I saw a primary school student buying an Asus ZenBook Pro 14 (from someone he knows), and it made me think a lot.
Preface#
The student bought it from a physical store, and it was 1000 yuan more expensive than on JD.com. Note that it's JD.com, if he had bought it from Taobao, it would have been cheaper. The hard drive was also replaced with an Intel 660P (1TB version). I couldn't help but exclaim, what a waste! Although it seems like an upgrade to the hard drive, it might be a second-hand defective machine returned by someone else, and it's a 660P (a solid-state drive with QLC particles), which has significantly worse performance and lifespan. Moreover, the warranty is also lacking (in terms of the amount of data that can be written during the warranty period). It reminds me of a saying about the 970 Pro:
970 Pro | Astonishing performance only for MLC
Then who will shine for mechanical hard drives?
Start#
Once upon a time, I was also a child who could only use mechanical hard drives to install the system. One day, my mechanical hard drive finally reached its limit, right? My parents finally gave me a budget to change the hard drive. I had long been yearning for an SSD, but due to interface limitations, I could only buy a SATA hard drive. After getting the SSD, I skillfully installed the system on it. When I turned on the computer, the Windows logo appeared, and the feeling of the software running extremely fast is something I will never forget. The lightning-fast startup speed made me think that my Athlon processor was going to regain its vitality. Unfortunately, its performance remained the same, and it would still lag when it came to performance-intensive tasks. However, it was good enough for a smooth experience with the Office suite. Looking back now, the development of SSDs has been going backwards, from SLC to MLC to TLC to QLC. The quality of the particles has been deteriorating. Although there are hard drives that simulate SLC for the entire disk, it also leads to write amplification, which exacerbates the wear and tear of the particles. The lifespan of TLC particles is already not abundant, and this write amplification further affects the balance between performance and lifespan. After all, the cost of SLC is still quite high.
What about mechanical hard drives? Mechanical hard drives are also going backwards. Almost all newly manufactured 2.5-inch consumer-grade mechanical hard drives have become SMR drives (shingled magnetic recording), while the traditional ones remain CMR drives. Of course, they are all PMR drives. So manufacturers often switch concepts and promote SMR drives as PMR drives. There is nothing wrong with saying that, but isn't it misleading consumers? In order to compensate for the performance loss caused by shingled recording, large-capacity caches were added to SMR drives. However, I actually saw 64 MiB SMR drives on shopping platforms? I can only exclaim, "Wow, they have really shrunk!" The important thing has shrunk, but the price is still the same as CMR drives. Well, maybe everyone just uses them as storage drives (╮(╯▽╰)╭).
In this era where electronic products are planned to be scrapped, when can we truly achieve environmental protection? Repairing them is really expensive. Apple finally allows third-party repairs, but old parts must be sent to Apple's designated location for recycling (I wonder what their intentions are).
End#
Are consumers and gamers tired already? Probably, right? When prices rise, they ignore the feelings of gamers, and when prices fall, they don't treat gamers as human beings. They want to have it both ways. It's exhausting.