’m never happy with anything, but that’s me. Some people are hard to satisfy. (That can be bad for both parties though)

Anyways, I tried many fans to get better cooling performance out of this radiator. There is no going back for me. I’m stuck with water cooling. A quality air cooler performs much better than these clumsy closed-loop water coolers for the same price (or even less) but they are very big.