Is an SSD Drive even worth it?

By NotChetHanks
in Hardware Hangout

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tim_s

Posted
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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.

Grand Master

Astra.Xtreme

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

threetonesun

Posted
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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.

Grand Master

MorganX

Posted
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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.

Grand Master

briangw

Posted
Posted

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?

Veteran

xWhiplash

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

Mando

Posted
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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.

Collaborator

sbasil

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

briangw

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

MorganX

Posted
Posted

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.

Enthusiast

Aletheia

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

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:

take-my-money.gif

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Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

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(?).

Proficient

Tuishimi

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

MorganX

Posted
Posted

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.

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