WATCH OUT FOR RAM PRICES!

RD Mercer · Feb 23, 2026

I have 3 of the Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor SATA 3 Gb/s 10,000 RPM 16 MB, once they are booted into the OS, it's really hard for me to tell the difference in the speed of my Samsung M.2 drives and the WD drives.

Scannerman · Feb 23, 2026

RD Mercer said:
I have 3 of the Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor SATA 3 Gb/s 10,000 RPM 16 MB, once they are booted into the OS, it's really hard for me to tell the difference in the speed of my Samsung M.2 drives and the WD drives.

My Velociraptors are 600 GB each in a RAID 10 array. I often forget that I'm accessing a mechanical drive array when I use them. You can tell the difference in file transfers but other than that everything is so snappy and responsive that I don't even think about it. I keep another two on the shelf that I occasionally blow the cobwebs off. I keep them for whenever one day the array breaks down. They've been sitting there for over five years. Every now and then I wonder if I should buy a couple more from Ebay. Yeah, they sure don't make 'em like they used to.

RD Mercer · Feb 23, 2026

Scannerman said:
My Velociraptors are 600 GB each in a RAID 10 array. I often forget that I'm accessing a mechanical drive array when I use them. You can tell the difference in file transfers but other than that everything is so snappy and responsive that I don't even think about it.

They have 3 of those on ebay right now Buy It Now "free shipping" for $40.00 thats a great price!

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX 600GB SATA 3.5" Hard Drive, Excel cond | eBay

This hard drive is used in excellent working conditions.

www.ebay.com

Winuser · Feb 23, 2026

PCUser said:
Last night @ Walmart, I noticed a brand new laptop with 4GB of ram . . . 4GB . . . for Windows 11 . . . I didn't bother looking at what the CPU was.

The last time I was in my local Walmart (it's not a Super Walmart) they no longer had any desktop computers and there was not even one laptop I would even think about buying. My wife use to buy her laptops from Walmart and to me, none of them were worth buying. The only decent computer she bought from Walmart was the HP All-In-One computer. And that wasn't until I replaced the slow HDD with a SSD. We still have it but no longer use it.

RD Mercer · Feb 23, 2026

RD Mercer said:
They have 3 of those on ebay right now Buy It Now "free shipping" for $40.00 thats a great price!

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX 600GB SATA 3.5" Hard Drive, Excel cond | eBay

This hard drive is used in excellent working conditions.

www.ebay.com

Looks like he has now has dropped the price to $30.00 each.

RazorKat83 · Feb 23, 2026

john1955 said:
I have not had a mechanical drive fail on me since the 1990's and it was a 150MB drive that came in the only "factory" built computer I ever bought. I replaced it with a 350MB that cost a small fortune. Every drive since then just got outgrown. And I'm still using the first SSD I ever bought that's 120GB for Windows XP. I also always leave my PC's on 24/7

150MB? lol That was a lot back then

RD Mercer · Feb 23, 2026

RD Mercer said:
Looks like he has now has dropped the price to $30.00 each.

I bought one @30.00, but it looks like now he went back up to $35.00. Guess he was having second thoughts.

Scannerman · Feb 24, 2026

Ha! lol

Thanks for the 'heads up'.

Alas, mine are the chunky little guys. They all sit nice and neatly in an I-Star USA RAID cage.

AK6DN · Feb 25, 2026

john1955 · Feb 25, 2026

Hopefully the pendulum will swing back before too long . . .

AK6DN · Feb 26, 2026

john1955 said:
Hopefully the pendulum will swing back before too long . . .

1975 C 069_cb__Ken Kelly Fantasy Art B.webp

Hmmmm ...

Scannerman · Feb 27, 2026

I doubt prices will drop back to what they were back in the summer of '25.

WiseTomCat · Feb 27, 2026

Does anyone know which country has the lowest RAM prices for a laptops?

Scannerman · Feb 27, 2026

I'm guessing that would be China. You've lost me on quality RAM backed by a proper warranty.

I'd venture the chips themselves would be from SK hynix but that would not necessarily make the final product more affordable.

WiseTomCat · Feb 27, 2026

Scannerman said:
I'm guessing that would be China. You've lost me on quality RAM backed by a proper warranty.

I'd venture the chips themselves would be from SK hynix but that would not necessarily make the final product more affordable.

Thanks for the suggestion...I have been contemplating if I even should buy one right now.... my 2x8gb ddr4 gets full pretty quickly and photo and video editing gets painfully sluggish. I think I should just wait now that the bubble is slowly popping starting with microsoft's copilot being excluded in few apps and even I dont see it in github anymore!

Scannerman · Feb 27, 2026

WiseTomCat said:
Thanks for the suggestion...I have been contemplating if I even should buy one right now.... my 2x8gb ddr4 gets full pretty quickly and photo and video editing gets painfully sluggish. I think I should just wait now that the bubble is slowly popping starting with microsoft's copilot being excluded in few apps and even I dont see it in github anymore!

I haven't checked your specs but for the most part most laptops run well on 16GB of RAM or less. Some of the more elaborate units can handle twice as much but also require more power. Unless my laptop were a work station I would likely be editing videos on a desk top PC with a generous amount of RAM. Don't hold your breath. AI is here to stay whether we want it or not. It will only be a matter of time before MS re-labels the leech and puts a new spin on it. Even if the proverbial "bubble" actually pops AI will come back with a vengeance.

IMO you are on the right track. Get rid of the extraneous apps you don't need or rarely ever use. Check your startups and find what you can remove from that first. Bloatware has gone totally out of control and for this reason I've personally opted for scaled down versions of Windows such as X-Lite. Where this is not possible I will use Linux. If you simply must have more RAM I would advise getting used RAM. I would not encourage any memory manufacturer to sell me RAM at the current prices. They don't care about you so why give them money? More on Memory

WiseTomCat · Mar 1, 2026

although I think its quite affordable but may be its not worth the hassle for now for me to get it from japan www.janpara.co.jp

My previous workstation pc slowly died from constant powercut in nepal....so my current workstation is a cheap gaming laptop but it is really powerful for the money I got at 650$ in 2022....a 12th gen i5 12500h with 12cores and 16threads....4 of them are p-cores. Its also got an entry level RTX 3050.

I seem to be only limited by RAM size and yet again it would be a stupid move (I think) to spend a lot of money just on RAM....I'm thinking I will rather repair old workstation and get a UPS backup too.

Also I've spent enormous (some could say unhealthy) amount of time to optimize performance on Win 11 21h2 that I won't be updating my windows until this laptop dies. have disabled win defender and virtualization but Malwarebytes premium has got my back. I've also unistalled edge and all MS crap. I also use ExplorerPatcher to get old win10 start menu and file explorer which is lightning fast.

Scannerman · Mar 1, 2026

WiseTomCat said:
although I think its quite affordable but may be its not worth the hassle for now for me to get it from japan www.janpara.co.jp

My previous workstation pc slowly died from constant powercut in nepal....so my current workstation is a cheap gaming laptop but it is really powerful for the money I got at 650$ in 2022....a 12th gen i5 12500h with 12cores and 16threads....4 of them are p-cores. Its also got an entry level RTX 3050.

I seem to be only limited by RAM size and yet again it would be a stupid move (I think) to spend a lot of money just on RAM....I'm thinking I will rather repair old workstation and get a UPS backup too.

Also I've spent enormous (some could say unhealthy) amount of time to optimize performance on Win 11 21h2 that I won't be updating my windows until this laptop dies. have disabled win defender and virtualization but Malwarebytes premium has got my back. I've also unistalled edge and all MS crap. I also use ExplorerPatcher to get old win10 start menu and file explorer which is lightning fast.

Looks to me like you might be a prime candidate for X-Lite. I won't comment on using a laptop as a work station as I've never done it. I know they exist. If you feel you can rebuild your work station that might be a practical alternative. A UPS backup is a solid approach to keeping your circuitry safe. I live in an area known for brown outs so all my crucial components run on UPS units. I have five of them. I've never regretted putting my PCs on UPS. If you would like help rebuilding your work station feel free to dm me here. I've helped many people privately this way.

PCUser · Mar 1, 2026

WiseTomCat said:
although I think its quite affordable but may be its not worth the hassle for now for me to get it from japan www.janpara.co.jp

My previous workstation pc slowly died from constant powercut in nepal....so my current workstation is a cheap gaming laptop but it is really powerful for the money I got at 650$ in 2022....a 12th gen i5 12500h with 12cores and 16threads....4 of them are p-cores. Its also got an entry level RTX 3050.

I seem to be only limited by RAM size and yet again it would be a stupid move (I think) to spend a lot of money just on RAM....I'm thinking I will rather repair old workstation and get a UPS backup too.

Also I've spent enormous (some could say unhealthy) amount of time to optimize performance on Win 11 21h2 that I won't be updating my windows until this laptop dies. have disabled win defender and virtualization but Malwarebytes premium has got my back. I've also unistalled edge and all MS crap. I also use ExplorerPatcher to get old win10 start menu and file explorer which is lightning fast.

Another part that is key is the correct (and higher wattage) power adapter. I have a friend that lost his in lost luggage, and his local PC repair shop gave him a cheap power adapter replacement. His laptop performance was lacking, screen dimmer, etc.

I replaced his with a 180W power adapter and it was like a new laptop.

It sounds like you're doing everything right. Also check out O&O Windows ShutUp 10++

O&O ShutUp10++: Improve Windows data protection

Enable recommended privacy options and make Windows 10/11 leaner and more private with just a few clicks.

www.oo-software.com

Good luck!

gunrunnerjohn · Mar 1, 2026

Scannerman said:
Looks to me like you might be a prime candidate for X-Lite. I won't comment on using a laptop as a work station as I've never done it. I know they exist. If you feel you can rebuild your work station that might be a practical alternative. A UPS backup is a solid approach to keeping your circuitry safe. I live in an area known for brown outs so all my crucial components run on UPS units. I have five of them. I've never regretted putting my PCs on UPS. If you would like help rebuilding your work station feel free to dm me here. I've helped many people privately this way.

I've had a UPS on all my computers for years. I also have UPS systems on the Verizon FiOS ONT power supply, my NAS, router, and 16 channel switch in the back room. Even my wife's computer up in the office has it's own UPS.

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