Thinking of getting an SSD

[primexx]

"When a SSD fails, the failure is likely to be catastrophic, with total data loss. HDDs can fail in this way too, but often give warning that they are failing, allowing much or all of their data to be recovered". Also: wear leveling, bugged controllers with subsequent loss of data and some other issues I don't have time to research right now.

https://secure.wikim...ard_disk_drives

For me, right now SSDs are a no-go. Miniaturization will bring this very limited and controller-dependent storage technology to an halt. NAND Flash isn't for storing data, not for me.

You're ruling out SSDs for a small chance of failure, while ignoring the bigger chance of failure of mechanical hard drives? The worst SSD has a failure rate about the same as the average HDD, average SSDs are about as reliable as the best HDDs, and the best SSD (Intel X25, 0.6%) is significantly better than the best HDDs. What happens when something inevitably fails? buy a new one and put your backup on it. What's that? You don't have a backup? well that sure as hell isn't the storage media's fault now is it?

Here's my two very old X-25M Postville (RAID-0). These SSD are 3 years old.

#1

#2

Pretty reliable so far if you ask me!

holy crap RAID0ed SSDs, that thing must fly!

[Astra.Xtreme]

holy crap RAID0ed SSDs, that thing must fly!

My Vertex 3's in raid0 clock in at 1000mb/s read, but it's not really good for anything in the real world. It probably hurts the lifespan, if anything.

[Noir Angel]

And raided SSD's don't benefit from trim, right?

[+LogicalApex MVC]

And raided SSD's don't benefit from trim, right?

No, they don't currently on the Intel RAID controller anyway.

My RAID0 SSDs will be happy when that feature is added to Matrix Storage Manager.

[myxomatosis]

holy crap RAID0ed SSDs, that thing must fly!

It's pretty quick but not necessary ;) A single SSD will still be very fast, and will benefit from TRIM (so write speeds will remain at peak performance).

The main reason I put my SSD in RAID was to have a bigger partition to install Windows and my programs. Performance was excellent with a single drive

[xWhiplash]

Seriously, if you care about data, you will not keep it on one hard drive. I had a standard hard drive that died a month after I bought it. One month! Saying SSDs are not good because you might lose your data is not a good argument. Mechanical hard drives do not have set failure dates. It can fail one month in (like in my case) or years down the line.

Get a SSD. You will be amazed how much of a difference it can make. I have one of the latest Mac Pros, but I had to use a very old hard drive. Even though I had a lot of performance, it still took my computer 1 minute and 20 seconds to start up and be usable. Not to mention it would take about a minute to launch Adobe Photoshop and other products. I got a SSD and it now takes 18 seconds (launching programs is around 4 seconds at most).

[lawtai]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

[xWhiplash]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

I only got a 128GB SSD, so I have Windows 7, Adobe CS 5.5 Production Premium, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Sins of a Solar Empire, Batman Arkham Asylum, and Orcs Must Die on it. Any other game gets installed on my storage drive.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

i have all my games installed on my Crucial M4. Before i bought that, i put my games on an X-25M.

[tsupersonic]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

I do - I have a Samsung Series 830 128GB for my OS, and my general programs. I have my Intel 320 80GB for Steam games, and I store all my other data on the two hard drives. Of course, I have my 80GB SSD pretty full, so I put all my other games on the hard drives.

[Praetor]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

i have some in my SSD and some on a HDD; the performance gain on a SSD is not worthy (loading times are faster, but just that) so i just prefer installing games into a HHD and saving space on the SSD.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

I keep online multiplayer games on my SSDs. It's nice to not be the one guy everybody is waiting on to load.

Singleplayer games I'll keep on a regular HDD since loading times aren't super critical.

[threetonesun]

Anyone have any opinions of the OCZ SSDs? I'm thinking of grabbing a 120gb one for Mountain Lion.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Anyone have any opinions of the OCZ SSDs? I'm thinking of grabbing a 120gb one for Mountain Lion.

that question is going to start a whole new war. imo, OCZ makes great drives. go for it.

[threetonesun]

that question is going to start a whole new war. imo, OCZ makes great drives. go for it.

Thanks.

Perhaps I should clarify, they're cheap and I'm sticking it into a Macbook Pro, so I'm going to be speed throttled no matter what... but reviews online seem to either be "we've bought 1000 of these and they all work great" or "died two days after I bought it, second one shot my dog, third one ran away with my wife."

Basically I'm just wondering if anyone has had a legit super-terrible experience with their drives.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Thanks.

Perhaps I should clarify, they're cheap and I'm sticking it into a Macbook Pro, so I'm going to be speed throttled no matter what... but reviews online seem to either be "we've bought 1000 of these and they all work great" or "died two days after I bought it, second one shot my dog, third one ran away with my wife."

Basically I'm just wondering if anyone has had a legit super-terrible experience with their drives.

I've almost exclusively bought OCZ and they have all been excellent. Not a single problem. The Vertex 4 is very likely the best SSD on the market right now since it doesn't use sandforce anymore.

What year MBP are you going to be putting it in? I recently bought a late 2008 MBP for my girlfriend and put in a spare Vertex 3 I had, and the Nvidia chipset of the MBP didn't play completely nice with the controller in the Vertex 3. Basically it saw that the SSD supported SATA III, and then downgraded the actual speed it would use down to SATA I for some reason. There is a fix for it though that worked for me. You can download a bootable linux utility that will fake the Vertex 3 as being a SATA II drive, and then the MBP utilized it to the full potential with no issues. That mouthful is probably hard to understand, but if you browse around the OCZ forums, there are a few people that complained about that issue. Overall, it was a really simple fix that took all of 5 minutes.

[threetonesun]

What year MBP are you going to be putting it in?

2010 with a NVIDIA GeForce 320M.

On the Sandforce point, the I was looking at the Agility 3, but the Agility 4 (with an Indilinx controller) is only ~$20 more. Is it worth it?

[LaP]

Do you guys install your games onto SSD's? Or do you offload games onto spare HDDs?

I have all my games (and music) installed on one of my 2 SSDs. But this is because i own 2 of them. One 240GB Vertex 2 Extended and one 120GB Vertex 3. My HDD (1 TB) is almost always closed and not spinning since the only thing i store on it is backup, current downloads, office and programming works and archive of movies and TV series i'll not watch again anytime soon.

I have some old games copied on my 1 TB HDD but i never play those. I consider this as archive of games i'm not playing anymore since you can move most games from folder to folder without the need to re-install them ;)

[LaP]

Anyone have any opinions of the OCZ SSDs? I'm thinking of grabbing a 120gb one for Mountain Lion.

I had some problem with my Vertex 3 when i bought it. Had BSOD here and there. OCZ released a firmware last january i think thaty resolved the issue. I had to wipe all the date to install the firmware though. Not a problem since i had an image of the data on my 1Tb backup HD. Was a simple wipe data, install firmware, restore image.

I never had any problem with my Vertex 2 Extended.

The Vertex 2 is close to 2 yo i think and still going strong. Vertex 3 is 1 yo and still going strong with the new firmware.

[LaP]

2010 with a NVIDIA GeForce 320M.

On the Sandforce point, the I was looking at the Agility 3, but the Agility 4 (with an Indilinx controller) is only ~$20 more. Is it worth it?

I would go with the Agility 4. I wont touch SF drives again if possible. I heard really good thing about Indilinx controller.

[FloatingFatMan]

What's the current thinking with Windows swap files on SSD's?

[Jonny Wright]

For ****s and giggles. USB -> SSD WIndows installs are BLAZINGLY fast :p

USB3 -> SSD installs will make you cream your pants :p

I'm about to start buying my new parts for new build and had never even thought about USB installing! Can't wait to USB3 install to my 520 Series Intel drive! :D

[+Fahim S. MVC]

What's the current thinking with Windows swap files on SSD's?

Given that writing to swap is something Windows does so much of, it would seem logical to put this on the fastest storage available to really get the benefit. Moving swap to a cheaper higher capacity spinning platter was only worthwhile when SSD were so expensive and most could only justify a relatively small one (32/64GB). Now 128/256GB SSDs are affordable, I don't think the argument holds anymore.

[Astra.Xtreme]

What's the current thinking with Windows swap files on SSD's?

I've always disabled it on any PC I had with an SSD. There's no performance difference and you get back that allocated space that it wastes.

[KevinN206]

I have 3 SSD on two of my laptops.

120GB OCZ Vertex 2 on Dell XPS M1330 - no problem.

120GB OCZ Vertex 3 on Acer 4810T - all kind of BSOD while in AHCI mode. RMA. Got a new one, still BSOD randomly while in AHCI mode. IDE mode is perfect. Apparently, these BSOD are weird interactions with the laptop chipset and also the SandForce controller firmware.

256GB Samsung 830 on Acer 4810T - no problem. This is now the SSD for the Acer.

SSD is insanely fast. You'll not regret it. Also, get an external HD for backup of critical data.