Build it yourself PC

I always build my own.

The most expensive part is not always the best quality, but the least expensive part is almost never the best quality.

For hardware reviews by the pro's check out tomshardwarepage and I find the reviews on newegg to be helpful as well.

Consider putting your logos installation on a solid state disk, it makes installation and indexing a breeze.

Sleiman

to create a more serviceable and upgradeable machine.

Yup, the most serviceable upgradeable machine is one you build yourself. I built my first custom PC a year ago; and no regrets whatsoever. It's fun too. I also echo abondservant's observations.

BillS

I was wondering if anyone finds it worthwhile to build their own computer. Not necessarily to save big money, but more to create a more serviceable and upgradeable machine. At least from what I've been reading, it's not very complex as long as you carefully pick compatible components and assemble it with equal diligence.

I did that for awhile---until I got tired of being my own (& my wife's) tech support on OEM Microsoft products, especially the operating system. When the inevitable problems come, they don't like supporting an OEM o/s.

From a h/w standpoint, it's pretty easy to build (if components are compatible; not all seem to be). And the ones I built lasted longer & were faster than any others I've ever owned.

At this point, I custom order & find it's less expensive than building plus the support is a whole lot easier. And now being in the PASTOR business rather than the TECH business (as for 25 years while I was building), given that $ & time are both weighted in favor of BUY vs. build, I buy...

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496866#Comment_496866

I just add RAM, and external keyboard to my newer laptop. Perhaps also SSD and software upgrade (from W7 64-bit and Office 2010 Starter to W8 and Word 2013 and the equivalent to Excel in LibreOffice). Keyboard: www.trulyergonomic.com
To the older laptop I only add an external monitor and use the same trulyergonomic keyboard for it too, it already had maximal RAM, an external HDD and an internal SSD when I bought (asked seller to exchange those parts with each other and he did it at no extra cost, he's a pro having worked with computers since age 14 and now working with surveillance cam computers).

If You look at my recent posts You can see that I've been asking software upgrade questions related to upgrading from W7 to W8 and Word 2010 Starter to Word 2013. Also at: leaving web pages open. IE10. W8 vs W7?

Samsung laptops hold the benefit of that You can set the battery to be charge to only 80% of its capacity, that gives an extra year or perhaps two.

I will not be buying more/replacing computers for the next 2-3 years or more.

Erwin Stull, Sr.

I would find it beneficial, but only for a techie (in terms of financial and support). Some years ago, I used to build and sell custom PCs, however, when the market changed, and it became more economical to buy from a big name manufacturer, I got out of that business because it would cost more for me to build the machines for a company than to write the specs and recommend a few manufacturers. I would build a machine today (for myself) for the pleasure of doing so, as it will most likely cost more (and sometime much more) than a comparable system from a manufacturer.

As far as tech support and warranty goes; if you are not a techie, it is definitely more cost effective to buy a machine from a manufacturer. Most will give you that 3-5 year protection, whereas if you build your own, it is your responsibility to troubleshoot and determine what failed and if that particular part is under warranty. For software and operating support, people rarely call MS, Adobe, etc. In my entire career life as a professional and an end user, I can only remember calling MS 2 times, and that was for a major network issue in which I had ran out of option and corrective measures. Time and money were factors in this.

I pray this gives you some insight. [:)]

Garrett Ho

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496899#Comment_496899

If you can build it without hassles, do it. Otherwise, wait for a good PC deal and use that as a starting point.

Two days ago, HP had a deal on an i7 3770 with 10gb of ram for $550, as a reference point. If you were to add an SSD you'd have a great computer for Logos. Now that Intel released their updated processors, I'm sure there will be more deals.

Travis Walter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496903#Comment_496903

As the price of the PC increases, the ability to save increases also. You will really start to see savings when you start to cross the $2K barrier or more.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496924#Comment_496924

As the price of the PC increases, the ability to save increases also. You will really start to see savings when you start to cross the $2K barrier or more.

Agreed...

My pc would cost thousands if you were to buy it somewhere... I've spent "merely" hundreds...

If you can support it your self, its worth it in my book. If not, get a Dell lol.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496925#Comment_496925

What I was thinking of doing was taking a suggested build and using that as my starting point. Not sure how much it would actually wind up costing, but this way I would eliminate the compromises that a typical machine has and it would be absolutely free of the software that the manufacturers seem to load onto a machine whether you want them or not.

The other thinking from my perspective is that I can justify a DIY because I am a geek. [8-|] Just buying a high end machine would likely end up with my being considered a wastrel.

Travis Walter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496936#Comment_496936

Well when ever you start a custom PC you need to have a price point.

Also I'm not sure what you consider high end? Just as a reference my computer prob cost over $5K to build. Not bragging, its actually 3 years old now, just giving a reference. There is always someone with a bigger, better and prettier machine..

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496936#Comment_496936

Well if I can make a couple suggestions: Asus or Gigabyte motherboards (even so check out the model you use before you buy!). I have the asus sabertooth 990x v2 in my desktop.

Secondly, AMD processors are SLIGHTLY slower - but in practice fast enough, and equally stable. Though they do tend to draw more current than Intel chips which are usually three or more times more expensive.

Thirdly if you go AMD go with a Radeon Graphics card, if you go Intel go with an Nvidia graphics card. They can be mixed and matched... But generally speaking you are better off that way. Radeon is a subsidiary of AMD now.

Fourth, a family friend who works at MS in Clearwater once told me that display real-estate and productivity go up together. I personally use three displays (mixed and matched). Its great to have your sermon in the middle, full screen, and resources open to the left and right on other displays.

I had a display go bad recently, and a friend of mine offered me two 24" displays for 75$... Needless to say I'm jumping on it.

Finally if you like I can send you the specs and model numbers that I used for my build. You can find me on facebook @ jcr.chilis at gmail (.) com. Just send me a message letting me know you are from the Logos forums and I'll accept the request (that goes for all of you, not just OP).

Geek by day, Pastor by night. lol

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496943#Comment_496943

I was definitely thinking multiple monitors and an SSD. Probably nothing so high end as what some gamer or guy processing special effects video might want. Pretty sure that this would probably be near $2K if I bought it built.

The other thing is that this isn't a rush deal. It's something I've always wanted to do, but never could carve out either the means or time to do it. Now at least I know what it's being used for and I can build it with those goals in mind.

Mark Barnes

I was wondering if anyone finds it worthwhile to build their own computer. Not necessarily to save big money, but more to create a more serviceable and upgradeable machine. At least from what I've been reading, it's not very complex as long as you carefully pick compatible components and assemble it with equal diligence.

I built one a few months ago for myself. It allowed me to get exactly the spec I wanted, and saved me about $100.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/mark8barnes/saved/18jD - that's an excellent site for planning your build.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496958#Comment_496958

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/15MDE

This is more or less my PC, except prices in USD were way cheaper. I paid 89.99 for the cpu on sale, and 175$ for the motherboard, 40$ a stick for memory, and 100$ for the ssd on sale. I have more storage than I listed on the build and I paid more for those as well (100$ usd each). My seagates have seen about 30,000 hours of use in the past three years.

Any way... I have about 600$ into my whole setup including the windows 8 license.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496961#Comment_496961

Nice builds. I think I'll spec what I envision and then see what components will work together for that. I'll probably look first at the video cards since I'm planning on multiple monitors. I also will likely have to rearrange my desk to do that. That could be the hardest thing of all![^o)]

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496969#Comment_496969

I'll probably look first at the video cards since I'm planning on multiple monitors. I also will likely have to rearrange my desk to do that. That could be the hardest thing of all!

Just move the office to the living room, get three 73" flat screens, and a good swivel chair. [:P]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496991#Comment_496991

Got this link in my email earlier... ~350$ for a relatively decent kit... just need to add an operating system and optical drives if needed. Just note that there is a rebate involved.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/496991#Comment_496991

Just move the office to the living room, get three 73" flat screens, and a good swivel chair.

I'm in the living room with swivel chair already, but I don't think the landlord wants me to knock down a wall for three 73 inch screens. Maybe three 27 inch ones. Unless you all think I'd be slumming...[;)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497007#Comment_497007

I had 2 22's and a 30. Now I have a 22 and a 30... But will soon have 2 24's a 22 and a 30.

3 27's would be nice. Especially if they are all the same make and model. Mine are mostly acquired slowly and over time as people want to upgrade and give me their old stuff... The 30 is a LCD TV that was bequeathed to me.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497018#Comment_497018

Now that this is mostly about monitors, I use two monitors to use Logos and Word and perhaps IE10 (going to cut down on time spent surfing, but I leave many IE tabs open): one 15.6" and one 11.9" at uni/college or replace that one with a 19" at home. All are 1366*768 pixels. I paid ~$108 for the 19" monitor from a physical store, it was probably a return from a customer as the packaging had been re-sealed and I got it a bit cheaper.

abondservant and Travis,You seem to have saved a lot!

Among other upgrades of it, I'm considering upgrading the 0.3 TB 2.5" HDD in my newer computer, to a new 120 GB SSD that is customized for computers 2011 or older (as it's not a high end computer). I just wonder if 120 GB is too much space that I'll not need, and whether it's still possible to order smaller SSD:s. Could someone perhaps give a link to a U.K. based online store that is good on SSD:s?

I don't have any movies or anything like that stored. I use only Logos (with ~1,050 books and index file size 2.22 GB), Accordance, MS Word, FTP (I don), UnZip Me, FileZilla FTP Client and the equivalent to Excel in LibreOffice, and Internet Explorer 10. Perhaps Windows 8. Currently Windows 7. I don't know whether I'll be using Word 2010 Starter or Word 2013 in the end. Currently I have Office 2010 Starter installed, but if I get the 2013 version I'll get only Word, that's enough. My webmail has become pretty good, they recently upgraded the interface, so I don't need Outlook, and I will most probably be able to borrow uni/college computers to use Powerpoint when needed there.

I know Logos needs ~20 GB breathing room minimum and I know since before that Windows works well only if maximally ⅔ of the drive is in use.

I'm asking because it's the same store as where I bought the 19" monitor (the central warehouse in a suburb of the most popular online store over here in this country) and they are asking quite a high price for the SSD, but on the other hand they don't have much cheaper SSD:s to offer, the 60 GB ones they offer are probably too small and like I said not much cheaper.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497065#Comment_497065

I bought mine from Amazon, amazon has a UK site I think? Amazon dot co dot uk

Outlooks calander features are nice as well... first day of classes I take my syllabi and enter into the calender everything that will come due for the semester and set it to remind me several weeks in advance. That way I don't miss an assignment.

As to hard drive size I can't help you... I'm a hard drive space glutton. I have 3 1tb and 1 1.5 tb mechanical drives, and a 256gb ssd.

the SSD has about 8gb free on it, and of the additional 4.5 tb I have 2tb free. Some of that is classes from last semester (classes can be attended in person, and are also recorded - felt foolish not to also download them) +/- 1tb, much is raw files from my digital, and so forth...

I think windows 7 footprint is 10gb freshly installed. After all the updates its more like 20. I'm not sure Logos needs 20gb, but I'll take your word for it - so thats 40. Leaving you within your page file margin. I think I use about 3gb for my page file... But my usage pattern is different so we can use your number.

I believe amazon has 80gb ssds. Just remember that some of the older SSD had no or little performance boost over the mechanical drives of the day. For a similar price point (at least in dollars, and here in the US) you might consider one of the hybrid drives. They are mechanical drives with 8, 16, or 32 gb of ssd cache. They keep your most accessed files in the cache, and move everything else to mechanical storage.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497070#Comment_497070

abondservant, You should delete some files on the SSD, Windows can malfunction with too little breathing room!

There can't be as many updates for W8 yet, but there may be in the future, regardless I doubt it will take more than 20 GB:

I think windows 7 footprint is 10gb freshly installed. After all the updates its more like 20.

Plus the installation for Logos itself and the books. With 20 GB I meant upon initial installation (indexing) or re-indexing (which can be needed if there are errors) if You have some books, subsequent indexing may perform well with less! Also, in case new index technology is implemented when L6 or L7 are launched, there may be the need for installation and indexing from scratch, but whether that will happen no-one can know yet!
I don't need a pagefile larger than a couple hundred MB, soon I have plenty of RAM (8 GB). I set the pagefile to a fixed size when doing fresh installs of Windows. Windows will create temporary file when and if needed and that's fine, on an SSD that won't slow the computer down.

I have no clue how much space Word 2013 requires - perhaps I should call MS over here in Sweden (I hope they have an office) - will they answer a question?:

I'm not sure Logos needs 20gb, but I'll take your word for it - so thats 40. Leaving you within your page file margin.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497096#Comment_497096

My breathing room is sufficient for my usage patterns, but thank you for the concern

I suspect by L7, you will have a new computer

MS should have an office in sweden. However you might just google its system requirements. It will tell you in broad terms how much drive space it needs.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497126#Comment_497126

I can't see getting anything smaller than 128GB for an SSD, my Win 7 ultrabook has one. Enough for mobile study and writing. If I were to do it again, I'd get at least 256GB. I suffered for years with an 80GB drive on my Mac mini. For working, it was bearable, but too cramped for music.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497303#Comment_497303

I've finally determined that yes indeed it will be fun to build my own. I've also determined that my original intention can be achieved with my existing hardware and some external additions. I'm still going to roll up and do a build, but I'm going to wait and see what transpires with MS' 8.wonder and OS X Mavericks.

John

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497506#Comment_497506

I've finally determined that yes indeed it will be fun to build my own.

Yes it can be fun, when things work together as they are supposed too [H]

Are you going to use Windows 7 or 8? Will you try to boot in Safemode? BIOS boot or UEFI? MBR or GPT format?

Whatever you decide, SSD is the way to go. Someone else claimed that older or smaller SSDs dont perform better than HD's. That was bad information. Even the slowest SSD is faster than the fastest HD. Also the recommendation for hybrid drives, also bad information. Best performance is from an SSD large enough to install everything on, running on Sata 3/6Gbs, on a system with plenty of RAM.

I recently built a new system based on Intel Core i7-3770 chip and the H77 chipset. I also picked up a little bit before that a Samsung 17" Laptop with an Intel Core i7-3630QM processor and 16GB RAM. It was on sale for about $700.

I loaded the desktop machine with 32GB of RAM, tried different RAID and SSD caching setups. The Samsung Laptop was upgraded to an Intel SSD. Other than that it is completely stock.

Running Benchmarks on both machines, I was amazed at how closely the Laptop was in performance to the Desktop processor. The Mobile processor ran at a slower clockspeed, but was almost identical in performance. My guess is that the processors are so fast now that overall performance depends more on the on-chip caching and memory speed.

After spending well over $2000+ on the desktop system, it isn't much faster than the $700 Samsung Laptop.

Even the Intel on-processor graphics are neck and neck with the desktop machine with a dedicated video card. I would have to spend at least $250 to get a video card that would outperform the Laptop built-in graphics.

The only things I really gained in the desktop system were:

1) Memory limit of 32GB, as opposed to motherboard limitation of 16GB in the Laptop.

2) PCIe and PCI Expansion card slots.

3) Room for more external drives

Item 1 really isnt a problem for most people. 32GB is overkill, but I do a lot of virtual machines.

Item 2 and 3 are only a problem if you want to expand and USB 3 isnt an option. Video card maybe? If you want to do high end video, you need the desktop.

If I was on a budget, I would just get a high end Laptop, upgrade to SSD and plug in external monitor and keyboard. An i7 laptop can run 3 monitors with the built-in video, as long as the MB supports it.

Which ever way you decide to go, hope it works out well.

I'm a tech junkie with all the Certs, if you need any help feel free to ask [Y]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497720#Comment_497720

I don't disagree with MOST of what you said John, but you seem to be slightly mis-informed when it comes to SSD.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/laptop/106678/ssd-laptop-drives-slower-than-hard-disks/
The first round of testing from toms hardware found the same IIRC. Modern ones are a significant and dramatic improvement.

I only have Tom's Hardware page to go by when it comes to hybrid drive speed. They were pretty favorable around Christmas time when I was considering that route. I can find the article if need be.

All in all not a big deal really.

Another Techie here, probably similar certs, probably similar experience to John.

John

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497738#Comment_497738

you seem to be slightly mis-informed when it comes to SSD.

You cited a 5 year old article to support your belief that hard drives are faster than SSD's?

I doubt the OP is going to be buying 5 year old technology. You referred to 80G SSD's being sold on Amazon in the sentence you warned about "older" SSD's that are slower than hard drives? Amazon isn't selling anything 5 years old. I don't think anybody is.

The fact is that the slowest SSD on the market today will outperform the fastest Hard Drive.

There are two issues to consider. One is access times, the other is data transfer rate.

SSD access times are so close to zero that you might say zero for all practical purposes. No mechanical hard drive can access data as quickly as an SSD. The laws of physics are at play here, and they are not likely to change.

Transfer rates are so fast on SSD's that the Sata specification had to be doubled to 6Gbps to accommodate them. This wasn't done for Hard drives. No mechanical hard drive is capable of saturating a 3Gbps Sata channel, but SSD's have been doing it for several years now, and some of them are approaching the 6Gbps rate.

As far as hybrid drives go, they have quite a long history of having bugs that make them incompatible with many systems. The problem was firmware and drivers. Just google it. Some of the problems are subtle and not easily diagnosed. After several years of using thei customers as guinea pigs and beta testers, Seagate might possibly have finally gotten things to an acceptable level of reliability, but I still will not recommend them to anyone.

Another Techie here, probably similar certs, probably similar experience to John.

I have all lifetime Comptia certs. A+, Network+, Security+, Linux+. I also have been building and programming computers for close to 30 years.

I know you like to argue, But I can read the forum and know what your experience is, and we aren't in the same league. The only similarity here is that we both have an interest in Logos / Libronix and in computers.

I am just offering to help anyone on the forum who needs help. Not here to fight over who is the smartest. But the things you posted were simply not true in today's market, and even the 5 year old article you cited was disputed back then. Read the comments. Nothing personal.

John

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497927#Comment_497927

Nothing personal.

You might be right about SSDs, but your penultimate paragraph certainly came across as personal to me.

Joseph Turner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497927#Comment_497927

You cited a 5 year old article to support your belief that hard drives are faster than SSD's?

John, I think he was clearing up his point about old SSDs being slower than HDDs, since you argued that,

Someone else claimed that older or smaller SSDs dont perform better than HD's. That was bad information. Even the slowest SSD is faster than the fastest HD.

He seemed to be pointing out that indeed, OLDER SSDs were indeed slower.

Joseph Turner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497995#Comment_497995

Of course I do agree that SSD is the way to go. I was shocked at the speed increase.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/497927#Comment_497927

You cited a 5 year old article to support your belief that hard drives are faster than SSD's?

John, I think he was clearing up his point about old SSDs being slower than HDDs, since you argued that,

Someone else claimed that older or smaller SSDs dont perform better than HD's. That was bad information. Even the slowest SSD is faster than the fastest HD.

He seemed to be pointing out that indeed, OLDER SSDs were indeed slower.

[Y]

you seem to be slightly mis-informed when it comes to SSD.

You cited a 5 year old article to support your belief that hard drives are faster than SSD's?

I doubt the OP is going to be buying 5 year old technology. You referred to 80G SSD's being sold on Amazon in the sentence you warned about "older" SSD's that are slower than hard drives? Amazon isn't selling anything 5 years old. I don't think anybody is.

The fact is that the slowest SSD on the market today will outperform the fastest Hard Drive.

There are two issues to consider. One is access times, the other is data transfer rate.

SSD access times are so close to zero that you might say zero for all practical purposes. No mechanical hard drive can access data as quickly as an SSD. The laws of physics are at play here, and they are not likely to change.

Transfer rates are so fast on SSD's that the Sata specification had to be doubled to 6Gbps to accommodate them. This wasn't done for Hard drives. No mechanical hard drive is capable of saturating a 3Gbps Sata channel, but SSD's have been doing it for several years now, and some of them are approaching the 6Gbps rate.

As far as hybrid drives go, they have quite a long history of having bugs that make them incompatible with many systems. The problem was firmware and drivers. Just google it. Some of the problems are subtle and not easily diagnosed. After several years of using thei customers as guinea pigs and beta testers, Seagate might possibly have finally gotten things to an acceptable level of reliability, but I still will not recommend them to anyone.

Another Techie here, probably similar certs, probably similar experience to John.

I have all lifetime Comptia certs. A+, Network+, Security+, Linux+. I also have been building and programming computers for close to 30 years.

I know you like to argue, But I can read the forum and know what your experience is, and we aren't in the same league. The only similarity here is that we both have an interest in Logos / Libronix and in computers.

I am just offering to help anyone on the forum who needs help. Not here to fight over who is the smartest. But the things you posted were simply not true in today's market, and even the 5 year old article you cited was disputed back then. Read the comments. Nothing personal.

John

Some of those 5 year old SSD's are still available on the market - and cheap. Thats all I'm saying. When I bought my SSD, I was gravitating naturally towards the cheaper drives at first and came across a number of cheap drives that were first or even second gen technology.

Several generations in, the hybrid drive technology is good enough for Toms Hardware Page to recommend it for those who can't afford a normal SSD, or for those who want more speed (obviously not as much as JUST an SSD) than a traditional mechanical drive, without compromising drive size.

As to the rest, brother, I'm sorry if I come across as one who likes to argue. I don't want to be known for my technical skills, or even as an expositor, I want people to see me as a reflection of Christ and it seems with you, I have failed that. So please accept my sincerest apology.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/498000#Comment_498000

I have to wonder if a hybrid drive is any good. Wouldn't it wear out quickly shifting files back and forth? Searches in Logos would probably not be fast - I can't imagine that it puts the Logos index on the SSD. (In my case 2.22 GB).

The cheapest hybrid drive in stock at the leading computer part store over here, is this one: http://www.webhallen.com/se-sv/hardvara/171422-seagate_intern_harddisk_thin_sshd_500gb_sata_25
... it came in in February 2013 ... it's a 500 GB 5400 rpm drive. It has 64 MB cache and 8 GB SSD. It costs $100, which is ~$20 less than the 128 GB SSD I'm considering: http://www.webhallen.com/se-sv/hardvara/174317-sandisk_ssd_ultra_plus_notebook-128_gb ... that's the SSD that is compatible with SATA 1, 2 and 3.
What do You think about that hybrid drive compared to the SSD?
The laptop that would be subject of the upgrade has 1½ years old technology. It has an OK graphics card, a bit slow CPU with 1 MB L2 cache, plenty of RAM (8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3) and SATA II HDD:

Several generations in, the hybrid drive technology is good enough for Toms Hardware Page to recommend it for those who can't afford a normal SSD, or for those who want more speed (obviously not as much as JUST an SSD) than a traditional mechanical drive, without compromising drive size.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/498098#Comment_498098

I would try for a 256gb ssd over the hybrid drive.

It was about a 30$ difference when I purchased mine a few months back. No idea how that will translate into your context.

The Hybrid drive would be useful for data that is accessed all the time - windows files etc.

If you for some reason were to re-index your pc daily, it would make a significant difference in your indexing times.

A cache drive (not a hybrid drive), installed on my desktop boosted boot times by 30 or 40% over a conventional mechanical drive. Of course, it goes without saying that this was a modern SSD cache drive. Upgrading to the SSD gave me another significant performance boost. If you can afford it go with the SSD, if not, then hybrid is still faster than the mechanical equivalent (though research the model you intend to buy prior to purchasing).

Also some benchmark softwares don't play well with certain SSD's so if you are into benchmarking, know you might not always get a reliable report. Novabench seems to be particularly affected (though in the past 6 months or so they may have fixed their glitch). Their software reports the latest Sandforce3 SSD drives only run at around 105Mbps, whereas they are rated for 550 or 600.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/498143#Comment_498143

I wouldn't ever need the extra space on a 256 GB SSD. 128 GB would be more than enough. And I think that over here the price difference is much more: $95 (I haven't checked the competing webstores for the 256 GB drive).
My current installation is 75 GB and if upgrading to Windows 8 and Word 2013 I could manage with less because then I wouldn't be getting the rest of Office. I never download any movies or music.
I was thinking that I could do much of my surfing on my other laptop which has a 1.3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 83 GB NTFS formatted SSD, 4 GB RAM and also Logos 5 as well, maybe surfing is faster on it.

Perhaps re-sale value years from now would be better with the 500 GB hybrid drive than with the 128 GB as most users want the extra space?:

I would try for a 256gb ssd over the hybrid drive.

It was about a 30$ difference when I purchased mine a few months back. No idea how that will translate into your context.

The Hybrid drive would be useful for data that is accessed all the time - windows files etc.

If you for some reason were to re-index your pc daily, it would make a significant difference in your indexing times.

Here are some data about the hybrid drive:
Average latency 5.6 ms.
Three year warranty.
SATA III Edition ATTO Disk Benchmark: 115 MB/s read, 113 MB/s write: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5493/seagate-laptop-thin-500gb-hybrid-sshd-st500lm000-review/index4.html.
SATA III Edition HD Tune Pro Benchmark: average read 89 MB/s (peak 111.8 MB/s), average write 54 MB/s (peak 112 MB/s): http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5493/seagate-laptop-thin-500gb-hybrid-sshd-st500lm000-review/index5.html.
AIDA 64 Random Access Time: At the lowest point, the drive had a read access time of 16.52ms, with the highest being a 21.45ms spike. Average write access landed at 29.18ms followed closely by its maximum of 31.73ms. Read more at http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5493/seagate-laptop-thin-500gb-hybrid-sshd-st500lm000-review/index6.html#JagG3mPVCkoDApkR.99.
Read IOPS through Queue Depth Scale: peak random read 295.7, peak random write 285.6.
According to PCMark Vantage Windows Defender becomes much faster: 2-3 times faster than on a HDD.
System boot time a few % better than a competing 750 GB HDD.
Resume from hibernation: better than HDD: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5493/seagate-laptop-thin-500gb-hybrid-sshd-st500lm000-review/index10.html

Reliability/Data Integrity

QuietStep Ramp Load
Load/Unload Cycles: 600,000
Norecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max 1 per 10E14
Predicted Annualized Failure Rate (AFR) 0.48%

In the StorageMark2010 HTPC 4K Disk Capture, the Seagate Gen3 offered substantially higher performance, boosting throughput by 18.5% over the previous-generation model.
Tested power consumption: idle 1.15 watts, random read 2.07 W, read 3.03 W, write 3.20 W. Startup power requirements measured 4.01 watts to get the drive to operating speed. The Seagate SSHD Gen3 power consumption is lower than the Gen2 in every test but idle, where it is nearly the same. Across the board, the Gen3 made strong gains and saved 0.3-1.2 watts depending on the job it was doing.

More benchmarks: http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_sshd_thin_review_gen3_500gb_st500lm000
Conclusion
While not a bombshell, Seagate's Gen3 model does provide cost-efficient performance and a significantly lower starting price than the Gen2 Momentus XT 750GB. Our benchmarking shows the Gen3 and Gen2 both outperform HDDs where it matters, in our real world traces where the onboard cache can really show its performance benefits. In that case, where data is nicely cached, the new 500GB Thin beats the 750GB Gen2 product by a significant margin.

Here's the problem though. When the first Momentus XT hybrid came to market, SSDs were relatively young and the cost imbalance still favored hard drives for the masses, especially the new Seagate hybrids that could tack on additional performance gains over pure platter plays. Fast-forward to 2013 and SSD prices have decreased to the point that the 500GB Thin compares on price pretty similarly to a decent 120GB SSD on sale. Yes, the SSHD wins on capacity by a wide margin, but the SSD shows at least 8X gains in the real world traces, the place where the SSHD does the best. And consumers have been well-trained by Apple, Amazon and others to leave storage-heavy content like media files in the cloud, or on a home NAS that can be accessed from any device from anywhere with a decent internet connection.

The 500GB SSHD Thin will still appeal to certain OEMs and end users who want a mix of performance, value and capacity, but the high-end performance guys will no doubt go to an SSD. Value buyers should definitely drop a little more cash for the boost the SSHD Thin offers though. At the end of the day, the 500GB SSHD Thin is a nice progressive improvement, and definitely a worthy upgrade for HDD buyers with only a $15 price delta between the 500GB Thin and leading 500GB 7,200RPM laptop drives.

Bottom Line

Seagate's 500GB SSHD Thin drive at 7mm is a wallet-friendly alternative for users seeking new technology that provides low-power consumption, serious performance gains over conventional HDDs when in cache, and overall solid value per gigabyte.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/498258#Comment_498258

You will need to decide if you can live with 128gb, if so (I cannot, not even on my boot drive) then get it. The resale boost in 4 or 5 years won't be enough to make a difference at least in my local market. Outdated technology (which it will be by then) will still be outdated technology. Likely, even your ssd will be outdated compared to the drives released in 5 years.

Moore's Law has the number of transistors on a given chip doubling every two years (and thus the speed increases).

In terms of storage space, I think the increase is faster than that. Were talking terabytes now, but in a decade (or maybe less) we'll be talking petabytes, or exabytes. Or maybe organic computing (was reading a journal about this a few weeks back)...