Practice independence in your community

Here in the US we're observing our Independence Day this weekend, a celebration that echoes my hopes of independence for HP 3000 community members. Those who are homesteading on the system beyond HP's schedule have already chosen an independent path. They depend on new partners for support. Some community members have chosen the independence of Linux and open source, too, to supplement their 3000 computing power.

I also believe that independence is essential to those members staying with HP. Those companies migrating need to speak out freely about their experiences. As a journalist for almost 30 years, I've seen a decline in the independence of speaking on the record. I'd love to start a revolution in that regard and roll back the calendar, but anonymous sources have become a bulwark in reporting. The journalism community represented at the Washington, DC Newseum — a fine stop for any citizen-tourist in that town — has grave doubts about anonymous sources. We reporters trade credibility for trust when we need to use these sources.

I'd use fewer of these with more customers going on the record. Public meetings, open to both users and the press, are becoming rare indeed. It's up to 3000 community members to speak out online, where the speaker has more control of what's being reported.

In fact, the demise of public meetings was one factor in passing up the HP Technology Forum & Expo this year. This is first year since 1985 that I haven't attended a national-level HP user conference. After 24 annual events in a row, it seemed that things have changed between HP and the press. Last year I complained about the frustration of incomplete press access at HPTF. Things have shifted in HP's press approach, which makes the Internet and blogs the reasonable alternative to hearing community members' voices.

There's been a bit of good change, like hearing HP talk live to the analysts about quarterly reports via the Internet. But when Computerworld is standing outside a meeting door alongside the 3000 NewsWire, then HPTF starts to look like a restricted event. The user forums were ideal for a journalist who wants in-person connections with new sources. Users voicing opinions and telling stories about their customer experience is the meat of a conference. I understand how that won't serve HP as well as it did in the 80s or even the 90s. Sometimes you just have to accept changes.

As a community member you don't have to accept a less independent strategy. HP does operate a few forums online where customers can share opinion and experience. But the filtering is profound these days, probably reflecting the whole spin dance companies do with the media. You control your statements if you can speak out in places like Twitter, Linked In and Facebook (all of which have 3000-related followings and groups), as well as the Connect user group's online MPE forum. We'll be hearing more about that group in awhile, according to Connect board director Chris Koppe.

Until then and beyond, I hope you'll share your independent statements with your community and me here at the NewsWire. Enjoy and exercise your independence as a citizen, community member, or both.

New solutions assist small shop migrations

Birket Foster likes to envision the world of 2012, a future that guarantees more migration experience will be in the community's consciousness. This spring we talked about this time well away from HP’s influence on 3000 ownership and migration. Foster's MB Foster is sharpening its message this year to reflect its business beyond 3000 expertise. In the years to come the company is booked to help manage migrated applications and environments running for customers MB Foster has migrated.

What has emerged—solutions, utilities, apps, IT strategy—to help the smallest 3000 shops step away?

When we look at the marketplace, it’s the small shops that are going to suffer the most. As soon as they move to Windows, there’s a lot more work to be done that what they had to do for their 3000s. HP 3000s are like a magic thing you set and forget. Moving from a 3000 to the Windows environment means you have to pay attention to things. Like putting new patches on, or some virus will break out. Or fixing the database from time to time to make sure it’s performance-tuned. Although the 3000 databases could get out of hand occasionally, it was very rare.

   The good news for these shops is that those of us who have been migrating people since 2002 have refined the processes and introduced new tools. MB Foster built nine parsers in the last seven years. Some help with moving scripts from MPE-land to Linux or Unix or Windows. Some help with changing and fixing data on the fly, like moving integers stored in a Big Endian format to Little Endian. We also have a scheduler system written for Windows, one more like the job scheduler you had on the 3000.

   We built these kinds of power tools to assist us in migrations. We’ve been moving data since 1985, so we know a lot about the context of data. Our team put a tool together for the datamart team that pulls an IMAGE database into Oracle or SQL Server. This saved people from having to write all the scripts to do that. By the time HP decided to phase out the 3000, we had a tool that got tweaked to generate a few new things to help migration to Unix, Linux and Windows.

Three years from now, does the market miss the final level of HP’s 3000 support?

No, those people are already working with companies like Allegro, Beechglen or Gilles Schipper. I’m sure that the only thing that annoys these guys is HP, announcing that it will keep taking money for support. That’s a long support tail, and HP has already removed resources from it. HP won’t stack any new resources behind it.

So more than a year after the announced HP support exit date, you think HP will continue to sell 3000 support?

I don’t think HP is planning on leaving the 3000 support business. As long as there’s enough money coming in, they’ll do it. And some of the companies just look at the support from an appliance point of view. They tell themselves, “As long as I can say the original vendor will support us, it’s the same as an insurance company that will support us, too.” But when the hurricane comes through, does the insurance company declare bankruptcy and go away? Or does it actually deliver?

In the 3000’s community of 2012, do hardware and environments carry the same weight in strategies?

It’s not just the 3000 market that’s changing. Companies have mergers and acquisitions and they want to make changes. You will be encouraged to come along.

Three years from now we’ll be closer to the point where the hardware is totally irrelevant and the operating system is totally irrelevant. Because the skills sets for those elements will be hard to come by, people who are going to manage and update security for systems will be working for the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) and ISPs. The larger hardware vendors want to do a virtualized farm for an RBOC. The servers you once spent half a million dollars on are being replaced by systems that cost $20,000. The vendors can’t sell the same number of servers, so they have to find a way of consolidating. 

It’s 2012: What business resource is most in demand for 3000 shops making a transition?

It starts with the end-users. Since the HP 3000 is a robust machine, technology is not the issue. But when the end users leave, and the last person who knows how use MANMAN, you will be a world of hurt because you don’t have a training plan for how to train the next person in. It’s really going to be a human resource issue. The 3000 will probably run forever, given that you can swap a motherboard if you need to. The issue will be where to find a person to swap that motherboard, and how would we bring the system back up, and what does that mean to the application when it died in the middle of the day-end batch. Those are the kinds of things people are going to have to deal with at some point.

Trust in the Future, Through Experience

We think of Birket Foster as the community’s futurist. HP has made it clear to the community that the future of the 3000 won’t include Hewlett-Packard. Since the company is now counting down its last two years of support, we wanted to look beyond that coming initial year of post-HP operations. Seeing into that future, with more migrations and fewer homesteaders, seemed a lively exercise for Birket Foster, leader of the HP Platinum Migration Partner MB Foster and a forward thinker. His company has been in this market since 1977, and a Migration Partner since 2002. He wanted to envision the 3000 market 10 years after that date.

   We talked about the world of 2012, three years from now and well away from HP’s influence on 3000 ownership and migration. MB Foster is sharpening its message this year to reflect its business beyond 3000 expertise. In the years to come the company is booked to help manage migrated applications and environments running for customers MB Foster has migrated. Foster calls this mission “providing the knowledge and experience to earn your trust.” We interviewed him just after he returned from fresh field work in the 3000’s e-commerce community.

Now that the HP MPE/iX lab has closed, will it affect the timeline for migrations?

If you’re already determined to stay on the 3000, the closing of the lab means nothing. The HP lab was doing less and less over the last five years anyway. It’s really about the applications, not about the 3000’s technology.

   The correct answer to the question “When do I migrate” is “when the rest of the world changes over to the next major new technology.” When that technology gets introduced, and it cannot be incorporated into the 3000 in any way, then you end up with the 3000 unable to integrate.

    I sat in a meeting with a CFO this month who said, “I’m going to be the last guy standing in the management team. Everybody is moving except me, because I’m the youngster. So guess what? I don’t want this on my watch, so I want to get the process ready. I’d like to start the process to mitigate the risk.” The people in the IT trenches don’t always understand that from a risk-mitigation point of view, management may vote differently. In this company, they brought somebody back from retirement to run the 3000. Does that tell you anything?

Seemingly small things can impact the future of 3000 transitions. Can you think of an element that’s been overlooked that will shape the future of the marketplace?

Availability of people who know how to support the applications. There are lots of hardware guys. It’s not just the people in IT, but also the people on the business side of the world. The last person in accounting who knows how the accounting system works — when he leaves, you’ll have to replace that system. That’s one of the biggest risks people are facing, whether they want to admit it or not.

It’s 2012. How much of the market has made the move by now? Who’s still on the 3000, who’s moved, and why?

Maybe 10 percent of the original installed base is left. Even today there are a lot of machines out there, but I know of companies that have plans afoot to get themselves out of where they currently are. That might not be by 2012, but it’s going to be pretty close to that time. For example, anybody who has a credit card application right now needs to be able to do certain kinds of encryption and protection for credit card numbers. Some applications didn’t handle that very well. If you just got told that your Visa, MasterCard and American Express merchant rights are going to be revoked if you don’t get onto the new application, I guess you don’t have a choice, unless you want to close the doors.

    In the healthcare sector, there are new HIPAA regulations that make you ensure you can see who looked at a patient file. That’s often not going to have been built into the 3000 application.

    It’s going to get harder over the next three years to put out a help wanted call that says “Wanted: HP 3000 programmer.” You’re more likely to get more response if want a Windows programmer, or a .NET programmer. Even a Java programmer, although we’ll see what Oracle does with Java.

    I think you’ll be stuck with the small guys on the 3000. The big guys all will have moved, because they all have some kind of accountability to banking. Banks will start pushing down the chain on how much risk they have in their client base.

    In fact, there are banks already doing that. Companies are having their risk profiles revised when they apply for their annual line of credit to cover payrolls or big inventory buys. Even though you’ve done business for 20 years, there’s somebody at the bank who’s going to look at you to see whether you’re a risk after all. During that process they may look at what’s critical to your business. If that’s an HP 3000, at some point somebody’s going to recognize it’s not HP’s price list anymore, so it represents a risk.

Support Group partners with Blue Line for solutions

Offerings from the Support Group inc. (tSGI) gained scope and depth recently, when the HP 3000 outsourcing and support company announced a partnership with Blue Line Services. The companies, which are both headquartered in Texas, will share marketing and resources for on-site and support center operations.

"We have partnered our expert services to bring complete end-to-end coverage to the HP 3000 community," said tSGi Account Manager and Business Systems consultant Donnie Poston. "With our combined services you can now have HP 3000 hardware, software and MPE operations support and management under one roof."

Poston said the companies started talks about working together early this year, when engagements with HP 3000 customers gave the firms some common group. They plan to share customer lists and use each other's support teams to back up one another's client lists. Marketing and sales support are also on the combined efforts list.

The new partners also offer support, system sales and solutions for other HP systems. As an example, Blue Line is putting HP's LeftHand SAN storage solution into the mix of options for enterprise IT customers. LeftHand can be purchased from many PC-based suppliers, but resellers with HP 3000 background are fewer in number.

Even though tSGi is best known for supporting and implementing ERP applications, the company offers independent support outside that sector. "we have HP 3000/MPE accounts that do not use MANMAN," said Poston. "We manage the HP 3000 and OS for them.  They either have homegrown apps, or have folks that manage the ERP/MRP type apps onsite."

tSGi announced that it is offering discount support rates for existing and new customers who sign a 2 year support contract.

Thanks for reading for four years

This week I'm grateful for four years of your attention on our blog. In June of 2005 I took the first steps into the media that was called Weblogs at the time, and your support of us has kept the news business lively, fun and a-pace of the action in 21st Century computing.

Fun comes most obviously on April 1, when journalists follow the tradition of the faux news story. We talked about a Treeware Project, and a development mission to rewrite MPE/iX as social networking software. On our first two blog Aprils the Fool's Day fell on a weekend, so we had to set the comedy aside. We've also reported on a $7 HP 3000, which was no joke, and how HP blew up Unix and NonStop servers with C4 to prove how good they were.

There's also been fun in reporting the news people would rather not have made public. It usually requires public sources, people who are willing to take a chance on speaking up. The stand-up, on-the-record sources have become tougher to find over the 25 years I've written about the HP computer environment. The trend might seem safer for those who don't speak up. But it puts everybody who needs adaptation and new ideas at risk.

Perhaps there will be a renaissance in relationships between software vendors and their customers. But here, heading into our fifth year of reporting weekdays on the blog, it seems the suppliers of technology are spooking too many customers into caution -- when those customers need action and honesty from the vendors about their options. It's baffling that a company will support a vendor with cash in this rough economy, than cringe at the vendor's displeasure should the truth ever be told in an unfavorable light.

How you will ever ensure a productive relationship with a vendor which cashes checks and tells you to keep quiet, well, I don't know. It would be untoward to call it blackmail, but the integrity of such an arrangement is a hoary mess. What's the redress for an unhappy customer? The ancients back in the 20th Century used to run companies with complaint departments. Now if you buy Oracle you're barred from reporting on its performance, right in the contract.

As a more local example, spreading word that a 3000 installation can't be PCI DSS compliant doesn't tell the whole truth, or even a decent share of it. That Ecometry continues to do this, in the face of third-party solutions to the contrary, makes it plain who the company is working for. That would be its shareholders and officers, rather than the customers who mail support checks every month.

What's more, a user group that meets in private, and keeps its discussion under wraps, doesn't seem to be working for any 3000 homesteaders who use Ecometry. It certainly isn't of much use to anyone who's outside the meeting room until somebody goes public. Over my quarter-century, and four years of blogging, I've learned that going offline to resolve an issue can be that trap-door you see in the James Bond movies. You watch and say,"Don't stand there," but people still step onto the "give me your business card so we can discuss this" chute.

Happily, there are still independent and intelligent IT pros who see the benefit of keeping discussions out in the open. Blogs push us journalists into new reporting processes, because we don't have to wait for ink and paper to dry and mail anymore. The new beta-culture makes it plain that the myth of journalism's perfection is just that, a fantasy. Newspaper people—and I started as one almost 30 years ago—see their articles as finished products of their work. Bloggers—and every journalist blogs today—see posts as part of the process of learning.

These new practices help me get more information out there faster than the old days of envelopes and staples and weeks of knowing but being unable to tell. Everyone whose help I've received for a story should know that a "off-the-record" or background-only request is an automatic yes, unless I have to say no or abandon the story. But there's a story to tell every Monday through Friday here, a joy and sometimes a challenge. Thanks for keeping your eyes on us and our new news culture since 2005.

Escalate steps up e-commerce compliance

HP 3000 shops which accept credit cards face a July 2010 deadline for compliance with new credit card security. These PCI regulations got addressed at the recent Escalate Retail users conference, the meeting of what the 3000 community once called Ecometry sites.

MB Foster Associates has prepared a PDF briefing document on the e-commerce/retail meeting, held during May in San Diego. Escalate said that Ecometry installations — there are now more than 400 — make up about a third of the Escalate revenues. The software has been available on Windows and HP-UX since 2005. Officials added that 25 HP 3000 sites migrated to other Ecometry versions during 2008. A backlog of more than 25 sites are "pending go-live" onto other platforms from the 3000.

There are also 75 Ecometry 3000 sites, out of 2002's high-water mark of 325, who haven't planned a migration, or engaged with Escalate to migrate.

PCI compliance has been driving some HP 3000 migrations. Escalate is not deploying technology for the MPE/iX Ecometry version that can meet the 2010 standards. At the conference, MasterCard representative Mike Green outlined the details of PCI compliance, including the PCI Security Standards Web site for a self-assessment of required security practices.

The MB Foster briefing said that

At this website you will also find a Prioritized Approach for DSS – It provides guidance that will help merchants identify how to reduce risk to cardholder data as early on as possible.

The motto throughout his presentation was if you don’t need  customer credit card information, “don’t store it.” Additionally, clients need to validate if they are PCI compliant every year. One final note, if you using some other credit card processor  (Paymentech etc.), you still need to be PCI-compliant as you are storing credit card information.

The MB Foster briefing also mentioned an Escalate Migration Service, which the app vendor said "is like a new install," that costs between $96,000 and $413,000, depending on complexity. "The surround code is over and above that," said Birket Foster. "Surround code includes reports, extracts, interfaces to other systems, and any  customizations or applications written to interface with the Ecometry system."

The 75 non-migrating Ecometry sites have recently gained an option for PCI compliance in a new software solution for MPE/iX, however. Encryption technology has emerged from a veteran developer that's aimed at making credit card vendors who use 3000s meet PCI compliance. Ecometry won't be issuing any PCI certification for its MPE/iX software, which leaves these sites no option but to follow an independent path, with non-Escalate support for their application in the future.

IBM, packaged app to replace 3000 system

Not many HP 3000 migration customers choose IBM's iSeries systems, but the platform notched a convert this month from a 25-year site. GNM Financial Services, a Culver City, California-based services firm, announced plans to replace its HP 3000 and applications with the S2K Enterprise for Distribution suite. The software runs on a low-end iSeries server, a Power 520.

The replacement software rolled in as a result of work by IBM reseller VAI, which released a Customer Relation Management (CRM) system last fall tuned to work with the i Series and its integrated database. IBM has promoted the iSeries as a logical next step for 3000 sites accustomed to the MPE/IMAGE database integration. But few converts have been announced since the IBM efforts began in 2002.

GNM's IT director Pam Tucker, who was a 3000 NewsWire subscriber for a few years after HP announced its 3000 exit, issued a statement for the VAI press release that said the company needed a newer solution with a more comprehensive future. She described their 3000 as "aging." The IBM press inflated that assessment to "archaic." But newer apps to replace aged 3000 software is an old story in this community.

The news in this report is the win for IBM. Sometimes a transfer to Big Blue's integrated business platform results from a selection of an application. Other cases are triggered by a trickle-down from a mother-ship IT shop. Tucker said GNM did a thorough search for replacement software. The reseller reports that GNM wanted a solution designed for the i Series.

"We understood that GNM and Mytel needed a technology solution to replace our aging HP 3000," Tucker said in her statement. The press release added that the new application promises to provide

... Access to the real-time information required to improve customer service and eliminate our outdated paper tracking system. S2K for Distribution has achieved this goal, placing key information literally at our fingertips. Specifically, VAI's CRM software, with its centralized database, allows us to see and understand all customer interactions in a way that was simply not possible before.

A modern CRM solution isn't available off the shelf for the HP 3000. Meanwhile, IBM has maintained its support for the i Series even in the face of an AS/400-Unix consolidation of the server line last year. (IBM calls the merged platform the IBM Power System, named after the core POWER chips at the heart of Unix and OS/400 solutions.) GNM describes itself as a supplier to small, independently owned office supply companies. The GNM services include "locating of merchandise; arranging for shipment of merchandise; invoice processing; financing of accounts receivable; collection of accounts receivable, and consumer assistance."

GNM must integrate data from an allied company, Mytel, one which didn't pop up in our NewsWire database. It's possible that IBM or the i Series is already installed at Mytel. We're waiting on a return call from Tucker to learn more about GNM's new migration project, and how the i Series became an important component of a replacement solution.

New HP exec forced to focus on servers

A Massachusetts court has ruled that new HP Enterprise Storage and Servers executive David Donatelli can work for Hewlett-Packard. But during his first year, Donatelli will have to focus on the latter part of his organization's solutions. Storage work is out until May of 2010.

That's because Donatelli comes to HP from storage rival EMC, where he signed a non-compete clause promising to forgo employment at any competitor. EMC filed for an injunction to block Donatelli's hiring as soon as it was made public. The suit took three weeks to clear the the Suffolk County Superior Court of Massachusetts. The result is that Donatelli will have lots more focus on less-familiar duties managing server business.

HP revised Donatelli's job title to executive vice president of Enterprise Servers and Networking, rather than executive VP of the larger HP organization ESS. He will report directly to executive vice president of the Technology Solutions Group Ann Livermore until next year, when the court's 1-year ban on storage work is lifted.

HP said in a statement the court order satisfies the vendor, since it didn't see Donatelli's hiring blocked, and he'll have an immediate job running HP's server business. Those operations, which include the HP 3000 alternatives HP-UX, Integrity servers and Windows systems, saw a 29 percent drop in sales during HP's second quarter.

"HP is pleased with the court's recent decision, and looks forward to the contributions Donatelli will make to HP's business."

California courts don't recognize non-compete clauses such as the one Donatelli signed. His lawyer argued that he should be able to move to California and escape his non-compete.

Tukwila chip delay slows UX speed promise

Intel announced last week that it's going to run at least nine months late on introducing the latest Tukwila models of the Itanium processor. The delay might put the brakes on purchasing HP Integrity servers until 2010. That will be a slowdown in addition to the one the market is already applying to HP-UX server sales.

HP reported earlier last week — not a great five days for HP's Unix alternative to the 3000 — that Business Critical Server sales have dropped by almost 30 percent against 2008's Q2. (Xeon-based servers did no better.) HP-UX customers might have been waiting for newer Integrity servers powered by Tukwila. Experts agree the Tukwila chips could be twice as fast as the latest Montvale processors.

At today's Intel media event, the vendor was hawking the speed advances of its other, more popular processor, the x86-compatible Xeon family. Intel is talking up the new Nehalem EX versus the current Xeon 7400 chips. Itanium-based solutions such as HP-UX will have to wait until sometime next year for a similar performance boost.

How HP reacts to the Tukwila delay — the chip was postponed in February, then again this month — might be seen in prices for the current Integrity models using Montvale. Given the sales dive and now this extra wait, Montvale-based models could see a healthy discount. Nobody, however, expects HP to announce a skunkworks project to get HP-UX ported for Nehalem/Xeon.

Rather than tout a chip that could revamp power consumption and performance for HP's Unix customers, Intel is boasting today about "the greatest Intel Xeon Performance Leap in History!" A downloadable PDF slide deck from Intel provides such highlights.

That Xeon family, of course, has nothing to do with HP's Unix, instead being the chip of choice for the Windows-migrating customer. Later this summer, AMD is uncapping a six-core "Istanbul" model of its Opteron processor. These announcements and shipments add up to seeing two new Windows powerhouses emerge in a year when the HP-UX Integrity servers will get no processor refresh from Intel.

But there's another way to look at this news for the customer migrating to HP-UX. A migration that's set to go live during 2010 might take advantage of extraordinary hardware pricing on Integrity servers over the next year.

Or, a customer investing in a system to run HP's Unix could have to accept the fact that any migration that goes online before 2011 is likely to get older, more power-hungry processors — which will have been well-tested over more than 18 months of field use.

Lower prices and better testing are both core values for the HP 3000 community. And that's as good a coat of paint as anybody can put on what the IT Web site The Register calls the longest delay in Itanium's history.

Get your printed memory of 3000 news

Our latest printed edition of the 3000 NewsWire rolled into the mails last week. Yes, we still do print, every quarter. Some might call it a memorial act to the old school of spreading news. We think of it as a memory device.

Each quarterly issue contains a broad selection of choice 3000 stories from the last 90 days. We also print a catalog of the articles which only appeared online since our last print issue. It's organized by category to make the articles easier to locate online.

You can receive your printed issue for free just by supplying us with your mailing address. Remember mailing addresses?

Here on Memorial Day in the US we're thinking about what we've lost and want to honor. (Along with a good cookout or a ball game.) Printed news is not lost, though. Journalists need print publications to keep offering their vital contributions in the community.

You can sign up to get your print with a simple e-mail to my desk. Have a happy holiday, if you're having one.

Solid state drives for HP 3000s?

Drives that don't need to spin? These are the Solid State Drives (SSD), a wad of RAM big enough to act like a traditional (but small) storage device. SSDs are now the talk of the Windows and Linux communities, groups which float like butterflies among the diverse fields of hardware. The HP 3000 has prospects to gain SSDs, too.

A technical leap from SCSI storage devices to cutting-edge hardware would be a life-extender for the 3000 users. One tech wizard who's investigating it certainly has the chops to pull off the leap. Stan Sieler of Allegro Consultants has started tests on the behavior of SSDs. But he has the 3000 and MPE/iX in mind. Sieler created DiskPerf for 3000 users, a powerful utility which must comprehend MPE storage rules to do its performance measurements.

"I'm thinking about SSD and SATA/SCSI adapters to speed up the 'obsolete- but still world's-best business computer, the HP 3000," Sieler said earlier this month. "I'm hoping to do some tests in the near future."

SSDs have a heritage in the PA-RISC generation of 3000s. Early in the 1990s, RAM-based drives were on offer for the community. They were far smaller than the drives of that era (much like the SSDs of today) and cost a king's ransom — which makes them differ from today's prices for such devices in the PC market.

Sieler says that the SATA/SCSI adapters are a crucial part of putting this tech advance on its feet. "Few SSD drives have SCSI interfaces... hence the SATA/SCSI adapter component," he says. "An SSD with a SCSI interface would look completely like an SCSI disk drive."

This kind of design, to mimic the SCSI interface, would permit Sieler to avoid using the SCSI Pass-Through code HP engineered during 2007 for the 3000. The community has heard no reports of how the pass-through works, and HP has said that employing it is "not for the feint of heart." Sieler's heart of MPE/iX experience is strong enough to include work for HP on some MPE/iX modules. But the engineer in him wants to count on his own coding.

The IT news source The Register has examined the prospects and hurdles in SSD use in its Channel blog. The latest Windows 7 is a minimum for the maximum benefit of SSD. "Windows 7 will use SSD speed much, much better than previous versions, and avoid exacerbating SSD problems by excessive random [write] operations," the article notes.

Sieler is among those in the 3000 tech community testing drives such as Intel's 160GB Mainstream units, priced at under $700. Even though there's lots of room for discounting such devices (components cost far less than moving parts), these drives have been popular, even in a down economy. Sieler reported on the speed leaps from his smaller test SSD.

Random reads is where they shine, outperforming hard drives. On my verrrry low-end SSD I’m testing now, random reads of the SSD have an access time of 1.2 ms, vs. 20.8 ms for my hard drive.

The hard drive has a faster transfer rate (55 MB/sec near the outside, down to 32 MB/sec near the inside), vs. 20.9 (constant) for the SSD. This means that for random reads of less than one MB, the SSD is faster than the hard drive.

Defragmenting SSDs will result in a performance gain, for the same reason as on MPE: The mapping of file offset to disk address is quicker when you have fewer extents, assuming “ordinary” file systems (i.e., not a file system with direct indexing of page offset into an extent table).