1TB (you could also consider SSD if it fits your budget - it is MUCH faster), quad core (6th generation, 6000 series Intel I5 or I7). I would want 16GB minimum DRAM and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 installed. The dedicated graphics option will give you more versatility IF you might choose to replace the card it ships with, but that decision would depend on the specs of the integrated graphics chip set and your needs (6th generation I5/I7 Intel processors include either 510 or 530 series graphics). There are probably also AMD equivalents available, but I'm not familiar with their products. Hope that helps. If you have a prospective model(s) that you're considering, post the specs, and I'm sure you'll get plenty of advice as there are a number of IT professionals on UHH.

Great shot of the Maseratti at Amelia Island concours - I hope to go this year. If you get up this way, consider attending the concours at Pinehurst, NC - it's getting to be world-class. Not quite to Pebble Beach or Amelia yet, but close.

Cad Allard

:thumbup:

Bill, with respect, I think that may have been true early in the deployment of SSDs, but with improved controller and wear-leveling technology, I think SSD reliability is now similar to or better than the best HDs (given good quality SSDs) and MUCH better than some of the popular HDs such as the Seagate 7200 series. It's hard to tell because SSDs have only become popular in the last few years (so we have limited long-term experience), there were some early failures, early SSDs were write operation-limited, and MTBF or return %#s between manufacturers are difficult to compare. Today, every major storage manufacturer (EMC, Netapp...) is now implementing flash and SSDs because of the orders-of-magnitude better IOPs performance. The only reason SSD/flash haven't yet completely replaced spinning disk is density and cost per TB. While SSD/flash is substantially more expensive on a cost/TB basis, it's by far the cheapest storage you can buy when comparing IOPs/$. On the average PC, how many solid state failures of DRAM or processors do you see for every HD failure? If you use an IPad or other tablet or an IPhone or Android device, you're using SSD/flash storage - when was the last time you saw a memory/storage HW failure? The truth is that solid state devices are inherently more reliable than mechanical systems.

Regarding catastrophic failures, while enterprise-class arrays/systems may utilize the drive's SMART technology to predict incipient failure from asymptoting bad blocks/sectors, the average non-commercial user sees an HD failure when the dreaded "drive not ready" error message appears, and by then it's often too late short of sending the drive to a speciality recovery service to hopefully read the data from the platter for many hundreds of dollars. With SSD failures, you may be able to recover data with recovery SW without purchasing an external service, so I'd consider it a wash.

I certainly agree that both SSDs and HDs have a limited lifespan, and I'd consider replacing either after 4 years and using a cloud-based or similar backup strategy to protect against an unexpected catastrophic failure. BTW, I have 8 Intel SSDs in use in multiple machines for 4+ years without a failure (Intel is expensive, but when was the last time you saw an Intel processor or device fail?), but I also use a cloud-based offsite backup. As I said, equal-to-equal HD vs SSD failure data is hard to come by, and if you have some, please post it - I'm ready to change my opinion if it's shown to be incorrect.

Cheers,
Chris

Excellent link - thank you!

With respect, do you have any published statistical evidence (other than your friend's anecdotal failures) that modern/recent SSDs are less reliable than spinning disk? If so, please share. Keep in mind that a recent large-scale test of HDs showed one popular brand with a >25% first-year failure rate. Here are a couple of links on the subject:

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2873551/data-center/debunking-ssd-myths.html
http://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/
http://mobile.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/ssd-vs.-hdd-performance-and-reliability-1.html

It's infrequent, but double (mirrored) drive failures do occur, usually from power/lightning, virus or environmental issues; making a cloud-based backup a very good idea if you're unwilling to risk years of valuable work and photos.

Yes he did!

The new UHS-II SD cards have almost 3x the performance of the UHS-1 cards (280 MB/sec vs 95 MB/sec) at 3-4x the cost of the UHS-1, BUT the camera needs a UHS-II interface (4 extra pins) to take advantage of the speed, otherwise, it defaults to UHS-1 speeds (Max). Theoretically, if a Canon 7D2 for example, writes 10 fps at 27MB (raw+LJpeg) per frame, then the speed of a UHS-II card would be just adequate to sustain the speed of the buffer-to-card transfer IF the camera had a UHS-II card interface and could move data from the buffer to the card at that speed (which it doesn't and can't). The question then is: does any current camera have that capability for either high speed burst or video to use the write speed capability of the new cards?

The Samsung pro series are very well regarded. Personally, after 20+ years in the data storage business, I use Intel - I've never (yet) seen a failure with their drives.

Thank you - local paper/sports section.

Lovely series of one of my favorite cities - beautiful work!

The SanDisk Extreme Pro (95 MB/sec) is one of the fastest SD cards available at a reasonable price - typically $25-$30 for 32 MB. Even if your present camera can't use the full speed, it won't be the limiting factor in storing images, and the performance will help you when downloading images from the card (providing you have an appropriate reader and USB3 connection). Plus, its performance will be good insurance if you use it when you move to a body with faster buffer-to-storage speed in the future.

Thanks Bob, I agree - all suggestions/critiques are appreciated.

Chris

Not my best, but glad to get published! Canon 5D MKIII, 70-200 f2.8L IS @ 200mm. SOOC JPEG - 1/500, f4.0, ISO 4000

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