e.g. This Lenovo? One of my family members needs a new desktop and we were going to build one as I have the itch to do it again, however, purchasing one is so much more convenient. The reason I ask is, e.g. if this one was purchased, we could purchase a SSD drive and use it for the operating system and just use the HDD for storage. Every PC I've seen on sale this week has a 1TB drive. Do they not offer SSDs because of questionable long term durability/reliability? I built this with one in 2012 and it's been flawless! Thank you!
Because an SSD and HDD combo wouldn't sell that cheap. Forget about the price point with just a 1TB SSD. You already answered your question about SSD durability/reliability. Do you think your relative would appreciate, or care, about an SSD? That he/she would take exception if an app opened in a blink or two of an eye instead of ½ a blink? If so, then sure... SSD. And, of course, it's only money. I'd venture to say that 4th gen i5 with 8GB RAM and its 1TB HDD (most likely with 32MB cache) has more speed than he/she will ever need. That's a nice price, BTW, considering it's Windows 10 out of the box and not one of the Windows 8.1 and "Free Update" deals out there these days. Two relatives are delighted with the $200 3rd gen Pentiums I had them buy earlier this year.
well my desktops that I have bought manufacture made all have a extra bay for HDD and extra bays for DVD type drives. ALso these can be sued as extra hdd bay aswell. I mean regular desktops and not the compact small modem like ones.
If there is a spare data port on the motherboard you could have both the SSD and the HD installed. You don't need a spare bay to mount a SSD. A piece of duct tape is almost as good as screwing into a spare bay.
My two velocity micro desktops have bays galore. Along with 2 Dvd drives, I have 3 internal drives and 5 spare bays for extra drives
Lenovo 300 and 300s series seem to have only 1 bay for the oprical drive and 1 for the hdd. https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/desktop_pub/ideacentre_300s_hmm_20151104.pdf https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/desktop_pub/ideacentre_300_hmm_20151104.pdf Panagiotis
Panagiotis, Great find. ratchet, You might have a spare data port on the MB. It depends which MB you get.
Lenovo, HP and Dell usually provide such specs documents. If the mobo gives extra sata connectors he could use a dual bracket bay and replace the 3.5in hdd with 1 2.5in hdd and 1 ssd. e.g. http://www.ebay.com/sch/Case-Accessories-Tool-Kits-/51064/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=dual bay hdd http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Pro-Dua...815487?hash=item2a3c45853f:g:FygAAOxyBotTZGND Panagiotis
SFF machines, such as that Lenovo have limited space and I've had 3 over the years and none have had space for a 2nd drive (even 2.5in). One duct tape type possibility (that I do not personally endorse, due to experience of drive failures at an enterprise level) is to remove the internal DVD drive to provide space for an SSD and then use an external USB dvd drive. Cheers, Nick
For that price the i5 must be a dual core mobile one If you've built before just do it again, then you can chose an appropriate tower from the start and have future upgradability.