I really like my new laptop, the Panasonic CF-S9 from Japan (i5-540, 8GB of memory, 12.1" widescreen, 8 - 12 hour battery life, under 3lbs - yes, under 3lbs). I don't always say that as I fall out of love with laptops pretty quickly. Is it perfect? No. I've definitely got some gripes with it. Disk speed is not one of them. Stock, it came with the new Toshiba 256GB 2nd generation SSD that supports TRIM (THNS256GG8BBAA). The Toshiba R600 I bought last year has the Toshiba 1st generation 512GB drive (THNS512GG8BBA) which does not support TRIM. One of my concerns in the switch was overall capacity - taking a step back since I have a lot of VMs. The 512GB SSD was pretty fast, and truth be told, all of my laptops since about 2005 or 2006 have all had SSDs. But the one thing anyone who runs VMs knows is that I/O is king. The 256GB that came with the Panasonic was pretty quick, but not the fastest. I say that knowing it gave me a Windows Experience of 6.7 for disk, which is nothing to shake a stick at.

So to expand capacity, my original goal was to add USB 3.0 externally via an ExpressCard on the Panasonic. Unforuntately, Panasonic put a PCMCIA (cardbus) slot in the CF-S9, and even with an adapter, I couldn't get my USB 3.0 ExpressCard to work. I tried an eSATA PCMCIA card and I got worse than USB 2.0 speeds, so Panasonic's PCMCIA controller officially sucks. The lack of ExpressCard support and the poor PCMCIA implementation is my biggest disappointment with the Panasonic.

Why all the fuss? I bought the 256GB Crucial C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 - the new king of the SSD speeds in 2.5" drives. It would be a waste of money cripple it with USB 2.0 speeds. Thankfully Panasonic didn't make it near impossible to get the internal drive out (like Sony does with many of their models ... speaking from experience, I have a very love-hate relationship with higher end Sony laptops). Just unscrew two screws, and carefully get the drive out.

I used Paragon Partition Manager 10.0 Professional (bought; not a freebie) to clone the Toshiba to the Crucial (4 hours since I was using an external USB 2.0 enclosure), popped out the Toshiba, put in the Crucial, and with fingers crossed, powered on the Panasonic. Success!

I re-ran my Windows Experience, and disk went up to a whopping 7.6. 7.6! Not too shabby. I can tell the laptop has a bit more snap to it as well. The increased write speeds do make a difference. Check out my CrystalDiskMark scores now:

It is not a drive for those who are on the fence about SSD - there are much cheaper options if you want SSD. With SSDs it's not only about SLC vs. MLC, but it has nearly everything to do with how the SSD manufacturer has optimized its controller. Compared to the original SSDs I was using in the 32GB sizes back on my old Vaio VGN-G1 from Japan, the speeds are amazing to see how far the technology has come.

And I will tell you this as someone with a history with SSDs in laptops - they don't significantly add to your battery life. Maybe 30 minutes, or at most, an hour, but I'd say about 30 minutes. What you do gain is a lot of silence, have less heat, and I love the fact it has no moving parts so if you accidentally jar your laptop, the drive head won't fail. The only SSD failure (knock on wood) I had was on my Sony Vaio VGN-Z90 from a couple of years ago which had a proprietary RAID system, and this Crucial is pretty much faster than that.

Hope this helps some of you wondering about SSDs and whether they are worth it. Like anything, it depends. You do get what you pay for. Just because you may get an SSD doesn't mean it's going to be better than that traditional hard drive. Like many do in the SQL Server world, they go for capacity over speed and/or reliability. Know what your tradeoffs are.

On May 13 and May 20, Ben DeBow and I will be giving two days worth (six sessions) of webinars dedicated to the topic of consolidation with SQL Server. There is no requirement to attend both days, and you can do just one, or both. These webinars are not free, but are great value for the money and your boss does not need to send you anywhere - you can view them right on your computer screen! The cost for a single day is $99, or $178 for both (a savings of $20).

The six sessions we'll be doing are:
May 13 - Part I
11:00 am ET: SQL Server Consolidation Basics
1:00 pm ET: Gathering Information to Make Consolidation Decisions
3:00 pm ET: Applications and SQL Server Consolidation

May 20 - Part II
11:00 am ET: Considerations for SQL Server Consolidation
1:00 pm ET: Approaches for a Consolidated SQL Server Architecture
3:00 pm ET: Administering and Maintaining a Consolidated SQL Server Environment 

Each session will be about 75 minues with a live Q&A with both of us. For more details on each session and to register:

Part I Only http://elearning.left-brain.com/event/sql-server-consolidation-part-1-elearning-series.aspx?code=EP2905A1
Part II Only http://elearning.left-brain.com/event/sql-server-consolidation-part-2-elearning-series.aspx?code=EP2905A2
Both Days (with the $20 Savings) http://elearning.left-brain.com/event/sql-server-consolidation-parts-i-and-ii.aspx?code=EP2905AC

As if that wasn't enough to keep me busy, I've got more going on. Besides working on a few whitepapers which I hope will be released in the next two months as well as customer engagements, I'll be on the road quite a bit. Here's where you can catch me at public or semi-public events besides the webinar:

TechEd North America 2010
I'll be spending time in the SQL Server booth (and probably the Windows Clustering one as well), but the main reason will be my session DAT407 "Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Failover Clustering Implementations". It will be on Thursday, June 10th from 5 - 6:15 PM in Room 276 (subject to change, I'm sure; check the site and guide when you get there). I know it's late in the day and most likely before the attendee party (update: it is; actually this is arguably one of the last sessions of the conference), but I hope to see you there and your brains are ready for 75 more minutes of content!

Microsoft Certified Master - SQL Server
I was recently honored with being asked to give one day of sessions at the upcoming May rotation for the Microsoft Certified Master - SQL Server certification. That day is May 14th, so if you're in the rotation, I'll see you there.

I'll actually be on the West Coast quite a bit (mainly in the Pacific Northwest and California) in May and June (outside of TechEd, of course), so if you've got a user group that needs a speaker and I'm in town, let's see if we can't coordinate. Click the Contact link above to get in touch.

Puget Sound SQL Server Users Group
Since I will be in the area, I do plan on trying to attend the Puget Sound SQL Server Users Group meeting if my schedule permits on May 12th. I am not going to be speaking if I go; I'm rarely around to just attend user group meetings anywhere. So feel free to say hello if you spot me!

I just found out one of my proposed sessions was approved, so I'll be speaking at TechEd North America 2010. This year it's back in New Orleans from June 7 - 10. I was at I think the last TechEd in around 2003 or so in New Orleans (well, the last one in New Orleans *I* spoke at). Clearly it's too early to know what day or time, but I'm very happy and honored nonetheless. Stay tuned for more info.

Oh, and if you're curious, it's a clustering-related session - not a surprise.

I'll be presenting at the Los Angeles SQL Server Professionals Group on January 21st. For complete details, check their website.

Well, it's official - the website just went up. Can't hide it anymore ... I'm delivering a 3-day masterclass on consolidation and virtualization at World of Windows Server in Singapore as well as delivering two sessions (although the current website shows two different, it is going to be a two parter on clustering). I'm very exicted and honored to have been asked to do this.

If you don't live in Singapore or can't get there (hey, what's a few thousand US dollars to take a little excursion to Singapore at the last minute - just ask ask your boss!), I do plan on delivering the masterclass and possibly expanding it to four or five days. Or not. I've spent a lot of time over this past month in content development (official v1 of my Windows Server 2008/SQL Server failover clustering class and this upcoming delivery in Singapore), and am going to assess it after I'm done to see if any tweaks are needed. I can promise you that whether you come to Singapore or see it in a town near you, it'l be a lot of fun, technical content, and information.

Contact me if you want to know more!

PASS was a whirlwind week between the three main conference days and the two MS Insider days on either end. I don't ever remember being so busy at PASS, yet for the first time in ... well ... I don't know how long I actually attended a handful of sessions. I highly recommend the HA customer panel led by two good friends on SQLCAT Prem Mehra and Sanjay Mishra. Besides hearing about real world implementations, I was SO glad the panel talked about people and process. You don't get 12 seconds of downtime with technology alone! It wouldn't be PASS if I didn't say that it was good seeing everyone - friends new and old, including putting faces with people I had been talking to for quite awhile either over e-mail or on the phone. Oh, and Buck - stop trying to make friends with fire hydrants!

Despite all of the excitement I also managed to deliver my own, not without its own set of challenges. By the time I hit PASS, I realized that my session had been made 500 level. 500 level? I may be good, but 500 I think implies I must know a lot about SQL Server and failover clustering lol Now wanting to disappoint, my presentation and demos had major surgery before Thursday, and I hope I passed the audition (to paraphrase a famous rock band ...). I'll see when I get my scores in a few weeks. I only wish I had a two parter or more time, as it would have even been better. It was also fun sitting in for the afternoon on the failover clustering pre-con.

I did see that people posted Tweets about me on Twitter http://twitter.com/search?q=Hirt%20sqlpass. I'm not on Twitter and don't plan on it (I am on Facebook, though). Someone pointed it out to me. Seeing it was a strange experience.

In other news, I saw that Ken Simmons took the time to read and blog with a brief review of my new consolidation whitepaper. It's always nice to see people actually thinking what you do is worthwhile; sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the trees when you're writing and editing.

On Amazon, my Pro SQL Server 2005 High Availability book just got its first review after two years in publication. I was pretty shocked to see it, considering how long it's been out. I know what people have said to me about it, but funny to see a formal review after my new book was published.

Speaking of my new book, I thank those of you who have already bought Pro SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering  in eBook or a physical format (i.e. a book of the paper kind) since its publication in July. The word on the street is it's doing fairly well, and people seem to like it. I saw at PASS it sold out, which I took to mean it was popular.

Oh, and I know I need to finish the scripts. I will soon - and one of them is a PowerShell-based script which automatically creates the scripts to install your Windows and SQL Server failover clusters pulling the info from my configuration spreadsheet. I know the scripts are way late, but I've been a tad busy and I want to give you guys good value. My apologies.

I've got a few future book ideas up my sleeve - a few of which may come to fruition over the next year or so - but I can say with relative certainty that I'll probably be doing a full HA book (not just failover clustering) for the next full version of SQL Server after SQL Server 2008 R2. Chances are it will be bigger than the 2005 HA book which is about 800 pages. Yes, you read that right. Bigger. Better start lifting weights now!

Well, in the mean time, I'm off to finish preparing for a failover clustering training class I'm delivering next week, and finalize my consolidation/virtualization class I'll be delivering in Singapore in December, along with two normal presentations (one on failover clustering, another on consolidation/virtualization).

Thankfully I'll have a little bit of downtime in Japan (before Singapore) and Hong Kong (after Singapore). I get to spend my upcoming 38th birthday on a plane flying to Tokyo. I look forward to catching the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and hopefully Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, and Lenny White at the Blue Note while in town. I found my USA-made 1976 maple neck fretless Fender Precision there in 2008 for a great price, and it's become a favorite to play. Tokyo not only a great place to visit just as a tourist (this will be my third time there), but an awesome music town. If you're a lover of buying music in a physical format, one of the last places on Earth that still has a lot of great CD and record stores. Hopefully I'll also get to hang a bit with my friend Jason who I was in a band with back in college. My new jazz album is partially done, and I'll be doing a lot of composing and arranging while on that trip. Heaven knows I'll have a LOT of time on airplanes!

Enjoy! Click here to listen to it.

I taped my session with Richard and Greg for RunAs Radio yesterday. We spent most of the hour talking about clustering with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008, with a bit of other stuff (virtualization and speaking at conferences) thrown in for good measure. They're working hard on getting it ready, and I'm told it'll be the next show posted which is next Wednesday, April 22, 2009. I'll blog again when it's posted, but I wanted to give everyone the heads up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did doing it yesterday.