SSD for media PC?

By Storm
in Hardware Hangout

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Grand Master

+InsaneNutter MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Are you recording TV or just streaming it?

I have a small 60gb ssd in my media PC that is used for a boot drive, along with a 1tb hard drive to record tv. Any other media is streamed across the network from the home server.

I wouldn't want to use it to record tv to, i imagine that would kill it off pretty quick.

Grand Master

+InsaneNutter MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

I see no reason why you cant then, your boot up times should be a lot quicker and it will be silent. It will probably decease power usage a bit too.

I just have a small 60gb one in mine, didn't cost that much more than an Xbox game and its been great.

Grand Master

chconline Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Which HDD do you have? Are you sure it's just the HDD? There are tons of components inside your computer that may be louder than your hard drive.

But yeah, it's probably not a bad idea. In my media center PC, I only have one drive installed, and it's an SSD. As others have pointed out. plug in everything else on the network.

Grand Master

Inertia

Posted
Posted

i run a 60GB SSD in my media center PC and everything else is on my server, They are only cheap, mines an OCZ Agility 3 - http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives+-+SSD/30GB+-+90GB+SSD/OCZ+Agility+3+60GB+2.5%22+SATA-III+Solid+State+Hard+Drive+?productId=47600

I think the muishkins are alright just make sur ethe firmware is up to date, I have had a few mushkins commit suicide on bad firmware.

Grand Master

mrp04

Posted
Posted

Sure you can put on in it, but honestly it'd be pointless, get a more silent standard HDD instead, like a WD Green drive, and mount it with rubber fasteners if your case doesn't have rubber fasteners for it.

at most use a hybrid drive.

A small 60GB SSD is worth around $40 nowadays, no reason NOT to use one for this application.

Samsung 840 128GB SSDs are around 100 bucks...

Overkill for this application. An HTPC that doesn't store anything locally doesn't need a super fast SSD nor an SSD that large. An older generation 60GB-80GB SSD can be bought for half the price and will have no noticeable difference in an HTPC.

Grand Master

Ambroos

Posted
Posted

Timeshifting is even worse than recording TV for an SSD. It's constantly recording data to the SSD so that it can buffer the last 15(?) minutes of TV.

SSD's can handle more than you think, really. They'll last for years and years even when used for timeshifting.

Grand Master

remixedcat

Posted
Posted

A small 60GB SSD is worth around $40 nowadays, no reason NOT to use one for this application.

Overkill for this application. An HTPC that doesn't store anything locally doesn't need a super fast SSD nor an SSD that large. An older generation 60GB-80GB SSD can be bought for half the price and will have no noticeable difference in an HTPC.

older generations may have firmware issues or other problems.... the newer the better with improved controllers.

Grand Master

mrp04

Posted
Posted

older generations may have firmware issues or other problems.... the newer the better with improved controllers.

The 840 is brand new. The last generation such as the 830, Crucial M4, and Intel SSD 320 are solid (with the latest firmware). The small capacity versions of them are extremely cheap (half the price of a 128GB 840) and will work exactly the same in this use case. No reason to spend the extra $50.

Grand Master

Ambroos

Posted
Posted

I would recommend only the Samsung and the Intel ones... anything else is wonky as hell.... tons of bad things I hear about SF controller based ones.

Crucial is perfect too. They have excellent reliability rates (no SandForce crap either).

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