Quick question on SSD

[SadExchange]

I'm looking into purchasing a 120 GB SSD, probably from amazon or some other retailer, but had a couple questions. If I install this as a second drive on my computer now, will that mess anything up or inhibit the drive or what's used on it from being quite faster than my main drive? Such as with loading games or anything?

 

Also, as far as picking one out. There appears to be differences between Sata i, II, and III. How would I find out which one my computer is able to handle? When I check through comp stats, I checked on the serial number of my current hard drive and its this

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145215

 

So I can assume I'd be fine with getting a Sata III correct?

 

How easy is it, or is it even possible to move my steam folder to this drive? Or would I need to uninstall Steam and games, and then reinstall them on this drive?

 

Thanks for any answers.

[Monte Carlo]

I'm not technically minded but it was very easy for me to default all my existing Steam stuff to my 4TB SSD (mwuahahahahahaha).

 

Apparently this is only a recent thing with Steam, but it was pretty easy.

 

Edit: T'was a new computer mind you, and not all of my games were installed.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Monte Carlo

[Bartimaeus]

Firstly, that drive is a SATA II drive. Secondly, find your motherboard model. All that drive tells us is that your motherboard is likely SATA II compliant, (I would hope so, anyways).

 

For moving games, I'm not sure it's possible to move games once they're already installed, (edit - I may be wrong, though - if so, disregard the rest of this). What you can do, though, is move the games you want from the steamapps folder, (most are likely under the commons folder in the steamapps directory), and move them somewhere else, uninstall them on your Steam, start reinstalling one, (except select the correct drive when installing), and then just move the rest to wherever they're supposed to go, (you should be able to figure that out, hopefully, since one game should be installing to there), and then install the rest - Steam should detect them as already being installed, last I checked, when you try and install them.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[AwesomeOcelot]

SATA III is backwards compatible with SATA II and I, get SATA III, it's hard to find SATA II SSD drives anyway. To find out what you have you'll have to look up the model of your motherboard.

 

You can install games to different directories in Steam now, so for new games you can pick where to install them. You'll probably just want to move the Steam folder to the other drive and then run the Steam installer to the folder you've moved it to, then when you tell Steam to install the games you already have it should see that they're already there. There's plenty of guides for this, google backup and restore steam games.

[SadExchange]

Thanks for the great explanation. Alright, found that out and here it is

 

http://www.asus.com/...M3/M4A77TD_PRO/

 

Am I right in seeing that it's just Sata II as you have stated as far as it's max capacity?

 

So I could get Sata III SSD as what what last stated?

 

So I would be safe if ordering this one?

 

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-120GB-internal-Solid-MZ-7TD120BW/dp/B009NHAF06/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1357651915&sr=1-7&keywords=solid+state+drive

Edited January 8, 2013 by SadExchange

[AwesomeOcelot]

Yes, your motherboard supports SATA II, and SATA III drives should work but with half the maximum bandwidth, but it will still be a heck of a lot faster than your HDD. If you read the top comment on Amazon it explains that the OCZ Vertex 4, Samsung 830, and the Crucial M4 are better drives than the 840. I have a Samsung 830 and Crucial M4, and can testify that these drives are great, so consider looking at those, if they're a similar price to the 840 then that's a good deal.

Edited January 8, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[Rosbjerg]

4TB SSD (mwuahahahahahaha).

 

That would cost you about .. oh I don't know.. 100,000$ give or take..

[SadExchange]

Yes, your motherboard supports SATA II, and SATA III drives should work but with half the maximum bandwidth, but it will still be a heck of a lot faster than your HDD. If you read the top comment on Amazon it explains that the OCZ Vertex 4, Samsung 830, and the Crucial M4 are better drives than the 840. I have a Samsung 830 and Crucial M4, and can testify that these drives are great, so consider looking at those, if they're a similar price to the 840 then that's a good deal.

 

Awesome, thanks so much for all of your help! A lot of great information.

[Gorth]

Firstly, that drive is a SATA II drive. Secondly, find your motherboard model. All that drive tells us is that your motherboard is likely SATA II compliant, (I would hope so, anyways).

 

For moving games, I'm not sure it's possible to move games once they're already installed, (edit - I may be wrong, though - if so, disregard the rest of this). What you can do, though, is move the games you want from the steamapps folder, (most are likely under the commons folder in the steamapps directory), and move them somewhere else, uninstall them on your Steam, start reinstalling one, (except select the correct drive when installing), and then just move the rest to wherever they're supposed to go, (you should be able to figure that out, hopefully, since one game should be installing to there), and then install the rest - Steam should detect them as already being installed, last I checked, when you try and install them.

 

I had to reshuffle some drives recently, not moving to SSD, just consolidating partitions, but what I did was simply doing a file copy to a new HDD and then change the drive letter of the new HDD to be the drive letter of the old HDD (after having renamed that one to something else of course). Worked like a charm for my Steam games (all 40+ of them), no reinstalling, no nothing

[Humanoid]

Slightly confusing naming scheme but the 840 Pro > 830 > 840.

 

 

Not a 4TB SSD as such, but a 4TB array of SSDs should only cost about $3000. Mmmmm.....

[Azure79]

Obviously loot procured from his many tunnel excursions.

[Majek]

Now i'll want to spend lots of money for a new rig, with an SSD. :/ You evil people.

[Rosbjerg]

Not a 4TB SSD as such, but a 4TB array of SSDs should only cost about $3000. Mmmmm.....

 

Hmm, right you are.. I just looked at what 2x2TB SSD would cost here instead of calculating what 16x256gb would cost.

[Bester]

I'm looking into purchasing a 120 GB SSD, probably from amazon or some other retailer, but had a couple questions. If I install this as a second drive on my computer now, will that mess anything up or inhibit the drive or what's used on it from being quite faster than my main drive? Such as with loading games or anything?

 

Also, as far as picking one out. There appears to be differences between Sata i, II, and III. How would I find out which one my computer is able to handle? When I check through comp stats, I checked on the serial number of my current hard drive and its this

 

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822145215

 

So I can assume I'd be fine with getting a Sata III correct?

 

How easy is it, or is it even possible to move my steam folder to this drive? Or would I need to uninstall Steam and games, and then reinstall them on this drive?

 

Thanks for any answers.

 

Your questions have been answered, but remember this. SSD drives have been conceived in a way that they are extremely fast, but only when they have at least 50% of free space. From that point, the less free space they have, the less faster they get, to the point where at about 10% of free space they're even slower than hard drives.

[SadExchange]

Ahh, that is good to know as well. Thanks everyone for your explanations and advice. Appreciate it quite a bit.

[AwesomeOcelot]

 

I'm looking into purchasing a 120 GB SSD, probably from amazon or some other retailer, but had a couple questions. If I install this as a second drive on my computer now, will that mess anything up or inhibit the drive or what's used on it from being quite faster than my main drive? Such as with loading games or anything?

 

Also, as far as picking one out. There appears to be differences between Sata i, II, and III. How would I find out which one my computer is able to handle? When I check through comp stats, I checked on the serial number of my current hard drive and its this

 

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822145215

 

So I can assume I'd be fine with getting a Sata III correct?

 

How easy is it, or is it even possible to move my steam folder to this drive? Or would I need to uninstall Steam and games, and then reinstall them on this drive?

 

Thanks for any answers.

 

 

Your questions have been answered, but remember this. SSD drives have been conceived in a way that they are extremely fast, but only when they have at least 50% of free space. From that point, the less free space they have, the less faster they get, to the point where at about 10% of free space they're even slower than hard drives.

 

That's not actually true. Read speed is always going to be much much faster, and performance isn't greatly effected by free space. Some SSD had the same write speed as HDD when there was nothing on them , so performance varies much depending on what SSD you get, some models will never be slower than most HDD in write speed. Read performance is way more important when it comes to games. If you want to learn about this effect, google over provisioning SSD, something I did with my Samsung 830. My Crucial M4 SSD is never slower than my Western Digital Caviar Green HDD, however much is on it, write or read.

Edited January 9, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[Bester]

There is indeed a great variation in performances, so some research is needed when buying one, but most ssd's if not all are handicapped to some extent (apparently only in matters of writes, not reads) when having less than 50% of free space. I've got OCZ Agility 3 and I've literally noticed it when I only had 3gb of free space. Save game's became 3-5 times slower. So slow in fact, I think any hdd would've been faster. When I have 20gbs free or more, I don't notice anything.

[AwesomeOcelot]

There is indeed a great variation in performances, so some research is needed when buying one, but most ssd's if not all are handicapped to some extent (apparently only in matters of writes, not reads) when having less than 50% of free space. I've got OCZ Agility 3 and I've literally noticed it when I only had 3gb of free space. Save game's became 3-5 times slower. So slow in fact, I think any hdd would've been faster. When I have 20gbs free or more, I don't notice anything.

 

HDD will become slower when they don't have 10% of space free as well. I've gone to under 15% free space on my Crucial M4 and write speeds have remained faster than most consumer HDD, I had a Samsung F3, Seagate 7200.12, and 2xWD Cavier Green (SATA 2 and SATA 3), also Hitachi and Buffalo external drives. I have only used Crucial and Samsung SSD, I haven't been able to look at OCZ SSD. It's never been 3-5 times slower. I over prevision on the Samsung (for life more than speed) so it's never going to go close.

[Gorth]

My Crucial M4 SSD is never slower than my Western Digital Caviar Green HDD, however much is on it, write or read.

 

You have to search long and hard to find anything slower than the WD 'Green' series

 

One thing worth noting is the iops difference between drives larger than 240gb and 240gb or less. It seems like some kind of "magical" barrier for iops speed where the larger SSD's without exception so far (I haven't checked all brands, but at least the popular ones) have half the speed of the smaller drives.

[Bester]

HDD will become slower when they don't have 10% of space free as well.

 

Probably a fragmentation issue.

[AwesomeOcelot]

HDD will become slower when they don't have 10% of space free as well.

 

Probably a fragmentation issue.

 

Yes, you can't perform a defrag without space so that's an speed issue that will keep getting worse but also I am informed that parts of the disc are slower than others, and this was a bigger problem in the past when discs were less dense, but it still applies.

 

You have to search long and hard to find anything slower than the WD 'Green' series

 

They didn't bite it soon after a year old like my Samsung F3 and Seagate 7200.12, so in my experience they're infinitely faster. My F3 was very fast for a HDD, but it was very loud.

 

One thing worth noting is the iops difference between drives larger than 240gb and 240gb or less. It seems like some kind of "magical" barrier for iops speed where the larger SSD's without exception so far (I haven't checked all brands, but at least the popular ones) have half the speed of the smaller drives.

 

Interesting, I hadn't heard this. On that note larger drives are almost universally, if they're released the same year and around the same $ per GB, faster at writes by quite a bit.

Edited January 10, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[Humanoid]

Not seeing that trend either - always noted larger SSDs are equal or faster at everything, all else being equal. Samsung 840 as an example.

 

 

 

And aside, I've just bought a 256GB 830 for my aging notebook, so it better be faster.

[Gorth]

Hmm, I hadn't checked the Samsung (and my usual "pusher" doesn't have all the models to compare oranges with oranges). I checked the Corsair, Sandisk and a couple of brands that have now completely disappeared from the store. Smaller drives clocked in at 85k iops, larger ones at around 50k. May have been replaced by new NAND dies now.

[Bester]

I definitely remember that larger ssd's were slower when I was buying mine, it wasn't just a trend, there was even a technical explanation. I guess they must've overcome it recently.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Until this year I hadn't seen that many SSD that were beyond 256GB, and even then, they were using SLC, a way more expensive type of memory that all these consumer drives do not use. So that companies had problems scaling beyond 256GB isn't that surprising. The write performance of bigger drives does reach a plateau in terms of capacity to performance, the plateau is different in different ranges, in some the different between write performance between 128GB and 256GB is nothing or negligible, in others the plateau is between 250GB and 500GB like the Samsung drive. Many ranges have a situation where a twice as large SSD (e.g. 32GB to 64GB, or 64GB to 128GB) can be twice as fast in terms of write performance. This is to do with smaller drives having to use the same chip to write multiple operations because in the same range the chips correspond directly to capacity.