Is an SSD Drive even worth it?

[hooko22]

Anyone know if there is a huge difference between, ssd's? I mean is it worth it to pay more for faster speeds or is the difference small?

[tim_s]

From push of the power button to opening IE is 13 seconds for me. Including the "Insist on UltraDURABLE" splash.

I would not recommend OCZ, a lot of the local stores are complaining about the return rate - IF you are looking cheap than "adata" but even then I would splash out on a Samsung (or Seagate) / Intel.

[Astra.Xtreme]

From push of the power button to opening IE is 13 seconds for me. Including the "Insist on UltraDURABLE" splash.

I would not recommend OCZ, a lot of the local stores are complaining about the return rate - IF you are looking cheap than "adata" but even then I would splash out on a Samsung (or Seagate) / Intel.

The OCZ SSD's that don't have Sandforce controllers are fine. And the ones that do have had the issues fixed via the newer firmware versions. I've personally never seen a failure on an OCZ.

[spaceelf]

I think their Sandforce stuff is indeed what got them their reputation, but their recent Sandforce stuff is fine.

[threetonesun]

I would not recommend OCZ, a lot of the local stores are complaining about the return rate - IF you are looking cheap than "adata" but even then I would splash out on a Samsung (or Seagate) / Intel.

The new OCZs are fine. A new Agility / Vertex 4 makes for a great drive, although I've noticed their prices are creeping up lately.

[MorganX]

The OCZ SSD's that don't have Sandforce controllers are fine. And the ones that do have had the issues fixed via the newer firmware versions. I've personally never seen a failure on an OCZ.

I had a 40G Agility 2 fail. It works as an external, but crashes as an internal and I cannot update firmware. The Vectors had a problem where if you lost power to your system, the drive would lose it's firmware. This is supposed to have been fixed in the current firmware. After reading this, I decided to go with the Samsungs. the Pros are currently considered best in class and I like the software that comes with them for monitoring, managing.

[LaP]

I think their Sandforce stuff is indeed what got them their reputation, but their recent Sandforce stuff is fine.

Their recent SSDs use the Indilix controller for the most part i think.

[briangw]

I have the Samsung 256 GB one; just got it from Newegg the other day. Please tell me that the data migration tool can migrate your data if your main HDD is partitioned off in two: It's a 1 TB so I have one partition at 500 GBs for Steam games with the OS one at 400+ and there is plenty of space on the OS partition freed up so I can copy it over to the SSD. Am I going to have to shrink the OS partition down to under the size of the SSD because I have 200 GBs used on the OS partition and 232 free on the SSD?

[xWhiplash]

I have the Samsung 256 GB one; just got it from Newegg the other day. Please tell me that the data migration tool can migrate your data if your main HDD is partitioned off in two: It's a 1 TB so I have one partition at 500 GBs for Steam games with the OS one at 400+ and there is plenty of space on the OS partition freed up so I can copy it over to the SSD. Am I going to have to shrink the OS partition down to under the size of the SSD because I have 200 GBs used on the OS partition and 232 free on the SSD?

I am not sure about transfer kits, but the latest cloning software should be able to make an image from a large HDD and allow you to put it on a small SSD.

[Mando]

I would get both. SSD for the OS and frequently used programs and the 1 TB hard drive if you plan to store any media type stuff or other non essential programs. If you have an usable hard drive from an old build, you can re-purpose it in the new build and just get the SSD.

But if you had to pick only one, I would definitely go with the SSD.

or go one better, do 1 or 2 SSDs for OS/apps (RAID0) and a pair of traditional Sata Hdds in RAID0 for "data" I have this config and im always one of the first in a map on BF3, despite still using SATA2 hdds in RAID0 for my game installs. Best of both worlds.

I would suggest doing a clean install, so Windows 7/8 sets TRIM and other options that SSDs negate.

[sbasil]

If it's not about the money, why don't you get both? A good SSD drive plus an HDD drive. That way you get the best from both worlds --> loads of cheap storage space for media files etc. and lightning fast drive for OS & programs. If you already have an external HDD, just get the SSD. It's well worth the money and it really makes a difference.

[briangw]

I am not sure about transfer kits, but the latest cloning software should be able to make an image from a large HDD and allow you to put it on a small SSD.

That's what I would have thought. May need to look at some other software to do this.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Correct me if I'm wrong but if both mechanical drives and SSDs offered today are SATA-III 6GB/s, how is one faster than the other?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAkii_58LjA

[MorganX]

That's what I would have thought. May need to look at some other software to do this.

A lot of SSDs come with Acronis TrueImage which can handle it.

[Aletheia]

Most definitely! I have 4 year old Asus eee pc 1000HA netbook, and it has not been used for awhile. Then I thought it will be a good idea if I upgraded it to SSD (Kingston V+200, 60GB for $60.00), and boy, I am using my netbook every day as a ultra notebook! It is SOOOO fast now. I cannot believe it is a netbook. It boots up from cold to desktop in 25 seconds flat (Win 7 Home Premium, 2GB Ram). All my applications open fast (MS Word 2010 in 1 sec or less). Battery life increased by 40 minutes.

I am in the process of changing all my computers to SSD. Indeed, once you go SSD, you will never go back HD.

[Denis W. Veteran]

When you have applications that cause excessive thrashing on the hard drive, SSDs are a godsend. One example could be if there's lots of paging to and from the page file - cutting down on the effects of thrashing is most pronounced if you're short on RAM. That's on top of the quick boot times and application starts.

And you can get by with a 80 GB SSD for your Windows partition. You may need to symlink some folders out of AppData onto different drives (and definitely move your documents, music, photos, videos, etc to mechanical drives).

Moving to an SSD is painless on a desktop. On a laptop, it's a bit tricky especially if you have a laptop that lacks an optical drive. With those you could just rip out the optical drive and move your mechanical drive to that SATA port with the help of an enclosure. Barring that, you're stuck with one pricey (and large) SSD if you can't cut down on your disk space usage.

If you haven't already bought an SSD, go and get one now. GO NOW! GO! NOW!

Don't think about it twice, get out your money and shove it in the face of a computer component retailer and demand an SSD.

Yes, an SSD is that good!

Could've summed that up with one GIF:

[briangw]

A lot of SSDs come with Acronis TrueImage which can handle it.

Except this one came with Samsung's own Migration software. ugghh. Well, may need to use Clonezilla.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

When they come out with an affordable 1TB SSD, I will buy one.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Except this one came with Samsung's own Migration software. ugghh. Well, may need to use Clonezilla.

That's what I would have thought. May need to look at some other software to do this.

A lot of SSDs come with Acronis TrueImage which can handle it.

Another recommendation is this.

Generally speaking most modern cloning/imaging software should be fine for transferring HDDs to SSDs, so long as they line up the start of the partition to a number divisible by 4096 bytes(?).

[threetonesun]

When they come out with an affordable 1TB SSD, I will buy one.

So... not any time soon, huh? :laugh:

[Tuishimi]

Man... I really would like to do this but... even with separate drives for work (data and applications) and for user accounts (documents, images, music, video, etc.), my system disk still has 300 GB of applications (and probably old logs and restore points). 512 GB drives are expensive... I could stripe two 250's but it isn't really gaining me much in the price department.

I suppose I could install all my extraneous applications on another hard drive... but that means I can't just do an image copy to an SSD, I've got to start from scratch. Ugh.

[edit]

A lot of that space is probably from my steam account. Games. Since MOST of my work stuff is kept separate... except for programming languages, productivity apps (like office) and such.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

So... not any time soon, huh? :laugh:

Ha! Not likely.

[xWhiplash]

When they come out with an affordable 1TB SSD, I will buy one.

SSDs are not made for storage. You are looking at waiting A LOOOOONG time for 1TB to be affordable.

Just get a small SSD and a very large internal/external HDD for storage.

[AsherGZ]

So basically you should buy an SSD if you can justify spending a hundred dollars or so just to reduce a few seconds of application startup and boot time. Hmm I think I'll pass.

[MorganX]

So basically you should buy an SSD if you can justify spending a hundred dollars or so just to reduce a few seconds of application startup and boot time. Hmm I think I'll pass.

You underestimate how often apps read from disk, or write for that matter. The OS as well. Even web browsing. I also recommend 16GB RAM and disable virtual memory.