SSD for HTPC worth it?

[thor17usa]

I've been looking to make some adjustments to my HTPC to give it a little more speed with accessing files and navigating the menu. I'm using Windows 7 and will stick with this for the easy of use for Blu-ray playback. Currently the OS and storage are all on a single 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive and I wanted some feedback on whether anyone was using a small SSD (say 32GB or 64GB) as their OS drive and using the spindle drives for storage.

Did it make a significant difference in start-up, shutdown, or waking up form sleep mode?
Did you encounter any issue with this setup?
The mobo I have is limited for SATA2, so I'm fine with keeping at that speed unless there is still a better improvement with a SATA3 on this older gear. I'm looking to just do a minor upgrade, so user feedback will help in my decision.

 

[BM2KTom]

I use one on my zbox with the AMD apu, it sped up the start up and shutdown times and made programs open faster which was reason enough for me, its not night and day because of the slowness of the other components but every little bit helped; I use my HTPC as a streaming box so I didn't need the large amounts of storage. If you can get one cheap enough its worth it but I wouldn't spend a lot on it as its not an astronomical difference in speed.

 

[raybik]

ssd currently is not favorably rated to be the main drive for a system.

 

[Godmachine]

For the OS and software to run all the programs hell yes its worth it. Very fast boot up times , snappy software loading times..

Its one of the most easy to notice upgrades in terms of overall system responsiveness. Just don't spend a fortune on it , get an 80 gig Intel 320 series SSD from Newegg for like $140 ( you don't need massive read/write speeds for everyday OS stuff) and enjoy.

Intel by the way is the most reliable SSD builder right now , AVOID Sandforce based SSD anything , Sandforce controllers are very unpredictable and that's not good for something you want 100 percent stable like a HTPC. And don't be tricked into believing you'll notice a difference between 270 MB/s and 400-500 MB/s transfer speeds .. many drives can not sustain read speeds like that so they are fluff figures under the best conditions.

 

[BigJayDogg3]

I've been looking to make some adjustments to my HTPC to give it a little more speed with accessing files and navigating the menu. I'm using Windows 7 and will stick with this for the easy of use for Blu-ray playback. Currently the OS and storage are all on a single 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive and I wanted some feedback on whether anyone was using a small SSD (say 32GB or 64GB) as their OS drive and using the spindle drives for storage.

Did it make a significant difference in start-up, shutdown, or waking up form sleep mode?
Did you encounter any issue with this setup?
The mobo I have is limited for SATA2, so I'm fine with keeping at that speed unless there is still a better improvement with a SATA3 on this older gear. I'm looking to just do a minor upgrade, so user feedback will help in my decision.

I don't have a HTPC, but I think I can answer some of your questions.

1. Definitely. This area is where the SSD's speed is most apparent IMO.
2. Nope. Clean install of Windows 7 is pretty much all that is needed. If you'd like, you can continue doing things to better optimize your SSD, but the difference you see won't be huge.
3. There would be an increase in moving from SATA II to SATA III. Whether or not you would actually see the difference? Dunno. I seriously doubt it though.

 

[Hatsuharu]

Did it make a significant difference in start-up, shutdown, or waking up form sleep mode?

Yes

Did you encounter any issue with this setup?

No

Edit: To elaborate - I would highly recommend a SSD for a HTPC. It is generally good practice to keep your data/media files separate from your OS/Apps. And like another poster said, SSD upgrade is easily one of the most noticeable upgrades one can do to make their system feel (and actually be) faster/snappier.

 

[tikiman2012]

It's the only way to go.

 

[harshw]

I built a small HTPC with a Habey EMC case with Intel's DH61AG motherboard and a Pentium G620. The previous HTPC was based on a DG45FC and an E5200

The DH61AG has a mSATA port that I populated with an OCZ Strata ( based on the old Indilinx controller ) - it's one of the slower SSD drives out there and only does SATA-II. Having said that the new HTPC boots up from cold to WMC in under 13 seconds, shuts down in less than 4 seconds, consumes 15W idle and 2W when powered off or sleeping. I had a 2TB drive in the old HTPC that I moved across to an el-cheapo NAS device.

So yes - even a slower SSD will make a huge difference in perceived speed for the system - the difference coming from the huge increase in random read speeds

 

[Biznatch]

ssd currently is not favorably rated to be the main drive for a system.

That wasnt even true 2 years ago. Please dont spread completely false information.


An SSD helped boot times for my e350 system. Sleep/hibernate are just a few seconds.

 

[almalino]

just ordered OCZ Agility 3 60GB for my HTPC. 100 euro with delivery in Finland.

 

[Orddie]

That wasnt even true 2 years ago. Please dont spread completely false information.

+1

The wife will enjoy the quick boot times of your HTPC with an SSD. It is windows after all so you should expect to have too reboot the darn thing

Keeping your recorded shows on another HD is a good idea. I have had to reformat my system a few times. Keeping the data on a different drive saved me from having to backup the data in the first place.

 

[almalino]

Keeping the data on a different drive saved me from having to backup the data in the first place.

That is another reason for SSD. Reformating OS drive or even replacing it will keep your data intact. Very handy!

 

[Vengance_01]

Also if you plan to use WMC 7, you should see a nice boost with that, not to mention no seeking noise!

 

[Zangmonkey]

ssd currently is not favorably rated to be the main drive for a system.

wat

 

[Zangmonkey]

Keep your eye out for used SSDs with trim.

You can find them for a good price, and the speed of a second-gen SSD is still a great upgrade. It also takes up less space, makes no noise, takes less power and produces less heat.

 

[Xeth]

I use an SSD for my server's main drive which I use to stream content to my TVs, and yes it does make a big difference.

 

[ziggo0]

If using XBMC - it stores everything in a database so having fast access time (SSD) helps tremendously.

 

[CrazyCuz2k]

I concur with Zangmonkey. I have two HTPC's that have gen 1 30 GB SSD's. They're cheap (now) and make using you HTPC similar to a consumer device in terms of load up times.

I have all my data on a server but you can always go with a nas. Much more convenient than having it on the HTPC.

 

[AQ_OC]

I built my first HTPC (HTPC1) with an SSD and old parts and built my second HPTC (HTPC2) with new parts but an old HDD I took from one of those portable usb drives to save money.

I've been wondering if the second one needs an SSD as well since I use it most and it has the better sound system and TV to drive.

I picked 3 activities I think I do the most outside of watching movies. One is reboot (always updated windows or such). I started from my distinctive desktop and waited until I saw it again. Another is loading Windows Media Center (I timed until it displayed the top-level menu and was ready to go). Another is loading MyMovies Collection Manager (for loading up my new rips from my server). I timed until it was fully opened and ready for me to do something.

I leave both machines on 24/7, but I do reboot both from time to time as needed. Both machines have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I use MS Security Essentials for virus protection. Other than the drivers needed for the two different sets of hardware, they both have the same software. I only watch movies and surf the web from these machines. I could also listen to music but I haven't gotten around to converting my music collection to a lossless format yet (another side effect of higher hard drive prices).

So here are my results. I think they are pretty clear. The repeated numbers are just what I measured on successive measurements of the same activity. Note that windows caching is playing into this all tests except for the rebooting. You can see the difference between the first load and the repeated (back to back) loads, where the SSD vs HDD difference is showing up. I don't think the Kingston is a particularly fast SSD.

HTPC1
GA-G41M-ES2H, LGA 775
4GB DDR2 (Kingston HyperX)
Core Duo E6850 @ 3GHz
ATI 6XXX
64GB Kingston SSDNow
Intel Nic
SliverStone ML03

HPTC2
ASUS P8H61-I (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI USB 3.0
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066
Intel Core I3-2100 @ 3.1 GHz
Intel HD2000 Graphics
WD 320GB Scorpion Blue HD
Intel Nic
Rosewill RS-MI-01

Restart (Desktop to Desktop: time from Desktop until Desktop shows again, one-minute gap)

HTPC1: 48.6s, 49s, 49.2s, 53s, 49.5s
HTPC2: 65s, 66s, 66s, 64s, 66s

Time to Load Windows Media Center (Until it displays Menu Selections):

HTPC1: 7.5s (first time), 5.8s, 6s, 5.9s, 6.7s
HTPC2: 16s (first time), 5s, 5s, 5.2s, 5s, 5.3s

Time to Load MyMovies Collection Management (Until it is ready for Input):

HTPC1: 9.1s (first time), 7.4s, 6.8s, 7.4s, 8.7s
HTPC2: 15.7s (first time), 6.8s, 6.4s, 6.8s, 6.7s

 

[thor17usa]

This is great feedback everyone and very helpful. I did not want to take the plunge without first hearing from others (good or bad). Newegg has a pretty good deal on a Corsair 60GB SSD that I am considering.

 

[AQ_OC]

This is great feedback everyone and very helpful. I did not want to take the plunge without first hearing from others (good or bad). Newegg has a pretty good deal on a Corsair 60GB SSD that I am considering.

Yep...pretty good deal. I'm thinking about getting one now, too.

 

[Activate: AMD]

I built my first HTPC (HTPC1) with an SSD and old parts and built my second HPTC (HTPC2) with new parts but an old HDD I took from one of those portable usb drives to save money.

I've been wondering if the second one needs an SSD as well since I use it most and it has the better sound system and TV to drive.

I picked 3 activities I think I do the most outside of watching movies. One is reboot (always updated windows or such). I started from my distinctive desktop and waited until I saw it again. Another is loading Windows Media Center (I timed until it displayed the top-level menu and was ready to go). Another is loading MyMovies Collection Manager (for loading up my new rips from my server). I timed until it was fully opened and ready for me to do something.

I leave both machines on 24/7, but I do reboot both from time to time as needed. Both machines have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I use MS Security Essentials for virus protection. Other than the drivers needed for the two different sets of hardware, they both have the same software. I only watch movies and surf the web from these machines. I could also listen to music but I haven't gotten around to converting my music collection to a lossless format yet (another side effect of higher hard drive prices).

So here are my results. I think they are pretty clear. The repeated numbers are just what I measured on successive measurements of the same activity. Note that windows caching is playing into this all tests except for the rebooting. You can see the difference between the first load and the repeated (back to back) loads, where the SSD vs HDD difference is showing up. I don't think the Kingston is a particularly fast SSD.

HTPC1
GA-G41M-ES2H, LGA 775
4GB DDR2 (Kingston HyperX)
Core Duo E6850 @ 3GHz
ATI 6XXX
64GB Kingston SSDNow
Intel Nic
SliverStone ML03

HPTC2
ASUS P8H61-I (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI USB 3.0
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066
Intel Core I3-2100 @ 3.1 GHz
Intel HD2000 Graphics
WD 320GB Scorpion Blue HD
Intel Nic
Rosewill RS-MI-01

Restart (Desktop to Desktop: time from Desktop until Desktop shows again, one-minute gap)

HTPC1: 48.6s, 49s, 49.2s, 53s, 49.5s
HTPC2: 65s, 66s, 66s, 64s, 66s

Time to Load Windows Media Center (Until it displays Menu Selections):

HTPC1: 7.5s (first time), 5.8s, 6s, 5.9s, 6.7s
HTPC2: 16s (first time), 5s, 5s, 5.2s, 5s, 5.3s

Time to Load MyMovies Collection Management (Until it is ready for Input):

HTPC1: 9.1s (first time), 7.4s, 6.8s, 7.4s, 8.7s
HTPC2: 15.7s first time), 6.8s, 6.4s, 6.8s, 6.7s

Good data. I had been saying for a long time that, based on my personal experience with both, an SSD doesn't show much of a difference in normal HTPC usage, but I think your data tells a better story. yes, SSD's boot stuff faster, but if you leave your HTPC on 24/7 it probably doesn't matter, the HDD system is functionally identical after the first loading. With the current price of ~60gb SSD's, I think adding one is pretty much a no brainer at this point if you have a separate storage system. On the flip side, If you're on a tight budget I'd rather spend my money on other things before adding an SSD just to save 5-10 sec on bootup.

 

[CrazyCuz2k]

to AQ _OC:

you're using a 2.5 inch laptop drive so power consumption and heat are lower than normal but I wonder how they compare to the SSD in the other points:

Heat
Noise
Power Consumption

 

[AQ_OC]

to AQ _OC:

you're using a 2.5 inch laptop drive so power consumption and heat are lower than normal but I wonder how they compare to the SSD in the other points:

Heat
Noise
Power Consumption

Well, there is plenty of room in both my cases as I have no other drives them them (optical or magnetic). I cannot hear them. Those little drives don't get hot, IME, at least not like a 3.5-inch drive.

I could, and probably will, get my kill-a-watt out and measure the power consumption of both...just to see....you never know, based on that info I might decide you change my habits of 24/7. Others have suggested putting them in sleep mode when not in use....I have gone to that step....yet.

 

[msabercr]

unless you constantly shutdown and start up your system you aren't going to notice most of the benefits but most people set their htpcs on pretty tight power saving settings so their tvs don't burn in your screen or ring up your electric bill by having the tv on all the time. so if you are one of the former then i would say go for it they do come out of hibernate a lot faster and it saves quite a bit of time as far as start up is concerned.

 

[MrCrispy]

I haven't set it up yet, bu tI think an SSD might make a bigger difference in XBMC, since it caches all the artwork and metadata. So e.g. opening the movie collection and browsing through it should be faster. I don't know if WMC does it too.

 

[harshw]

This is great feedback everyone and very helpful. I did not want to take the plunge without first hearing from others (good or bad). Newegg has a pretty good deal on a Corsair 60GB SSD that I am considering.

Remember to get your paging file down to say 16MB - provided you have enough RAM, you wouldn't really need a paging file. And also to disable hybrid sleep -so the system doesn't write GBs of data to hiberfil.sys every time it sleeps. With these two measures, I have 42GB free from a 60GB SSD after a Windows install. The amount of free space is important - it increases proper wear levelling and hence the lifespan of your SSD, not to mention keeping the performance at rated levels. Any good SSD tweaker can then be used to disable atime on NTFS as well as disabling the indexing service and boot prefetch ...

 

[AQ_OC]

I haven't set it up yet, bu tI think an SSD might make a bigger difference in XBMC, since it caches all the artwork and metadata. So e.g. opening the movie collection and browsing through it should be faster. I don't know if WMC does it too.

I have noticed that, on my SSD HTPC, when moving through a movie list in WMC that the backdrop artwork does display faster than on my HDD HTPC. While it is noticeable, I would not say the impact is really that much (I'm not waiting multiple seconds for the fanart to appear). In fact, until I did a back-to-back comparison (within 30 minutes on each machine), I was not even sure there was a difference. I have ~600 top-level titles (I'm not counting multiple movies that come in box sets).

I think the only good way to test this and to share the results with others is to make a video for youtube or something. That way, we all can see what we mean when we say something is faster -- just what does that mean and is that important enough to me to spend for an SSD. That's the problem with these discussions, we have no real way to attach meaning to the words of others so we can make good decisions.

Having said that I will say this too. This is the [H]ardforum and most of us here are gadget lovers. That right there is almost enough justification for an SSD. "I want one" is always a valid justification for any piece of tech, IMO.

 

[tkeahey]

This is great feedback everyone and very helpful. I did not want to take the plunge without first hearing from others (good or bad). Newegg has a pretty good deal on a Corsair 60GB SSD that I am considering.

Yep...pretty good deal. I'm thinking about getting one now, too.

That SSD has pretty terrible reviews on newegg. 2.75/5 stars (and more 1/5s than 5/5s) with a lot of people saying its performance degrades a lot over just a few weeks/months. Corsair's forums are filled with threads about it as well.

I'm thinking of getting the OCZ Vertex 30GB since 30GB should be enough for Windows 7 or 8 (probably 8, while it's free) + XBMC. Files will be stored on my NAS.

 

[Schro]

I've been looking to make some adjustments to my HTPC to give it a little more speed with accessing files and navigating the menu. I'm using Windows 7 and will stick with this for the easy of use for Blu-ray playback. Currently the OS and storage are all on a single 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive and I wanted some feedback on whether anyone was using a small SSD (say 32GB or 64GB) as their OS drive and using the spindle drives for storage.

Did it make a significant difference in start-up, shutdown, or waking up form sleep mode?
Did you encounter any issue with this setup?
The mobo I have is limited for SATA2, so I'm fine with keeping at that speed unless there is still a better improvement with a SATA3 on this older gear. I'm looking to just do a minor upgrade, so user feedback will help in my decision.

I replaced a Seagate 7200.11 with a 160gb Intel 320 series in my HTPC. I mirrored the drive onto the SSD and went from there.

1. This change made a significant difference in start-up time. I leave mine running all the time, but there's something fun about the system booting so stinking fast.

1a. I noticed a big difference in the program guide and browsing large media libraries on both the main PC and media extender.

2. No issues were encountered. I still have access to my cable card recorded DRM infested shows as well thanks to the mirroring.

3. SATA should be fine - its the small file read/seek times that will help your user experience more than anything, which really shouldn't make a huge difference between 2 and 3.

I haven't set it up yet, bu tI think an SSD might make a bigger difference in XBMC, since it caches all the artwork and metadata. So e.g. opening the movie collection and browsing through it should be faster. I don't know if WMC does it too.

WMC seems to cache it as it loads the artwork and metadata much faster for me now.

 

[edge929]

I just swapped out my 500GB 7200rpm for a 60GB Agility 3 in my HTPC. I got it for $65 shipped and was looking for an excuse for faster startup. I have a 4TB NAS I store all my media on so I didn't need space in the HTPC itself and using a flash/boot drive was out of the question (insanely slow) for booting Windows 7.