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SSD Advice
I am eventually some day in the next year or so going to *shudder* build a new PC. I have not built my own in a number of years, the last time I did it was a single core Athlon something or other and SATA drives were coming on the market.
Currently I have a Dell XPS 420 running Windows 7 64 bit. It has dual core Intel E6850 3GHZ. I replaced the Nvidia 8800 GT that came with it and installed a Radeon 5850 for gaming. I had a Radeon 4870 in it before that but this card made the desktop feel like somebody left the oven door open. It blew hot air out the back of the card like it should but it raised the temperature in my room considerably. The 5850 barely emits any heat.
Anyways I will build a new PC and will bring the blu ray drive that came with the Dell, the video card to the new machine.
I notice a lot of hard drive thrashing when I multi task on this machine. It was not always like that I figure the machine is getting older and the games now are making it work harder. I checked performance monitor and my CPU utilization is low, ram available is 1.5 gig out of the three I have.
I figure if WOW is running loading the textures and graphics is making the machine crawl, and I notice some spreadsheets in Excel load slowly (they have macros in them).
Would upgrade the IDE drive to SSD make a noticeable improvement? I was thinking of loading the OS on the SSD drive and a couple of games. I would locate the iTunes directory and my files used less often on the IDE drive which I would set up as a second drive.
Currently I have a Dell XPS 420 running Windows 7 64 bit. It has dual core Intel E6850 3GHZ. I replaced the Nvidia 8800 GT that came with it and installed a Radeon 5850 for gaming. I had a Radeon 4870 in it before that but this card made the desktop feel like somebody left the oven door open. It blew hot air out the back of the card like it should but it raised the temperature in my room considerably. The 5850 barely emits any heat.
Anyways I will build a new PC and will bring the blu ray drive that came with the Dell, the video card to the new machine.
I notice a lot of hard drive thrashing when I multi task on this machine. It was not always like that I figure the machine is getting older and the games now are making it work harder. I checked performance monitor and my CPU utilization is low, ram available is 1.5 gig out of the three I have.
I figure if WOW is running loading the textures and graphics is making the machine crawl, and I notice some spreadsheets in Excel load slowly (they have macros in them).
Would upgrade the IDE drive to SSD make a noticeable improvement? I was thinking of loading the OS on the SSD drive and a couple of games. I would locate the iTunes directory and my files used less often on the IDE drive which I would set up as a second drive.
Comments
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Optionsdemonfurbie Member Posts: 1,819i know alot of the eveonline players use sd for os/game installs then have a normal platter drive for storage.
im kinda in the same boat im looking at a low size ssd (64 gig) and a 1tb platter drivewgu undergrad: done ... woot!!
WGU MS IT Management: done ... double woot :cheers: -
Optionsmsteinhilber Member Posts: 1,480 ■■■■■■■■□□I have 4 30GB OCZ Vertex Turbo drives in a RAID 0 configuration and the system certainly boots quick, programs launch very fast, back when I still played WoW I zoned very quick and didn't have issues with Dalaran taking forever to load everybody. I don't game much any longer, so other than programs loading up faster I don't really see much of a benefit between my current configuration vs. how my rig was when I just used a couple 500GB SATA disks in RAID 1.
If I were to do it again, I don't think I would invest the money in SSD's or even a single one for my boot drive - at least on a desktop computer. Once the technology becomes affordable enough that I can have a large enough amount of space available on SSD's to contain all of my data - then I would feel it's more worthwhile, when I can browse through all of my photo's I've taken without waiting for 100's of 12.1mp pictures to thumbnail. -
Optionsrogue2shadow Member Posts: 1,501 ■■■■■■■■□□I noticed a great improvement in my load times across the board when I upgraded from my old WD 640 blue to my OCZ Vertex 64GB. My setup is similar to what demon said with the the ssd as main and using other sata hdds as storage (though I have a WD black 1TB for reading the games *non-raided). I would definitely recommend the OCZ Vertex series to anyone interested in going SSD. There's tons of benchmarks out there for the Vertex and Vertex 2 editions of it and flash updates are quick and easy. I believe they now also support TRIM for Win7 and Garbage Collection.
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OptionsMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□Yes, it will make a difference. Everything will be somewhat faster, such as booting, opening large files, running programs, and so on. I say "somewhat" because the sequential access performance of an SSD is "only" 2-4 times faster than a regular disk, so the difference for individual tasks isn't that much... in other words, they're faster, but it's probably not going to blow your mind that Firefox loads in 1 second instead of 5.
What will be dramatically faster, however, will be multitasking. You can open every program you need at the same time, with zero slowdown. You can run tons of VMs and still use your desktop like normal. Basically you can throw anything you want at it, and it likely won't slow down at all. This is because the random access performance of an SSD is 100+ times faster than a regular disk. For me, as a heavy user of VMs, this is the mind blowing improvement.MentholMoose
MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV -
OptionsHeero Member Posts: 486I dont know if it's enough of a difference to justify the cost difference at this point, but I have an SSD for the OS and programs that aren't huge, and I don't think I could go back.
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Optionshypnotoad Banned Posts: 915The 60 gig OCZ Vertex 2 (which is Ok) is down to $140. the intels are better. The 2tb rotationals are pretty cheap now too.
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OptionsMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□The 60 gig OCZ Vertex 2 (which is Ok) is down to $140. the intels are better. The 2tb rotationals are pretty cheap now too.
Bench - SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
I recently saw the 60GB Vertex 2 for $100 after a $20 rebate, so check for deals, especially now that the holiday season is upon us. The Intel SSDs are dropping in price, too, now that competition is so high.MentholMoose
MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV -
Optionstpatt100 Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□I am going to look at that drive, looking around online for deals. Thanks for the information.
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Optionstiersten Member Posts: 4,505The original OCZ Vertex drives which used an Indilinx controller are awful. They've got software bugs which will quietly corrupt your data if you hit certain configurations. The OCZ response is to wipe it clean and try again.
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OptionsRobertKaucher Member Posts: 4,299 ■■■■■■■■■■In my laptop I had an Intel 40 GB SSD for a while. Way to low in capacity for me but my computer flew like the wind and it was only a Pentium Dual. It is worth every single penny.
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OptionsJDMurray Admin Posts: 13,041 AdminHow about heat? I've heard that SSDs run very hot. Anyone have heat problems running an SSD in a fanless enclosure?
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Optionsgunbunnysoulja Member Posts: 353How about heat? I've heard that SSDs run very hot. Anyone have heat problems running an SSD in a fanless enclosure?
Where did you hear they run very hot? I don't know of any that run "hot". Maybe warm, but certainly not in league with a mechanical HDD. An advantage to SSD is that they don't run hot. They are great for HTPC's in small form factors.WGU BSITStart Date: July 1, 2013
In Progress: CJV1 (4 CU)
Transfered: WFV1, TJP1, CLC1, INC1, INT1, EUP1, EUC1, BVC1, GAC1, DHV1, DIV1, CWV1, CRV1, DEV1, CTV1, DJV1, IWC1, IWT1, CVV1, RIT1, CIC1, CJC1, TBP1, TCP1, EAV1, EBV1, TJC1, AGC1 (82 CU)
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Optionsgunbunnysoulja Member Posts: 353The original OCZ Vertex drives which used an Indilinx controller are awful. They've got software bugs which will quietly corrupt your data if you hit certain configurations. The OCZ response is to wipe it clean and try again.
I wouldn't say they are aweful, but the Intel's are certainly more reliable than the Indilinx models. I have a few 30GB Vertex's (Indilinx) that do work awesome however, so for <$100, they served their purpose well. The new Sandforce Vertex2's are definitely the way to go now IMO for price to performance ratio.WGU BSITStart Date: July 1, 2013
In Progress: CJV1 (4 CU)
Transfered: WFV1, TJP1, CLC1, INC1, INT1, EUP1, EUC1, BVC1, GAC1, DHV1, DIV1, CWV1, CRV1, DEV1, CTV1, DJV1, IWC1, IWT1, CVV1, RIT1, CIC1, CJC1, TBP1, TCP1, EAV1, EBV1, TJC1, AGC1 (82 CU)
Completed: MGC1, TPV1, CUV1 (14 CU)
Remaining: BOV1, BNC1, TXP1, TXC1, TYP1, TPC1, SBT1, QZT1 (22 CU) -
OptionsMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□How about heat? I've heard that SSDs run very hot. Anyone have heat problems running an SSD in a fanless enclosure?MentholMoose
MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV -
Optionstiersten Member Posts: 4,505gunbunnysoulja wrote: »I wouldn't say they are aweful, but the Intel's are certainly more reliable than the Indilinx models. I have a few 30GB Vertex's (Indilinx) that do work awesome however, so for <$100, they served their purpose well.
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OptionsLee H Member Posts: 1,135A recent thread got me thinking about my rig
How does 2 x 1 TB SATA's striped compare to 1 single SSD?
Do all SATA's in the stripe have to be the same size?
I should know all this stuff already but ive never had a support role that includes a lot of server set-ups or issues
I currently have 1 X 300Gig SATA as my OS drive and 2 X 1 TB for all my media and files etc....
So I was wondering if I went out and bought 2 X 2 TB to use as storage in a NAS box my 2 X 1 TB could be stripped for my OS
Would I see a big gain in performance and be glad I purchased 2 X 2 TB as opose to leaving all my media on my 2 X 1 TB's and spending the money on an SSD. -
Optionsrogue2shadow Member Posts: 1,501 ■■■■■■■■□□A recent thread got me thinking about my rig
How does 2 x 1 TB SATA's striped compare to 1 single SSD?
Do all SATA's in the stripe have to be the same size?
I should know all this stuff already but ive never had a support role that includes a lot of server set-ups or issues
I currently have 1 X 300Gig SATA as my OS drive and 2 X 1 TB for all my media and files etc....
So I was wondering if I went out and bought 2 X 2 TB to use as storage in a NAS box my 2 X 1 TB could be stripped for my OS
Would I see a big gain in performance and be glad I purchased 2 X 2 TB as opose to leaving all my media on my 2 X 1 TB's and spending the money on an SSD
Random but directly related: If you use raid at all (correct me if im wrong), you lose garbage collection and TRIM with Windows 7.
When it comes to RAID'ing two 1TB drives it really comes down to the model (with WD Black vs Green vs Blue Caviar for example). Theres tons of benchmarks out there that show a difference but you'll probably see them testing with RAID 0. I think the bigger the drive the more access time is required? It may be a few mili seconds difference though. -
OptionsRobertKaucher Member Posts: 4,299 ■■■■■■■■■■How about heat? I've heard that SSDs run very hot. Anyone have heat problems running an SSD in a fanless enclosure?
I experienced the opposite. My laptop runs exceptionally hot. SSD decreased that dramatically. -
OptionsMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□A recent thread got me thinking about my rig
How does 2 x 1 TB SATA's striped compare to 1 single SSD?Do all SATA's in the stripe have to be the same size?So I was wondering if I went out and bought 2 X 2 TB to use as storage in a NAS box my 2 X 1 TB could be stripped for my OS
Would I see a big gain in performance and be glad I purchased 2 X 2 TB as opose to leaving all my media on my 2 X 1 TB's and spending the money on an SSDMentholMoose
MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV -
Optionstiersten Member Posts: 4,505As always, RAID isn't a backup method. Especially if you're striping since that will reduce the reliability of your storage considerably. A failure of ANY drive in your striped array will cause you to lose ALL your data.
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OptionsJDMurray Admin Posts: 13,041 AdminRobertKaucher wrote: »I experienced the opposite. My laptop runs exceptionally hot. SSD decreased that dramatically.
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Optionsrwmidl Member Posts: 807 ■■■■■■□□□□What about running one of the WD Raptor drives (10k RPM)? It seems as if it would be less expensive to go that route and you'd get a bit more space.CISSP | CISM | ACSS | ACIS | MCSA:2008 | MCITP:SA | MCSE:Security | MCSA:Security | Security + | MCTS
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OptionsSephStorm Member Posts: 1,731 ■■■■■■■□□□So do most or all laptops support SSD's? I've been considering one for my next laptop, but I dont know if laptops support different size hard drives, or if I need to check compatibility,
Also, the raptors are good ideas too, heard great things about them. -
Optionsrwmidl Member Posts: 807 ■■■■■■□□□□For me (personally) I'd go with a Raptor. Right now I think SSD's, while nice, are still a bit pricey, especially for the amount of space you get. Right now on NewEgg you can get a 150gb drive for $129 (or for $50 more you can get a 300gb drive).CISSP | CISM | ACSS | ACIS | MCSA:2008 | MCITP:SA | MCSE:Security | MCSA:Security | Security + | MCTS
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Optionstiersten Member Posts: 4,505So do most or all laptops support SSD's?
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OptionsMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□What about running one of the WD Raptor drives (10k RPM)? It seems as if it would be less expensive to go that route and you'd get a bit more space.
OCZ's Vertex 2 Pro Preview: The Fastest MLC SSD We've Ever Tested
For the random performance tests, even the Raptor barely registers on the graph!
Overall the benefit just depends on what you are doing with your PC, and personal preference. For general use (email, web browsing), photo/video editing, gaming, and many other uses, regular disks are fine. You will notice an improvement from an SSD, but the higher cost may or may not be worth it to you. Also if you need to store a ton of files on your C: drive (like if you have a laptop and are highly mobile), then a large enough SSD probably costs too much anyway.So do most or all laptops support SSD's? I've been considering one for my next laptop, but I dont know if laptops support different size hard drives, or if I need to check compatibilityMentholMoose
MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV -
Optionstiersten Member Posts: 4,505What MentholMoose said.MentholMoose wrote: »Most SSDs are available in the standard 2.5" size used by most laptops, and use SATA like most laptops.
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OptionsMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□Yeah there are a variety of standards so it makes sense to verify what your laptop uses before purchasing an SSD for it. I do believe the regular 2.5" standard is the most common for the average laptop, though.MentholMoose
MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV -
OptionsRobertKaucher Member Posts: 4,299 ■■■■■■■■■■For me (personally) I'd go with a Raptor. Right now I think SSD's, while nice, are still a bit pricey, especially for the amount of space you get. Right now on NewEgg you can get a 150gb drive for $129 (or for $50 more you can get a 300gb drive).
I ended up replacing my SSD with a Raptor due to the size limitation. In 2011 I'll be getting a new laptop and it will take 2 HHDs and the SSD will be used for my OS and everything else will go on the Raptor. -
OptionsSephStorm Member Posts: 1,731 ■■■■■■■□□□