Solid state drives

[Gorgon]

If I am adding a SSD to my system, as startup and HDD related performance is getting quite poor, is it better to install the OS on it or simply put windows scratch disk there ?

[Humanoid]

Install the OS on it. Ideally a clean install, as there are various acrobatic feats required to set it up correctly if migrating an existing installation. There are some third-party (paid) utilities available to simplify migration if you must go that way - Google tossed up this for example.

[WDeranged]

Yeah put the OS on it, though I'd recommend a fresh install of Windows 7 as it fully supports SSD and automatically configures itself to suit one.

 

An SSD is probably the single most noticeable upgrade I've made recently

[Walsingham]

I'd have thought it would give poor performance, but on balance I'd believe the other posts more.

[Tigranes]

My parts are arriving this week and that's what I'll be doing - the OS and maybe game installations for the SSD.

[Maria Caliban]

What are the benefits of a solid state drive?

 

I've heard you can't use a SSD as a boot disk on some motherboards, is that true?

[Gorth]

What are the benefits of a solid state drive?

 

I've heard you can't use a SSD as a boot disk on some motherboards, is that true?

About the first question:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_d...ard_disk_drives

 

In short, lower latency and search times. Laptops in particular benefits from faster "drives". Also, way more resilient when suffering physical abuse. In case you ever felt like hitting somebody over the head with a notebook... One of our clients replaced their server HDD's with a dozen SSD's and large job runs between 10 and 20 times faster. But that's a database system with a lot of random access/read activity, your mileage may vary.

 

No idea about the motherboard question though, probably varies between make and model?

[Humanoid]

Not true in a literal sense, but there are a couple limitations - your OS really ought to be SSD-aware because there's some 'housekeeping' it needs to do on the SSD which otherwise will slow down excessively with use - this is called TRIM. Secondly, semi-related to the first point, it is recommended that the SATA mode in your BIOS support and be set to AHCI prior to installing the OS - this is required for the TRIM functionality.

 

Without both the above functions available, you will have to run a utility at regular intervals to do the self-maintenance job that would otherwise happen automatically. Fortunately this isn't really a concern with current OSes and any remotely recent hardware.

 

 

Good starting point for SSD uninitiated: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2069761

Edited October 26, 2011 by Humanoid

[Pidesco]

I installed an SSD recently, as my OS drive. Windows 7, with Steam and my sound card's control panel starting automatically, now boots up in 50 seconds. Saves and loads in games are generally much faster, too. Space is really the only issue.

[Humanoid]

Fast storage is incredibly addictive. I have a 128GB as my system drive, and then added a 256GB as my games drive. My HTPC has another 128GB drive in it. Scares me to think that's over $1000 worth of fast storage but I can't go without it now.

[Spider]

I have good experiences with the SSD cache from the Z68 boards. You have a mechanical disk, that gets boosted by a SSD. Files you access frequently get copied to the SSD and are read from there instead of the mechanical drive. It isn't quite as fast as going with a straight SSD but it does take care of the space issue. I have a 64 GB SSD and while that was enough fro OS and programs, most games had to be put on another drive. Now I can just not care and count on my system optimizing after my usage. I think it works very well so far.

 

Besides, given how much mechanical drives are skyrockering in price right now (or soon will be if they haven't already in your area) SSD:s aren't that expensive anymore. Or they are, just not in comparison.

 

Anyway, an SSD is well worth the cost.

 

In regards to TRIM, most drives have that built in and thus work on all OS. Some (like mine) doesn't and are best used with an OS that has it's own TRIM support. Like Windows 7 (uncertain about others). I think, but I'm not certain, that AHCI is not required if you use TRIM through windows. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong about this.

[Nepenthe]

I was under the impression that you need TRIM supported both at OS and drive level.

[LadyCrimson]

I have good experiences with the SSD cache from the Z68 boards. You have a mechanical disk, that gets boosted by a SSD. Files you access frequently get copied to the SSD and are read from there instead of the mechanical drive. It isn't quite as fast as going with a straight SSD but it does take care of the space issue. I have a 64 GB SSD and while that was enough fro OS and programs, most games had to be put on another drive. Now I can just not care and count on my system optimizing after my usage. I think it works very well so far.

 

Besides, given how much mechanical drives are skyrockering in price right now (or soon will be if they haven't already in your area) SSD:s aren't that expensive anymore. Or they are, just not in comparison.

 

Anyway, an SSD is well worth the cost.

1TB "mechanical's" are still about $100-$150 here, while a 160GB-250GB SSD is more like $400-$500. I don't see the "SSD's aren't that expensive anymore" factor. If they get down to $400-500 for 500+GB I'll think about it.

 

I do think about it sometimes, but 60-128GB drive isn't going to cut it for me, not even close. I have 118GB on my main O/S drive right now, and that's with no "storage" stuff on it like videos/photography/downloads etc. ... besides, my PC's Win7 cold-boot time w/a SATA is still under a minute. So yeah...not quite ready for SSD yet myself. But hubby just bought a small SSD for one of his PC's.

[Spider]

Hardy drives here have recently have their prices increase bt a lot. As in several 100%, due to the floodings in Thailand. An even bigger problem is availability, there are no new shipments coming in for the foreseeable future.

 

Sure, SSDs are still mor costly per GB, but, the margin is smaller. Here, 1TB mechanical is about $200 and 120Gb SSD is only slightly more costly, with a 160GB going for roughly $280.

 

But it's comparing apples and oranges. One is a storage drive, the other is a performance one. Getting yor first SSD is the most notable upgrade any computer can do. It just has such an impact across everything.

 

I was under the impression that you need TRIM supported both at OS and drive level.

 

When I bought mine, the reviews said it was appropriate for a os with built in trim, since it didn't have support itself. So those said an os with trim would be fine for a drive without and vice versa. I don't know enough to verify this.

[Gorgon]

If the goal is just to make the OS run smoother and maybe install a game or two. 32 or 64 gb drives will do. They are quite cheap.

[Morgoth]

If the lifespan of current SSD's is still only a couple of years then I'm not interested.

[Spider]

It's not

[LadyCrimson]

Hardy drives here have recently have their prices increase bt a lot. As in several 100%, due to the floodings in Thailand. An even bigger problem is availability, there are no new shipments coming in for the foreseeable future.

They've gone up a bit here too, and availability is dropping. Just not that much....yet.

 

But it's comparing apples and oranges. One is a storage drive, the other is a performance one. Getting yor first SSD is the most notable upgrade any computer can do. It just has such an impact across everything.

I don't disagree. Don't get me wrong...for certain applications or usage they'd be more than worth the price & space sacrifice. Like, with AutoCad, or other such software say. For hubby's tech/work they make a lot of sense, for instance. But I'm just not seeing enough of an advantage for the average gamer/user (for the price), that's all. All individual files I click on open in a second and programs open in like 3-8 seconds - photo editing is still lighting fast for me. I guess having Firefox open in 1-2 seconds would be nice, but I'm not that impatient. That's a personal nitpick preference, not a necessity.

 

The longevity is still a question mark for me as well. Considering how often/how hard I can abuse writing to discs, I'm not yet convinced the SSD would last long enough for my liking (again, for their current price). 99% of mechanical drives I've had lasted 7+ years and were still going, after a lot of abuse. So I think I'll wait for a bit more info on that too.

[Gorgon]

Finally got around to ordering the SSD. 96 gb drive, cost about a third more than a good 1 tb mechanical drive and had gone up 1/8 in price over the last two months. In my experience mechanical drives break with alarming regularity so if SSDs are worse I had better figure out a practical backup system. Maybe one of those USB docks for hard drives.

Edited November 9, 2011 by Gorgon

[LadyCrimson]

SSD's don't need defragging (so hubby says anyway) so that saves some wear and tear. I do think for the average user longevity probably wouldn't be too big a concern. I'm just personally very, very hard on my drives re:data writing.

But in any case, backup system/lots of redundancy is always important.

Edited November 9, 2011 by LadyCrimson

[Gorgon]

Get one. Everything is right there the second you log on. No more twiddling your thumbs while the HDDs churn along for ages.

[Gorgon]

Always the same when re installing. I can't for the life of me remember where I got the drivers for the integrated audio. MB manufacturer's drivers are a no go, they think I have the wrong OS installed ?. And yet I got it to work in my other win 7 installation.

 

 

I don't suppose anyone knows where windows keeps its driver archive. Probably all encrypted and impossible to get to. grrr.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Gorgon

[Gorth]

Have you tried the homepage of the integrated audio manufacturer?

 

Realtek seems widely used for integrated Audio, but there might of course be others out there.

[Gorgon]

Tried everything. Even tried an ad hoc fix bundle from techies who couldn't get it to run on win 7. Now it's gone from the device manager, I don't even have an unidentified entry. Bahh.

 

I'm getting a real sound card with win 7 support tomorrow.

[Humodour]

I'd have thought it would give poor performance, but on balance I'd believe the other posts more.

 

SSDs are waaaaay faster than normal hard-drives. Perfect for the OS, while the less used parts of your systems (i.e. non-OS stuff) should go on the HD. The OS will be updating the SSD enough as it is. You don't want to add to the burn-out (which won't happen very quickly if it's just the OS on there).