Thought I'd make this thread for people sitting on the fence over whether to get an SSD or not, as I was before I finally stumped out, as well as what to expect from a real world PoV. (Based on my 1 day's experience)
Firstly, my previous system was a very clean and uncluttered install on some raid 0'ed Samsung F1s. It was fast, I kept the crap I installed to a minimum and always uninstalled programs I didn't use to maintain speed, O&O defrags and all. There was nothing wrong with my system, never did I really think "hmm that could load quicker". But reading the hype, especially the "hard drive is the slowest component in your PC" finally pushed me.
Having done my research I knew that the Vertex basically needed it's firmware updating to cure stability and increase speed, so this was job one. Unfortunately though if you're using a raided machine you can't do a firmware update as the SSD needs to be in IDE mode, and mine was either all or nothing. So pain in the arse number one was finding a spare working hard drive to put a clean install onto, then flashing.
First impression was Windows 7 installed very quickly (I'm talking around 10-15 minutes), though whether thats Windows 7 or the SSD I don't know as this is my first go with W7. Did the benching, 245mb read 170 write, looks about right. 7.1 Windows score, nice. Windows definately loads and closes faster, but THAT much faster? Undecided. After all, when did 10-20 seconds really make a difference to loading speed.
Installing a few proggys was about the same sort of speed as my raid. But the snappiness when opening them is noticeable. WoW loading screens are about the same as my raid, but once you're in everything is pretty much there instantly, even Dalaran. No nasty churning sound as all the textures are painfully loaded.
So to conclude.. yes it's fast. Is it poo-your-pants fast? Debatable. Coming from an already fast raid lessened the boost, and I think half the speed most people see (and state in the hype) is coming from a well used, bogged down system to a clean install. If you're on a single hard drive, you'll definately see it. Plus remember you also get the bonus of no sound, low power consump, and security of no raid failure. If you've got the money, do it. If not, don't worry about it, it's not a day and night difference. A graphics or processor upgrade is probably cheaper and higher yielding.
TLDR: Bit of work to get it started, speed increase much different different depending on what you're upgrading from, it's fast but not instant, WoW performance better. If you can afford it, do it.
Firstly, my previous system was a very clean and uncluttered install on some raid 0'ed Samsung F1s. It was fast, I kept the crap I installed to a minimum and always uninstalled programs I didn't use to maintain speed, O&O defrags and all. There was nothing wrong with my system, never did I really think "hmm that could load quicker". But reading the hype, especially the "hard drive is the slowest component in your PC" finally pushed me.
Having done my research I knew that the Vertex basically needed it's firmware updating to cure stability and increase speed, so this was job one. Unfortunately though if you're using a raided machine you can't do a firmware update as the SSD needs to be in IDE mode, and mine was either all or nothing. So pain in the arse number one was finding a spare working hard drive to put a clean install onto, then flashing.
First impression was Windows 7 installed very quickly (I'm talking around 10-15 minutes), though whether thats Windows 7 or the SSD I don't know as this is my first go with W7. Did the benching, 245mb read 170 write, looks about right. 7.1 Windows score, nice. Windows definately loads and closes faster, but THAT much faster? Undecided. After all, when did 10-20 seconds really make a difference to loading speed.
Installing a few proggys was about the same sort of speed as my raid. But the snappiness when opening them is noticeable. WoW loading screens are about the same as my raid, but once you're in everything is pretty much there instantly, even Dalaran. No nasty churning sound as all the textures are painfully loaded.
So to conclude.. yes it's fast. Is it poo-your-pants fast? Debatable. Coming from an already fast raid lessened the boost, and I think half the speed most people see (and state in the hype) is coming from a well used, bogged down system to a clean install. If you're on a single hard drive, you'll definately see it. Plus remember you also get the bonus of no sound, low power consump, and security of no raid failure. If you've got the money, do it. If not, don't worry about it, it's not a day and night difference. A graphics or processor upgrade is probably cheaper and higher yielding.
TLDR: Bit of work to get it started, speed increase much different different depending on what you're upgrading from, it's fast but not instant, WoW performance better. If you can afford it, do it.
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But I don't think I'd want to spend THAT much on an SSD with the knowledge prices should be crashing in the near future.
poor them, maybe they should all complain to Samsung lol
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