Installing Windows 7 an SSD

A while back, we wrote up a piece on installing Windows to a solid-state drive and the reasons why everyone should at least consider doing it for the speed boost you’ll get from it.

Windows Vista:

Back then, we went through a list of reasons why Windows users might be better off using Windows XP than Windows Vista when it came to installing to an SSD, not least of which the fact that Vista, well apart from the fact that a lot of people just didn’t enjoy using it, wasn’t really built for use with SSDs.

Thanks to the fact that Vista wasn’t really made for use with SSDs, users who did opt to throw an install of it onto an SSD ended up seeing less of a performance boost than they might otherwise have. Moreover, because of the way that Vista uses the disk (which seems always assumed to be a standard hard drive) the OS itself can decrease the lifetime of the drive. It’s not a dramatic difference, but it’s something that most should be aware of.

So, in short, installing Windows Vista to an SSD probably isn’t the best idea.

Special Offers – Week of November 9th

Good afternoon all, hopefully everyone has had a good weekend and Monday is treating you guys well, though we’re aware there are some pretty nasty bugs going around so if anyone’s sick then get well soon. For those of you who aren’t familiar, we like to do a Special Offers post every Monday with the offers for the week.

This means you guys have longer to decide whether or not you’re up for a purchase, it’s a solid plan. This week’s special offers are pretty much all Apple products, from iPods to MacBooks.

We aim to be cheaper than the Irish Apple Store on pretty much all of the Apple products that we stock.

iPod Touch 64GB:

When Apple announced an event in September, many had expected to hear that the iPod Touch would be graced with an iPhone-style camera. While that turned out not to be the case, Apple instead showed off the third generation of the iPod Touch, which boasts a few fairly nifty features of its own.

Click through to see our page for the 64GB iPod Touch

Perhaps most impressive of those new features is the fact that the newest version of the Touch boasts increased capacity over its predecessors, scaling up from the previous max of 32GB to a new high of 64GB, which finally gives serious music fans the option to have a proper library on a flash-based device.

The other big bonus about the newest incarnation of the iPod Touch is that it boasts the same processor as the iPhone 3G S, meaning that it’s significantly more capable than on older models. This is good news to fans of Apple’s App Store and the vast number of games and media available from it. For many the iPod Touch is a nice way to get in on the App Store without needing to sink money into the contract you’d need to get the same from an iPhone. It makes a lot of sense in that respect.

The 64GB iPod Touch is €349.

If that feels like a little much, the 32GB Touch is €269, while the 8GB Touch is just €179.

Special Offers – Week of October 19th

Good afternoon all, hopefully Monday finds you guys as well as it does us. For those of you who aren’t familiar with our Monday afternoon blog posts, we try to get up a post every Monday to detail the special offers we’ll have for the week. We like to get it up at the start of the week to give people as long as possible to weigh up their options

Anyway, without getting bogged down in all that, this week we have a gorgeous set of wireless Sennheiser headphones, a Netgear’s NAS setup, and a PowerColor Radeon HD 5870.

Sennheiser Headset RS 120:

Sennheiser has an excellent, and thoroughly deserved, reputation for excellent quality, both in terms of the physical build of a product and the sound reproduction its devices manage. Sennheiser’s RS 120 is one of the most elegant wireless setups going.

Click through to see our page for Sennheiser's RS120

Sennheiser’s RS 120 itself is an excellent setup, elegantly constructed (much as it might look a little cluttered in the image) once you’ve separated it from the charging loop. Essentially, they behave like any other high-quality set of wireless headphones, only when you need to charge them you just hand the headphones themselves on the charge loop, at which point the metal conducts precious charge to your battery.

If nothing else, it’s among the most convenient charging setups for any headset going and finally removes all of the fiddly cables from the arrangement (barring the one that you use to plug in the charging loop). It’s an excellent arrangement.

Sennheiser’s RS 120 is down to €62 this week, which is a nice, round 10% off. They’re a superb piece of kit, well worth checking out.