SSD vs. HDD

Ryman03 · **SSD vs. HDD -** 06-21-2011, 15:53 | posts: 462 | Location: OH

Hey guys,
I currently have a 500GB HDD but have been looking at upgrading to a new SSD drive. I know there are a lot of articles out there on SSD vs. HDD but I wanted to get your guys opinions in terms of speed, write time, boot time, and overall performance with SSD drives vs HDD drives? Is it worth the money for less space at this time?
Thanks

nhlkoho · 06-21-2011, 15:58 | posts: 3,873 | Location: Washington DC

For the OS yes it is a huge improvement. Buy a new SSD for your OS and a few programs and keep your current 500GB HDD for games/storage.

Darren Hodgson · 06-21-2011, 16:00 | posts: 9,747 | Location: England

An SSD is the best upgrade you can buy for a PC after the graphics card, CPU and memory IMO. I doubt you'd regret it, I certainly haven't. Put it this way, my next PC which I'll be buying later this year will definitely have an SSD.

Buy a 60/120 GB SSD and install Windows and application software only on it. You can then use the other HDD for storing games and data on. It is by far the best arrangement IMO; there's no need to abandon that old HDD unless it's slow or too small.

SSDs are terrific for booting operating systems off where they have the biggest benefit but with their limited write capacity I've avoided installing games on them.

killer_939 · 06-21-2011, 16:44 | posts: 2,566 | Location: Australia

I love my OCZ Agility 3 120gb ssd, nuff said?

Lane · *Last edited by Lane; 06-21-2011 at 18:14.*

SSD without doubt .. you will not regret it .

now about size: personnally i was think 128go is really short after 1month of use ( +2,5To for data ), i want to have my games installed on the main partition + software, so with the gaming size increasing continously ( 8-10go sometimes 14go+ ) with some professional software and windows this was a bit short in size.

The good thing i have buy the same SSD 128go then and put them in raid0 ( and litterally doubled the performance ( something really nice with SSD and raid0, the performance are really doubled with SATAIII).

I use Steam, and ofc i offtly reinstall old games ( there's a way for make Steam install games on a different folders drive anyway. )

About size again: different size of SSD imply a different density of flash chips. and different density don't forcibly give the same write speed: check well the difference when you choose the size, for don't be surprised your 64go SSD don't have the same write speed of the 256go.

This problem tend to disappear with last SATAIII series but still good to check on reviews, not only the size of the SSD change, the perf and hardware used in it too.

As said upper, the advantage is, HDD 1-2To are extremely cheap and so you can get a "proper fast windows install" and coupled with large data storage on standard HDD it's just excellent.

peanutmanak47 · 06-21-2011, 17:58 | posts: 854 | Location: Florida

I don't have an SSD. I know that the load times are really quick and everything loads and does so well with one. I'd love to have one but they are just cost so much damn money. I'm okay waiting for a little longer on load times and save times. For getting it just for your OS, do it if you go the money but I'm okay waiting the 30 seconds it takes for my computer to boot up. I'm not going to pay $120 for a 8 second load time. Could put that towards better stuff. Buts that just my opinion on the whole SSD vs HDD thing.

SSD's are great if you have money to spend but I personally think money can go towards better things.

avivoni · 06-21-2011, 18:04 | posts: 2,577 | Location: PR

there are also some pretty fast HDD's out there. samsung and wd.

setinstone31 · 06-21-2011, 20:11 | posts: 94 | Location: NYC

128GB ADATA is nice, any smaller and you will regret.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/adata-...gb-ssd-review/

vertex 2's can be had for cheap(er)

Ryman03 · 06-21-2011, 20:40 | posts: 462 | Location: OH

Okay, thanks for the replies guys, I will look into getting one.

DesGaizu · 06-21-2011, 21:25 | posts: 1,910 | Location: UK

I have a 256gb ssd as my main drive with my os and my games on and a few 2tb drives for data like films music ect, I upgraded from a 300gb 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor and its made a huge difference windows 7 is instant in anything I do and games load in a flash, a few games even seem smoother (mainly ones that stream alot of data) but loading times in all games have been cut.

Im not sure why people say buy a small one and only use it for your os, to me that seems a waste, I wanted my games to feel the benefit too and prices have droppped so much lately and the tech (mainly the controllers) have improved so much write speeds are not a problem.

also the power consumption is low the heat they produce is close to non and they make no noise what so ever(big deal for me coming from a raptor, depends on your drive I guess)

so yeah as you can see I love ssd's :3

BigBlockTowncar · 06-21-2011, 21:44 | posts: 1,422 | Location: USA

A few questions...

What are the best brands? I would assume that Intel makes some of the best hardware, they have the best reviews on Newegg. Looks like the technology is far from perfect...lots of issues with OCZ and some cheaper brands.

What features does the MOBO need? Is the TRIM feature something that my Evga X58 has? Is this a requirement?

If it only affects startup speed and you only install the OS on the SSD, what is the point if you leave your PC on? A small SSD isn't too bad on price right now, but larger ones are several hundred dollars. I would like to have the programs I use on the SSD as well to get the benefit.

FULMTL · 06-21-2011, 21:51 | posts: 6,152 | Location: Portland, Oregon

I still think they are a waste of money. With a CaviarBlack, my PC loads windows in less than 30 seconds. It's not like you sit there and just keep restarting your PC all the time like with WINXP. Programs like Photoshop and Premiere start up in less than 5 seconds. Games start up fast if you remove the intros

If it doesn't give me more FPS or help render faster, I don't give a crap.

I do however think they are useful for laptops and LAN rigs for the sake of being less prone to damage from vibrabtions or drops.
I'll wait until a 1TB SSD drops to $100 and then I'll pick one up as a permanent replacement for a mechanical one. By then they would have worked out all the kinks.

BigBlockTowncar · 06-21-2011, 21:58 | posts: 1,422 | Location: USA

And also, has anyone had trouble with the amount of writes? I know in theory the number is very high but the theories don't always pan out.

What programs write/rewrite a lot of files when you are using them? I have 2 500gb in my PC and 1 500gb for backup. My OS and application drive probably only has 200gb of stuff on it. I have a lot of programs that I don't use anymore, so maybe a smaller 100gb SSD would be fine for me.

I don't know when the price will come down on this hardware. I don't think it will ever be as cheap as regular HDDs for quite a while. They haven't really changed price too much in the last few years.

Mufflore · 06-21-2011, 22:09 | posts: 9,554 | Location: UK

SSDs make Windows really snappy as well as knocking about 1/3 off Windows load time.
I'm using a Vertex 2 and its fantastic.
The newer drives are even quicker (ie Vertex 3, Crucial M4, Intel 510) !

There is room to install a few games on a 60GB drive so put the games you are currently playing on it for top performance.

Writes arent a problem for a normal user, ie you arent mental about copying stuff to your SSD all the time.
The larger amount of free space you have, the lower the wear rate.
There is already a few GB of memory set aside for wear levelling.
They should stand the test of time in this regard, although they havent been on the market long enough to discover other failure modes.

peanutmanak47 · 06-21-2011, 23:26 | posts: 854 | Location: Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by FULMTL

I still think they are a waste of money. With a CaviarBlack, my PC loads windows in less than 30 seconds. It's not like you sit there and just keep restarting your PC all the time like with WINXP. Programs like Photoshop and Premiere start up in less than 5 seconds. Games start up fast if you remove the intros

If it doesn't give me more FPS or help render faster, I don't give a crap.

I do however think they are useful for laptops and LAN rigs for the sake of being less prone to damage from vibrabtions or drops.
I'll wait until a 1TB SSD drops to $100 and then I'll pick one up as a permanent replacement for a mechanical one. By then they would have worked out all the kinks.

Haha I second this!

sykozis · 06-22-2011, 00:21 | posts: 13,504 | Location: US East Coast

Quote:

Originally Posted by FULMTL

I still think they are a waste of money. With a CaviarBlack, my PC loads windows in less than 30 seconds. It's not like you sit there and just keep restarting your PC all the time like with WINXP. Programs like Photoshop and Premiere start up in less than 5 seconds. Games start up fast if you remove the intros

If it doesn't give me more FPS or help render faster, I don't give a crap.

I do however think they are useful for laptops and LAN rigs for the sake of being less prone to damage from vibrabtions or drops.
I'll wait until a 1TB SSD drops to $100 and then I'll pick one up as a permanent replacement for a mechanical one. By then they would have worked out all the kinks.

I'm not waiting for 1TB harddrives....I'll jump if 500gb SSD's hit the $100 mark....but the rest I completely agree with.

peanutmanak47 · 06-22-2011, 01:01 | posts: 854 | Location: Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by sykozis

I'm not waiting for 1TB harddrives....I'll jump if 500gb SSD's hit the $100 mark....but the rest I completely agree with.

yeah. Because honestly you can put two HDD's on raid0 and get pretty good performance out of them. it will cost you a whole lot less.

PortBaron · 06-22-2011, 01:30 | posts: 18

Quote:

Originally Posted by FULMTL

I still think they are a waste of money. With a CaviarBlack, my PC loads windows in less than 30 seconds. It's not like you sit there and just keep restarting your PC all the time like with WINXP. Programs like Photoshop and Premiere start up in less than 5 seconds. Games start up fast if you remove the intros

If it doesn't give me more FPS or help render faster, I don't give a crap.

Heh, sounds like you haven't used an SSD much. I just got a new computer with an intel SSD for OS and games, I also have a couple secondary Western Digital blacks for storage. There is no comparison to HDD. The boot time is not what makes SSDs worth it. It's everything you use the computer for, ie the OS and applications. Programs that started in 5-8 seconds on a HDD for me now do it in 1 or less. Game load times and area transitions get cut down to about 1/5th (so a 5 second load -> 1 second). Everything you do on them is way faster. Pretty much anyone who's had a newer one can't imagine going back to a HDD, those are now for archiving purposes only lol. But if it's not worth it to have a faster computer in every way except fps, I can't say anything more.

Also RAID0 HDDs still aren't as fast as a SSD, especially if you consider all the types of memory access that can occur. RAID0 doubles your chances of losing the drive, too

.

thatguy91 · 06-22-2011, 02:37 | posts: 2,780 | Location: Australia

SSD's range in speeds quite considerably too. No point getting anything that does faster than 300MB/s if you only have SATA II.

Also most people don't set the drive mode to AHCI in the bios which kills performance. People argue against this because the drive is still faster than a mechanical one, but why run it in IDE compatibility mode (motherboards default typically), as you lose out on advanced AHCI features, including the all important TRIM etc!

If you enable it after Windows is installed you need to manually edit the registry as Microsoft kind of stuffed up and still disabled AHCI by default if no AHCI is present upon install, and if set after Windows is installed without changing the reg key, the computer won't load into Windows lol

Anyways, it would be much better to have at least 8GB of RAM with an SSD as well, I wouldn't get one with less than that.

deltatux · 06-22-2011, 02:43 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

I'd also get one as well if they weren't as expensive as they are now. I'm waiting for the prices to drop.

deltatux

BigBlockTowncar · 06-22-2011, 04:57 | posts: 1,422 | Location: USA

Quote:

Originally Posted by thatguy91

as you lose out on advanced AHCI features, including the all important TRIM etc!

Anyways, it would be much better to have at least 8GB of RAM with an SSD as well, I wouldn't get one with less than that.

Yeah I saw some reviews on newegg put the info on what needs to be done in regedit. So TRIM is a feature within the BIOS and Windows, it is not a hardware feature?

Why 8GB? I noticed no difference in any performance going from 6GB to 4GB.

UZ7 · 06-22-2011, 06:24 | posts: 5,020 | Location: Everyday Rain Florida

I went from a 500GB Samsung F3 as a boot to a C300 just last night and it was really noticeable for me, was able to install updates and reboot really quickly and even if you dont want to transition to it fully you can have it as your OS drive and have the other drives as storage. Now in some games depending on how its coded/programmed it can benefit a lot or it will have the similar loadtime but most likely you will see more improvements.

Now remember what people don't know is write speed isn't that important if you're going to install once and use it... because once its written then everything depends on the read speeds an example of that would be the c300s with the low write speed high read speed. But if you do a lot of say... graphics/modeling/photoshop then the write speed will be important because you're constantly creating files.

In my opinion it was worth it, I can reboot anytime I want and be on the desktop quicker and not have to wait longer, my bro has a c300 and 2 vertex 2s on RAID and he was showing off to me and I didn't really believed it till I saw it then I just waited for sales and one came up and I got it. I always felt that my computer was being held back and it kinda was by the harddrive speed but now everything is snappier and nothing left for me to do but go all SSD in the future of course I'll still have my HDD for mass storage and

.

FULMTL · 06-22-2011, 07:55 | posts: 6,152 | Location: Portland, Oregon

An SSD would show no advantage for some multiplayer games because you have to wait for the rest of the players to load. So you paid extra to wait in line longer than before.

djjonastybe · 06-22-2011, 08:12 | posts: 724 | Location: Belgium

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryman03

Hey guys,
I currently have a 500GB HDD but have been looking at upgrading to a new SSD drive. I know there are a lot of articles out there on SSD vs. HDD but I wanted to get your guys opinions in terms of speed, write time, boot time, and overall performance with SSD drives vs HDD drives? Is it worth the money for less space at this time?
Thanks

New inventions are always faster

If you can spend the money. I am planning to buy one as well.

Also read this thread about life expectancy:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread....17#post4014017

Don't forget the 5y warranty from intel!

BigBlockTowncar · 06-22-2011, 08:49 | posts: 1,422 | Location: USA

Quote:

Originally Posted by FULMTL

An SSD would show no advantage for some multiplayer games because you have to wait for the rest of the players to load. So you paid extra to wait in line longer than before.

When BC2 came out you would have been able to plant the bomb on both stations with a SSD load time, as there was no timeout period at the start of a match.