Time to Upgrade to a SSD, Advice wanted

Leman_Russ

So, I am thinking about getting some new HDD to augment my ageing 150 and 500 gb slow drives

I'm certain I want to grab a pair of Samsung F3s for certain, but I am torn whether to get a SSD for my OS or not. I am tempted to get a cheapo £105 kingston 64GB one, but I know they are cheap for a reason :cool:

There is also the 128GB Kingston or a 80GB Intel for £170, and I know from what I have read that Intel SSD pretty much equals excellent Quality. Ah, why do they have to make things so hard to choose

Vergast

Oh I know your predicament, in the rig im building at the moment an SSD was my first idea, but after looking around I decided on a normal 40 euro 500gb hd for now and wait till prices drop and what not before buying into the SSD market.

From what I've gathered a cheap SSD is fairly pointless and the performance gains of moving to SSD can be very small to a good quality one. I too have heard intel models are good but thats about as much as I can say, which isnt anything you already didnt know!

If its just for your OS and OS only, then there is nothing wrong with getting a 32GB or smaller good quality SSD drive to boost performance. If your wanting to stick your favourite apps on there too you may need the larger ones. A while back I was temped into buying a 16GB SSD for my OS, which only needed maybe 6gb so plenty of room for space.

uberpixie

I have just upgraded to an ssd.

Your best bet is either an Intel SSD or a SSD that uses the Indilinx "barefoot" controller.
Cheaper units user the older samsung memory controller which is bad, very bad.

I went with a 60 gig OCZ Vertex which uses the Indilinx "barefoot" controller.

There are a good few changes you need to make to your OS setup to get the most out of SSDs.

1) if an SSD fills up too much: performance drops like a rock, you need to ensure to always keep a good bit of free space. So a smaller drive may be fine for OS but you prob will be installing all apps on a regular harddrive.

2) You cannot defrag an SSD as they messes it up big time, "deffragging" is handled differently by each different brand of SSD. The OCZ vertex uses a garage collection tool to clean up the ssd, it also supports TRIM under windows 7 which is ment to do this also.

3) After a few months you may need to write zeros to the entire SSD and reinstall windows to get performance back.

4) It is recommended to move all temp internet file folders, windows pagefile, windows temp folders etc to another regular harddrive: this cuts down on the number of random read/writes and help maintain the SSDs performance.

5) installing games on a SSD can greatly increase the wear and tear on the drive and reduce performance over time.

If you look through the ocz forums you can find an extensive tweak guide for vista/win7.

I am finding windows very responsive under an SSD, it's hard to tell atm if this is due to windows7 or the SSD itself, but def webpages are loading quickly on a crap wireless connection, and windows is very responsive when opening apps. Time will tell how much of a performance drop I will get over a few months use.

Anti

I went with the corsair ones with the barefoot controller. nippy little ****er those SSD's

Leman_Russ

The performance degredation over time is one of the things that turned me off If I am to be honest. Well, and the price. I can get 3 F3s for the same price as a single 80GB SSD after all...

uberpixie

Leman_Russ wrote: »

The performance degredation over time is one of the things that turned me off If I am to be honest. Well, and the price. I can get 3 F3s for the same price as a single 80GB SSD after all...

Intel, while hey do not lead on stats, seemingly retain their performance better than the Indilinx controller based SSDs....

I am willing to image windows and reinstall worst comes to worst, so performance degradation is not too much of a worry for me . Reimaging after a writing zeros to the drive should be quick, that and you can reinstall 7 without formatting the drive after a write to zeros seemingly....

Price is very high, but I really wanted to play with an SSD and get a feel for the tech, me and my mate have pretty much written these drives off, if I get 2 good years out of one I will be happy.

By the time i have knackered this one, tech will have gotten cheaper, better and faster. That and I was itching to upgrade, an SSd is the only bit of tech that would greatly improve my pcs performance, no point upgrading from a Q6600 or a 4870 512mb just yet. plenty of life left in both!

cherryghost

i got my an OCZ Summit 60Gb a few months back, running along 3 WD HDs and my Q6600. Runs like a dream, bootup time is so quick and i have reduced loading times in my games and apps that are running off the Hard Drives.

kaimera

Running a g2 80gb intel.

updated firmware and she flys along.

note: enable AHCI for a nice lil speed boost

IrishGrimReaper

kaimera wrote: »

Running a g2 80gb intel.

updated firmware and she flys along.

note: enable AHCI for a nice lil speed boost

QFT.

Honestly, I have bought alot of stuff over the past 2 years and that SSD was probably the best buy to date. Currently the intels are just pooning everything atm. It is pricey but it's well worth it in the end. Updating the firmware is very easy too!

Edit: The one in you link though is the Generation 1 SSD that doesn't have TRIM support. G1=Black:without TRIM - G2=White:With TRIM.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/80GB-Intel-MLC-Flash-25-SSD-SATA-3Gb-s-Read-250MB-s-Write-70MB-s-OEM

Griffin87

Im thinking about ssd myself.


The Intel X25-M 80GB looks great