I must sayed hdd disk are pain with installing anything. They are good for data files or server but not for operating system. That is my opinion.
Especially in boot time.
If there is no real other option the HDD is still capable of running an OS just fine.
Things go 'laggy', smooth transitions of apps are under a reasonable level if you start to compare.
SSD's were very expensive in their startup sells on the market, and most 'old school SSD's ' had a very poor made firmware that needed extra updates out of the internet, and had to be installed via a Windows or DOS enviroment. This was not just a click, click, click - action in any way.
Lucky for us Linux, Ubuntu back then, users we could use a Live Session of FreeDos 1.0 for flashing the firmware on an SSD back then.
Things evolve, and prices dropped heavily for obtaining an SSD with a reasonable amount of storage on it. 12 € for a 120 Gb SSD is the actual price on sites such AliExpress, Wish, Joom etc (what is NOT the bottom price b.t.w. ) .
So for now having a boot/Data + extra Data SSD -disk you are not far away from a small 55 €, shipping included to your door.
An extra little money for replacing the DVD-RW player with a Caddy to install the 2nd disk inside and you got a modern power-station with Linux on maybe a 11-years old hardware situation.
Mechanical disks or HDD's, are now MORE expensive than an SSD 2,5' ..... so there is no real reason anymore for not changing and/ or upgrading.
Some claim a better boot-time is the real advantage, but a real Linux user knows that waking from RAM is the fastest you can go and this has nothing to do with HDD's nor SSD's, but more the amount of RAM inside the unit.
SSD's have a smaller Life-span than a HDD from the old days.
Many read / write actions on the SSD disks will result in slower responses and unreliability of the disks. Heat is also a factor that is unwanted for the NAND-chips inside an SSD.
So many pro for an SSD, but there are a lot of downsides as well for the same SSD's.
Better Chinese brands have now a small built in LED inside the plastic case of the SSD, so one can always verify if it is in action or not (dead).
The newest generations of SSD's, NVMe's PCNVMe's and so on are more to be considered a downside for Linux installing as they have persistent sections on the electronics.
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Very good describe about hard disk.
I just remember old times linux working fast on hdd, why now this is changed?
Yes i will buying new ssd i prefer that type hard disk from nvme because electronics is closed in safety "metal box" - the nvme in a computer electronic is outside and liked to be hot. Many type ssd from market on china will be the same price in my country count tax + shipping also waiting long time.
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Longer than 11 years my friend. My good lady's PC I built in 2006 and is running MX-Linux 21.3 (Wildflower). Slow desktop due to low spec graphics EVGA silent cooled 256 Mb 8x AGP card and maxed out at 2Gb RAM!
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I more taken closer to Devuan.
It have 3 good things installation distribution what I would like to see in Zorin.
Installation from terminal minimal, desktop iso and for server.
I starting devuan and i remember the same near or exactly the same on jessie debian 8 version. I liked installation process it gived you choice with desktop you want installing that is good point. Interesting this desktop iso doesn't have a big image and have all desktops, propably because in Zorin Pro version inside is installed many software also drivers.
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I just LOVE a die-hard Linux-user not going to the recycle when age is a factor.
My Dell E6500 Latitude, I obtained from a company wanting to throw away the remains of the laptop. Just added RAM DDR2 - 4Gb banks, added battery, replaced BIOS-battery, new cooler ventilator, added the latest thermo-gel on the P9700 processor @ 3 Ghz (!!!), added a caddy and placed 2 new SSD's (Goldenfir) from China and off we go ........ a great Dual 2 Cored system for my wife at a cost of 80 € in total running a Linux headversion of Ubuntu .... and she loves it !!! Google Chrome + Cloud (One or Drive(s) ) payed so she has 200Gb Cloud and 1 Tb offline space ....... I have 2 other same Dells as a reserve from the same company.
Small dust cummulation on the radiator was the only 'trouble' I found on those machines . Built 2009 according to the Bios-battery date-mark.
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I asked if I could have an old E6500 that didn't qualify for Windows 10 upgrade at work and they let me have it as a 'bonus'. First thing I did was replace the CMOS battery, upgraded 2 Gb RAM to 2 banks of 4 Gb and went overkill on 1 Tb Crucial SSD. Tried to install Zorin Education but it kept stuttering. Devuan would not install so ended up installing Linuxfx 10 then added educational apps as eldest is a Teaching Assistant. However had to take out SSD as eldest needed Windows 8.1 upgrading to 11 for work and hotbay Samsung drive sounding like a Hitachi Deathstar (nickname for Deskstar) drive.
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I have old pc from 2010 still working.
Propably my hdd is very slow. Need updated ssd and motherboard and will be next 10 years working.
Order today this one
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