RDi - benefits of a higher spec computer?

[Vectorspace]

My work-provided laptop is a Lenovo X240. Intel i5-4300U @ 1.9GHz, 4GB Ram, standard magentic HDD, Windows 7 64Bit. I got it last year.

What I didn't know when I got it (no-one tells us these things) is that developers who use Eclipse-based IDEs like RDi are entitled to request a "Developer Spec" laptop, with 8GB Ram and a 6GB/s SSD.
The minimum CPU is quoted as i5-3320M @ 2.60GHz, but that's from the X230 so I think mine is about equivalent anyway.

But because my current laptop is not yet 5 years old, it would be an early upgrade which incurs a higher cost, so if I want it I have to justify it.

Would the double RAM and SSD cause a noticeable performance boost in RDi?

[tomliotta]

Going from 4GB to 8GB RAM is a definite plus. 8GB SODIMMs can be had for $35US or so. With 64-bit Windows, it seems silly to run with 4GB as a developer. Not sure what the SSD might improve.

[chris_hird]

The SSD makes a huge improvement for Windows start up and normal operations. We have added SSD's to our PC's and just have Windows installed on it, an old X200 laptop which was almost unusable with the old magnetic disk is now quite fast and much less frustrating to use. Eclipse is Java based so takes a long time to start up (memory hog and lot of disk activity), the SSD and the additional memory will help improve that as well.

Chris...

[jj_dahlheimer]

I run 4 gig of ram with an i5 with no ssd and it runs fine. I would have preferred 8 and had I had any input on my computer I would have said so as I can't disagree with tomliotta that it is a little goofy not to run 8 but the only time i have an issue is when chrome sometimes starts eating up memory. Should be pretty simple and cheap to upgrade the ram.

[TedHolt]

developers who use Eclipse-based IDEs like RDi are entitled to request a "Developer Spec" laptop

Who entitles developers to make this request? (Just curious.)

[Rocky]

RDi is written in Java - so more memory is good. I doubt that the SSD in of itself would make much difference as once it's loaded it pretty much is running in memory.

[Vectorspace]

When I first got RDp last year I had my workspace on a network drive, which was almost unusably slow. It seems that most actions I did resulted in IO to the workspace.. When I moved it to the local drive it was much faster, so I would assume SSD could be faster still.

Who entitles developers to make this request? (Just curious.)

I work for a huge company (one of the world's largest banks). Large development teams like the developer service centres in India and Poland have policies and people dedicated to ensure developers always have the right hardware and tools. So developers in those teams would have a developer spec laptop requested for them already when they join. But I work for one of the small teams, and we don't have anything/anyone like that. Case in point, RDp/RDi had been the company's standard iSeries dev tool for years, but we only found out 14 months ago.
So since have I managed just fine without a developer spec laptop so far, it is up to my manager if he wants to okay the expenditure of a developer spec laptop + the cost of an early upgrade (we will be charged an "Early Evergreen" fee since I have had my laptop for less than 5 years)
The costs set by whatever department supplies the Windows computer builds for an upgrade to a developer spec laptop is £150 for it to have an SSD, £75 for it to have 8GB RAM, and £234 for upgrading early, total £459.
And because it's up to my manager to approve it, it is up to me to justify to him why it's worth it.

an old X200 laptop which was almost unusable with the old magnetic disk is now quite fast and much less frustrating to use.

Before I got my X240 last year, I was actually using an X200 with magnetic HDD. I don't remember how much RAM it had, probably not much.

[arrow483]

The SSD should definitely improve the startup time, and more memory should help with the run times. Another trick that helped A LOT is to exclude the RDi folder with the DLL's from anti-virus. Exclude "read access" from scanning. Some AV's slow it down a lot while loading.