A senior tech told me to stop chasing benchmarks after 15 years

I used to obsess over synthetic scores until a guy with 30 years in the field pointed out my SSD benchmarks were meaningless because the customer's workload was just Office and browsing. He showed me how to test real-world file transfers instead, and now I save about 2 hours per build. Anyone else have an old-school trick they had to learn the hard way?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_miller8412d ago

The "customer's workload was just Office and browsing" part hit me hard lol. I used to think faster drives always mattered until I realized most people wouldn't notice the difference between a SATA and NVMe for checking emails. Definitely changed how I spec stuff out now.

riley4311d ago

Office and browsing" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. How often do you actually ask what "browsing" means before you decide on the parts?

grantw3211d ago

The whole "faster is always better" mindset is everywhere once you start looking. I see people buying cars that can go 150 mph when they never leave city traffic, or kitchen appliances with fifty settings they never touch. We get sold on the peak number instead of what actually matters for how we live. That senior tech basically taught you to match the tool to the job instead of chasing what looks good on paper. Real world usefulness beats a high score every single time.