This the extra expense of this model will pay for itself very quickly. The hydraulic assist is so much faster that I can sharpen my longer chain (173 links) in about 5 minutes. Thats extremely fast. I have 8 of them. By hand it would take my hours and with non hydraulic assist I would estimate 15-20 minutes per chain (of the 173 link size). So if you have lots of chains, a small shop or do lots of milling....get this.