SSD Performance Gains

ColBackAgain

Posted this over on OCZ earlier and have had some good experience with you lads on here, so said I'd ask here too and see what people think.


What are the real world gains of an SSD with 4/500+ MB/s read speeds vs something lower at like an SSD 200MB/s?

Like I realize, if you are transferring a bunch of really large files, yes the faster SSD will out perform the slower one. But I keep hearing that, in the real world, it's how fast the random access is.

Would you notice the real world speed gains when using you PC on a day-to-day basis, when using a higher end vs mid range SSD?
Reason I ask is I have a lower/mid range SSD and considering going high end, but not sure if the speed gain is really worth dishing out the extra cash for a faster SSD.

Cheers

U_Fig

I currently have 2 SSDs one in my laptop running on a SATA 2 port (128gb ocz agility 3) and one in my htpc running on a SATA 3 port (64gb Samsung 830)

As far as CPU performance goes my laptop is a decent bit ahead of my htpc

Boot times on laptop about 35ish seconds while htpc is about 12-15 seconds.. Now that's the bottle neck of the SATA 3 SSD running on a SATA 2 port (ie at about 200-250 MB/s) while on SATA 3 (500-550 MB/s)

So that's the difference really and I noticed opening applications is faster and copying files to my USB 3.0 drive is about 10-15 MB/s faster usually but has been more than this

The main thing about lower brand SSDs is the higher failure rates of the drives.. So when buying this would be my main concern.. ATM Samsung 830 (possibly 840 not sure ATM) and crucial have the lowest failure rates..intel is pretty good too as far as i know..

ColBackAgain

U_Fig wrote: »

I currently have 2 SSDs one in my laptop running on a SATA 2 port (128gb ocz agility 3) and one in my htpc running on a SATA 3 port (64gb Samsung 830)

As far as CPU performance goes my laptop is a decent bit ahead of my htpc

Boot times on laptop about 35ish seconds while htpc is about 12-15 seconds.. Now that's the bottle neck of the SATA 3 SSD running on a SATA 2 port (ie at about 200-250 MB/s) while on SATA 3 (500-550 MB/s)

So that's the difference really and I noticed opening applications is faster and copying files to my USB 3.0 drive is about 10-15 MB/s faster usually but has been more than this

The main thing about lower brand SSDs is the higher failure rates of the drives.. So when buying this would be my main concern.. ATM Samsung 830 (possibly 840 not sure ATM) and crucial have the lowest failure rates..intel is pretty good too as far as i know..

Yeah well I've had a good experience so far with my SSD. My SSD is fast. Boots up really fast, but I've a fairly well specced system behind it. But i've an OCZ petrol. Basically the bottom of the barrel of the SSD family. Have to say its really good, max read is like 180MB/s. Which is slow for an SSD. But everything I run still opens instantly. Like it boots in sub 10 seconds easily.

It's a SATA 3 ssd, but it cant actually go beyond 180MB/s. Which really confuses me why its labelled SATA 3.

My mobo only has SATA 2 ports and to be honest, this evening i'm wondering if the cable from my SSD to my mobo is even a SATA 2 cable. I think it could be sata 1, because my max read speed I can get from the drive is 130MB/s (150 being sata 1 as far as I know).

And all of this has got me thinking, my SSD is slower than most ssd these days. Should I just get an ssd on sale before christmas, something that will allow 400MB/s+ (and just saturate my sata 2 connection at 250/300MB/s) or stick with my lower end SSD, knowing it's doing the job perfectly fine.

Like how much will a high end SSD be, speedwise vs a low end SSD? Like how much does all these benchmarks really matter in the real world...

U_Fig

To be honest if it's not broken don't fix it.. SSD's are coming down in price all the time..in real world application they will never perform to their benchmarked speeds.. To be honest I doubt you see a major difference in upgrading mainly because of only having a SATA 2 port.. I'd wait . You can get a SATA 2/3 cable cheap and try that but i doubt its a SATA 1 cable The only reason I'd bother upgrading is for more space or maybe if you got a SATA 3 compatible motherboard.

Check Online amazon and dabs and elara and komplette you wouldn't need a high end really.. Check anandtech benchmarks. They have some nice comparisons there

Monotype

ColBackAgain wrote: »

My mobo only has SATA 2 ports and to be honest, this evening i'm wondering if the cable from my SSD to my mobo is even a SATA 2 cable. I think it could be sata 1, because my max read speed I can get from the drive is 130MB/s (150 being sata 1 as far as I know).

The cables shouldn't make any difference at all.

The biggest difference in SSDs is the response time vs hard drives. You wouldn't notice a huge difference in moving between them. Of course, I would be very much aware of what I'm buying - e.g., 550MB/s may not always be that speed - SSD makers can neglect to tell you that these speeds are only achievable with drives less than half full or with the data is compressible.
You'll see these speed differences only in heavy loads.

Caveat emptor!