Solid State Drives (SSD)?

James

James

Staff member
Anyone have any experiences with them? Are they actually that much faster?

Been thinking about doing a clean install of Windows 7 and might as well upgrade the OS drive. I have a pair of 2 TB hard drives in a RAID 1 (mirror) configuration for all my data.

Found this one on Tigerdirect, does it look good?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1083887&CatId=5300

Looks like I'd also need this mount.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6526243&CatId=4222
 
cleonard

cleonard

Go for it James. You will be glad that you did. The change in boot time is substantial. Things load faster in general. The problem with mechanical drives is the system sits and waits while the heads move or the disc to rotate to where the data is. That actually adds up to a lot more time than you might think.

I'm planning on a SSD boot drive and then a RAID pair like you have for other data.

A dollar a gig is a good price for a SSD. It doesn't get much less than that today.
 
James

James

Staff member
cleonard:
Go for it James. You will be glad that you did. The change in boot time is substantial. Things load faster in general. The problem with mechanical drives is the system sits and waits while the heads move or the disc to rotate to where the data is. That actually adds up to a lot more time than you might think.

I'm planning on a SSD boot drive and then a RAID pair like you have for other data.

A dollar a gig is a good price for a SSD. It doesn't get much less than that today.
Click to expand...
:thumb: That's the other thing I was going to ask, what's a good per GB price? $1?

The one I posted above is just under $1 per GB, however I was also looking at another that's just over $1.
 
James

James

Staff member
Still haven't gotten one of these, any suggestions? I'd like something between 120-250 GB. It'll only be used for the OS and programs as I store all my other files on a pair of 2 TB drives.
 
cleonard

cleonard

I have a 120 as so far it's enough. I'd say that the real dividing line would be games. If you are a gamer you will need the 250. If I wasn't doing OS virtualization a 60 would have been good.
 
James

James

Staff member
cleonard:
I have a 120 as so far it's enough. I'd say that the real dividing line would be games. If you are a gamer you will need the 250. If I wasn't doing OS virtualization a 60 would have been good.
Click to expand...
Yeah I really like the price of the 120/128 but not sure if they'll be enough. I currently have my 80GB maxed out and don't have any games installed. :bonk: Plus the only game that I'd really consider installing is Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is ~20GB.

Probably be better to just get the 250 and be done with it.

Any suggestions on which brand/model?
 
1

14D

While reliability as in shockproof for an ssd is good, they're not sposed to last very long yet, I've read 3-4 years before dying(something like 100's of thousands of read/write cycles v. HDD's millions and millions...). The trade off is obviously being very fast.
 
James

James

Staff member
Just picked up these items:

Patriot Pyro SE Solid State Drive - 120GB
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1457210

Intel Core i5-3570K
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2373004

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H Intel 7 Series Motherboard
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2276156

Corsair Vengeance RAM - 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3-1600MHz
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=40739


Why does this crap have to cost so much? :foul: :rant:
 
cleonard

cleonard

That's a bit newer than what I'm running now. I bought before Ivy Bridge came out so I have a i5-2500k and a Z68 mobo. I also have 8G and 120G. I was amazed at just how much faster this setup is than any other desktop computer I've used. My work system sucks in comparison.

I think you will like how it preforms.
 
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