To get a SSD or not to get one is the question.?

D

Dulak

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2005
Messages
316
Sitting here debating if I should get a SSD for my new clean install of win 7.
Been using xp on a machine for 3 years and have many programs installed on it; and have my new win 7 ultimate dvd sitting here waiting to be installed.

What I have and what I use my computer for.

I have 4 HDs 3 640 aaks and 1 750 aaks WD
drive 1 - windows progs
drive 2 - temp files and things needed to be rerouted to my other drives
drive 3 - big files
drive 4 - everything misc and anything old
(1 tb backup drive with more stuff on it)

with: q6600, 4 gigs ram, 5770.
I use my computer A Lot; for all sorts of things - surfing, stock trading, movies, games, photoshop will be done by my wife in the future.

My funds are limited atm but if getting a SSD will really help in my productivity/fun factor of using my computer then I may 'splurge'

My questions are:

1. I've read all about the boot times of using a SSD and thats great but atm I boot maybe 2x a day on average.

2. Is that 'confusing/difficult' to use a SSD for a bootdrive and have most of the big stuff on a different drive; example - if Id get a SSD Id have windows, apps, and my current games on a SSD drive - but most everything else would be on another drive. Meaning is it more of a hassle to mess with 2 drives now for what I current use for 1 drive as my main drive?

3. If I would get a 80 gig SSD now and say by some chance the price drops alot or I start making lots of $; is it easy to migrate all my programs/windows to a new drive? and just use that one?

4. If I didnt get a SSD now would it be too hard to add a SSD later; could I do without reinstalling windows and all my progs? (currently my c drive use is 300 gigs).

5. Last question is - would I really see that much of a difference in productivity/fun with a SSD given my usage? example getting a SSD now may limit me in getting a 6950 now and Id like to be ready for some of the newer games.

Ive heard it mentioned a few times a SSD has been the biggest upgrade they have ever done to their system.
For me it would have to be going from a 22 monitor to a 26.5 inch (couldnt go back to a 'small screen')

As mentioned - the SSD I am interested in would be the intel 320 80gig version.

So given the above would you suggest a SSD at this time?
 
Dulak said:
1. I've read all about the boot times of using a SSD and thats great but atm I boot maybe 2x a day on average.
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boot times are the smallest of the features. every single program you ever load will load faster. all of them.

Dulak said:
2. Is that 'confusing/difficult' to use a SSD for a bootdrive and have most of the big stuff on a different drive; example - if Id get a SSD Id have windows, apps, and my current games on a SSD drive - but most everything else would be on another drive. Meaning is it more of a hassle to mess with 2 drives now for what I current use for 1 drive as my main drive?
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no, just make your main drive C, install games and large media to D

Dulak said:
3. If I would get a 80 gig SSD now and say by some chance the price drops alot or I start making lots of $; is it easy to migrate all my programs/windows to a new drive? and just use that one?
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very easy, you just make an image and snap it over

Dulak said:
4. If I didnt get a SSD now would it be too hard to add a SSD later; could I do without reinstalling windows and all my progs? (currently my c drive use is 300 gigs).
Click to expand...
well you'd want to split up your stuff, a 300gb ssd would cost a lot

Dulak said:
5. Last question is - would I really see that much of a difference in productivity/fun with a SSD given my usage? example getting a SSD now may limit me in getting a 6950 now and Id like to be ready for some of the newer games.
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you will definitely have a lot more productivity with it.

Dulak said:
Ive heard it mentioned a few times a SSD has been the biggest upgrade they have ever done to their system.
For me it would have to be going from a 22 monitor to a 26.5 inch (couldnt go back to a 'small screen')

As mentioned - the SSD I am interested in would be the intel 320 80gig version.

So given the above would you suggest a SSD at this time?
Click to expand...

yes
 
I've been contemplating this as well. I don't game often anymore, but when I do that's all I really use my PC for. Occassionaly I use Office, Solidworks, etc.

I may pull the trigger on a Corsair F115 that is $170 after promo code. Good idea or bad idea?
 
Boot times might not be a huge deal (a couple seconds once a day wont kill you) but an area I noticed a drastic improvement from getting a ssd was speed as soon as it had booted and hit the desktop. Normally, the tray icons and startup programs would have to load, so if you tried to launch firefox as soon as you hit the desktop, it would slow down. Ssd eliminates that. As soon as you logon to windows you're good to go.
 
That sounds pretty good to me! Really, it just comes down to which one, I guess. I'll need to research it a little more. I don't expect the $/GB to drop significanty anytime soon, I'll just pounce on a good deal when I find it (or it finds me).
 
Yeah, the 25nm thing didn't really drop prices as much as we expected. The rumors pointed towards $1.25/gb widely available this spring. the best I've seen has still only been about $1.30-1.35/gb on short sales or rebates. I jumped on a black friday 120gb for 165 and still have yet to see one go cheaper.

Just be careful for outdated information. The first ssds were a little more finnicky to setup. For the most part, a fresh windows install will get everything configured properly. There are guides from 2009 that suggested all of these goofy tricks to speed them up and prolong life. Use trim. Set bios to ahci. Don't disable the page file. Disable defrag (win7 does this automatically for ssds)
 
1. Boot times are not the main point of an SSD.

2. You should be using a separate partition just for your OS anyway. Antivirus scans are *much* faster. If you need to reformat the OS partition it is much faster. Defragging your OS partition will be much faster. Etc. I admit it can be a bit of a pain because it seems like every program is dying to install to c:\program files\, but nowadays most programs don't have a problem installing to a different drive. Although you will have to do custom installs instead of default installs more often. Some programs (like certain Autodesk products) will always install at least partly to the C drive. You just have to account for the additional bloat in deciding how to size your partition. Note that if you size it too small you can always resize it with something like Acronis Disk Director. For XP I'd go with a 6-10 gig partition. For Win7 it is less predictable because of the accursed WinSxS directory which grows every time you install or uninstall a program. WinSxSLite may help to trim the size of it, but it will still be a problem. So your Win7 partition may need to be anywhere from say 12 GB to as much as 60 GB.

3. It depends what you mean by "easy". It isn't technically difficult but it is a time consuming PITA depending on how many programs you have. Are you thinking in terms of imaging or something? Not sure about that. I've never done it. The problem with an 80 gig SSD is that Windows 7 or Vista can grow to almost that size. So you won't get the benefit of running any programs on it unless you take extreme measures with your WinSxS directory, and there is no easy/straightforward solution to that problem that I am aware of. Other than installing WinXP, Mac OS X, or Linux that is. Vista and Windows 7 were mainly intended to be installed on 1 TB + drives. Microsoft never counted on SSDs being so popular. At least that's what Microsoft says about the bloat issue. "What are you worried about? You have a 2TB boot drive, right?", is what they say. Maybe Windows 8 will be released with a MinWin version specifically designed for SSDs, but Microsoft is so badly managed these days, I doubt it. To them a 60 GB operating system seems like progress. They can't go back.

4. If this is an imaging question I don't know the answer. But otherwise you will in fact need to reinstall all your programs.

5. A newer graphics card will make a much larger difference in performance when it comes to recent games (old games are a different story). Although it depends on what you are upgrading from. Consoles have held back PC games for so long that a graphics card upgrade may not be warranted at all. Make sure that there is a current game that you like that would benefit from it. For other applications upgrading your CPU or RAM would probably make more of a difference. Again, depending on where you are starting from. Only after you are where you want to be for GPU, CPU, and RAM would I upgrade to an SSD for an OS plus frequently used app/game drive. But you should really list your current system specs and maybe some example applications and games that you plan to run if you want general upgrade advice.
 
nalc said:
Yeah, the 25nm thing didn't really drop prices as much as we expected. The rumors pointed towards $1.25/gb widely available this spring. the best I've seen has still only been about $1.30-1.35/gb on short sales or rebates. I jumped on a black friday 120gb for 165 and still have yet to see one go cheaper.
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As I expected, the suppliers are pocketing the money. I don't understand why people thought they would pass the cost savings onto the end user. SSDs are selling just fine at current price ponts. 25nm is win-win for the manufacturers who not only get cheaper manufacturing costs but also get to sell a product with a shorter lifespan that needs to be replaced more often. Kaching! Money in the bank. For them that is. If/when prices do drop it will have more to do with market conditions than the cost difference between 34nm and 25nm flash NAND. Of course products with a shorter lifespan will increase demand in the long run, slowing down price drops. Or so the manufacturers hope.
 
gojirasan said:
The problem with an 80 gig SSD is that Windows 7 or Vista can grow to almost that size.
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What.

I've had Windows x64 Ultimate on my intel 80 gig (~74.4 formatted IIRC) for over a year now. Freshly installed with hibernation disabled (who uses hibernate seriously) and the paging file on a separate drive (never gets used anyway), I have something like 15gb used. I don't even uninstall any components which you could easily trim a couple gb's off with. That leaves you with a little under 60gb for programs/games. Plenty for most people. If you have a quick 7200rpm secondary drive you can even get away with using it for your less played games and barely notice a difference. I use 2x WD black 640gb drives in raid 0 for this purpose and it works fabulously.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I do move my library folders (downloads, documents, pictures, music, etc) to the raid0 drive as these things just don't benefit from an SSD at all.
 
You might read the thread about SSDs and real world usage.

Some people (including myself) think there is not much performance difference.

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Boot time is really dependent on what you load at start up. My daughter loads a lot and connects to a server. Nothing runs well until the server is connected.
 
Some people = old farts and the poor. Good SSD's are the single most tangible performance upgrade that consumer systems can get.
 
GeorgeHR said:
You might read the thread about SSDs and real world usage.

Some people (including myself) think there is not much performance difference.

---

Boot time is really dependent on what you load at start up. My daughter loads a lot and connects to a server. Nothing runs well until the server is connected.
Click to expand...

LOL.. what? I started running SSD's back when the G1 intel came out and there is plenty of difference. My boot times ARE much quicker and application loading is much faster. Thats like saying some ppl think an 800hp V8 isn't faster then a 200hp V6. For me it was night and day and one of the best upgrades I have done. I took a client from dual Raptors in RAID 0 to a single Intel 320 120gb and he is in heaven. I honestly can't understand why anyone would say that. An SSD with a lot of start up items will smoke a mechanical drive with a lot of startup items.
 
heres the great thing about it, if all the idiots dont buy ssds that is cool.
i still enjoy the performance of the ssd everyday:p

unless you have a gpu that doesnt do DX10, then the SSD is the best major upgrade for any system out there.
 
Well I decided to go with a SSD - a intel 320 120gb version. Should arrive tomorrow. Paid a bit for it (uk tends to not have many deals).
I went with the 120gb version because I figured a little extra space would go a long way with not being so stingy on what progs I want on here.

the case Im getting this week also is a lian li pc-7fn; and I plan to put the SSD up in the 3 1/4 drive bay (where there is no active cooling); think this would cause any issues?)

I really wasnt sure if I should buy the SSD - really wanted to get a 6950 now. But from what many people say I might enjoy the SSD more then the 6950.

Ill let you know how I like it.
 
If you do a lot of gaming, you'd have been better off with the 6950 (upgrading that 5770). You won't see nearly as much of a difference gaming with the SSD.
 
Forceman said:
If you do a lot of gaming, you'd have been better off with the 6950 (upgrading that 5770). You won't see nearly as much of a difference gaming with the SSD.
Click to expand...

I do a fair amount of gaming - well Im hoping to be able to swing a 6950~ in the next month or 2 here.
 
For gaming I'd recommend getting the best GPU/CPU you can get instead of a SSD, especially since you have 4 different HDDs. For your clean win 7 install just make a small partition for the OS on the system drive and you're good to go.

cre3d said:
Some people = old farts and the poor. Good SSD's are the single most tangible performance upgrade that consumer systems can get.
Click to expand...

I have nothing against SSDs but I do have a serious problem with that kind of attitude.
 
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