Still not convinced by these SSD's

[Zarf]

If you don't do anything that would benefit from a faster drive, save your money by getting a slower one.

If you do a lot with your computer you shouldn't have a hard time noticing the difference, try something tough like launching programs while burning a disc, while extracting something from a compressed file and browsing the web and tell me you can't tell the difference.

My only real regret is the economy makes it a hard sale at work, I'd save a huge amount of time and frustration with virtualisation if I could use an SSD or two there.

Exactly, For me it's night and day between using a mechanical drive and an SSD. I'm not a blind fanboy, I have limited funds for upgrades - If SSD's made little difference I'd have returned or resold them and sunk my money into a more productive upgrade.

Storage upgrades have always been noticable for me, I went RAID0 Raptors years ago and that setup was noticeably faster than my RAID0 7200rpms, which were noticeably faster than a single 7200rpm. SSD's are in an entirely different league from my RAID0 raptors, well worth the expense.

 

[madindehead]

This has been an interesting read, especially as I am considering my first foray into SSDs (see my thread )

I feel I do enough with my computer to justify an SSD, and I feel it will speed up my system with what I do. While I do game, I have most of my games on another drive. However, since discovering Steam Mover, I might be moving some games to my SSD (the ones I play the most). Hoping to also see a big different in boot times!

 

[icehot666]

I had the same thoughts as a lot of people in this thread yesterday. My old hard drive was pretty much just as quick for general use (ie not just for benchmarking or booting windows), day to day use I doubt I could notice any difference. I've had my C300 256gb drive now for 5 months and I remember getting it and putting it in, and thinking "yeah it's alright and stuff, not sure I'm really noticing much of an improvement though"... As time went on it felt like the machine was quite slow to be honest, no idea why until yesterday when I did a little experiment.

I was debating because of the above reasons selling my ssd on the bay to claim some money back etc, so yesterday I unplugged my SSD and put my old 600gb velociraptor back in, which I never actually formatted so it still had windows 7 on it etc...

I booted up, and waited, and waited some more, trying not to get irrate with this sudden clicking noise I'd forgotten about. I stuck with it and used the machine all afternoon, I had to install SP1 and a load of other updates and driver updates after 5 months of not being used, I went online, and generally used it for a few hours. Everything felt so unbelievably slow (it wasn't that slow, it just felt it due to the change).

I was getting quite frustrated, with just the few extra seconds needed to do some things, booting windows took a life time, and not just booting to the login screen but all my start up stuff, I couldn't quite believe I was having to wait to get things done, loading photoshop or dreamweaver took a couple seconds longer - but it annoyed the hell out of me. And all the time this damn annoying clicking sound that wouldn't stop!

I put my SSD back in. Everything suddenly felt 10 times quicker than it did before I did the swap, and I felt calm again It was good. It made me realise I think, that people get used to the way something is and forget how it was. Just going back to my old drive has made me appreciate my SSD a whole lot more than I did when I first got it. I now know I couldn't go back despite genuinely wanting to earlier in the day.

More people should do this I believe, simply so they can appreciate what they have again.

 

[FrenchTart]

I'm not sure a really old install is a fair comparison tbh, but I'm sure the SSD was faster, as you say.

 

[madindehead]

Just ordered my SSD, for delivery tomorrow.

I know my PC is ready to go, when the fan for my graphics card kicks on at a higher speed (MSI AfterBurner is loaded).

Takes FOREVER at the moment to get to that stage! It's mad! Also, I have had this current system drive for 4 years now, it is really starting to go

 

[413x]

Im gonna make sure I don't use a machine with one in just in case mine then feels slow, I would be interested in a blind test as in someone comes in and swaps my pc for an identical one with ssd, would I notice it?

Another issue with ssds for me is I think if i had 100 pound spare got pc upgrade theres always going to be something better than san ssd in my case

 

[Duke]

Another issue with ssds for me is I think if i had 100 pound spare got pc upgrade theres always going to be something better than san ssd in my case

Really? Looking at your spec, I'm surprised you didn't have one already

 

[413x]

Really? Looking at your spec, I'm surprised you didn't have one already

I think for me having to manage where everything goes etc would cause more time to be rested than saved, with 600gb of os drive I dont ever have to worry where to install things, the main hdd activity for me is transcodes which again an ssd isn't good for, not its it for storing data or games, it didn't fit my requirements

 

[pimpuk]

Some seriously misinformed posters here. Either they've been running second rate SSD's on older hardware that bottlenecks performance or they're unable to justify the extra cash.

Having upgraded through 5x CPU's, memory and motherboards since my core 2 duo rig to my current 2600k I can honestly say the only real dramatic and noticeable performance improvement was with the addition of my SSD/SSD's. In that time I've had Raptors and velociraptors in Raid 0 and 3x F1 1tb's in raid 0 also. They are just nothing in comparison.

Why are people so fixated on boot times? it's responsiveness whilst in the OS that counts. If you're just playing games and opening firefox then of course you wont see benefits.

It's not a case of doubting SSD's validity full stop as the numbers can't lie (See vertex 3 Raid 0 benches at nearly 1000MB/s) it's more a case of DO YOU NEED ONE?

.

+1

ill never go back to a HDD again for OS use

 

[HangTime]

Been running a SSD (OCZ Vertex 3) for a couple of weeks so now able to give a more informed opinion.

As I suspected, the impact is somewhat underwhelming. A few points to note, many of which are 'obvious' and not directly related to the SSD, but still worth putting down in writing:

-Boot times are nothing special as the POST can still take a while with a lot of drives attached
-Most of us will still need to access mechanical storage drives from time to time, so we need to remember that a SSD only speeds up SSD access, not miraculously making 'everything faster' in the way some portray it
-Running application/driver installers/service packs that extract to a temp location (typically on c:\ somewhere) during install run significantly faster, probably the biggest improvement I've noticed
-Windows doesn't feel signficantly quicker than it did on my ancient 300GB drive purchased 6(!) years ago and installed 20 months ago
-Much quieter than mechanical drives, opening Outlook used to sound like a bowling alley while it loaded up archived folders
-Installed a game (Mass Effect) to the SSD and was impressed with load times, but I'm unclear as whether this is just because it's quite an old game now

All in all I would say it's a 'waste of money' compared to a 'normal' enthusiast setup with fast cpu/7200rpm hd/ram/readyboost etc, although clearly there are some minor improvements.

Basically the sort of tech that in 5-10 years will hopefully have matured enough to replace mechanical drives but certainly nothing getting over excited about as 'early' adopters.

 

[skanky]

its made my laptop so useable and totally silent (lenovo x201s), started with a vertex 2e 120gb, decided there wasnt enough space to store my itunes folder and went for a 300gb 320.

 

[rpwarwood]

Doing a new build and posts in here have convinced me they'd be right for me, even with a "new" spec computer. I go ages between shutdowns, and upgrading from an e6600 will be crazy. I remember when this computer was "fast" and quad cores didn't exist :\. I'm sure i didn't think it was slow back then

 

[Boss_man]

computers are only as fast as the slowest part anyway this is why ssd are good and beef the system up, i remember in the 90's it used to take all night to encode avi to dvd now it takes 11 mins or so.

 

[robgmun]

Been running a SSD (OCZ Vertex 3) for a couple of weeks so now able to give a more informed opinion.

As I suspected, the impact is somewhat underwhelming. A few points to note, many of which are 'obvious' and not directly related to the SSD, but still worth putting down in writing:

-Boot times are nothing special as the POST can still take a while with a lot of drives attached
-Most of us will still need to access mechanical storage drives from time to time, so we need to remember that a SSD only speeds up SSD access, not miraculously making 'everything faster' in the way some portray it
-Running application/driver installers/service packs that extract to a temp location (typically on c:\ somewhere) during install run significantly faster, probably the biggest improvement I've noticed
-Windows doesn't feel signficantly quicker than it did on my ancient 300GB drive purchased 6(!) years ago and installed 20 months ago
-Much quieter than mechanical drives, opening Outlook used to sound like a bowling alley while it loaded up archived folders
-Installed a game (Mass Effect) to the SSD and was impressed with load times, but I'm unclear as whether this is just because it's quite an old game now

All in all I would say it's a 'waste of money' compared to a 'normal' enthusiast setup with fast cpu/7200rpm hd/ram/readyboost etc, although clearly there are some minor improvements.

Basically the sort of tech that in 5-10 years will hopefully have matured enough to replace mechanical drives but certainly nothing getting over excited about as 'early' adopters.

Pretty much my experiance as well but i was coming from 10K Raptors in Raid 0, the difference was even smaller

 

[Sunbed]

I was a little underwhelmed at first when I got my Vertex 2E, but now as time has gone on it has made more and more of an impression on me. I especially like the shutdown times.. I can get up and turn my back and it has already shutdown! My old system never used to do that.

I don't think I could go back to HDD for OS now.

 

[rpwarwood]

I'm going with the Crucial M4 and expecting great things... will let you know how I find it compared with my dads Sata HDD

 

[GIBURROWS]

My power up takes 8 seconds, from off to on with everything loaded up EIGHT SECONDS! SSD's are the best thing since DopeWars!!

 

[BubbySoup]

My power up takes 8 seconds, from off to on with everything loaded up EIGHT SECONDS! SSD's are the best thing since DopeWars!!

Yes because my 6 hour gaming session depends so much on that vital minute I have saved booting my PC.

Honestly, I wish people would give up this boot up/shut down nonsense

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Yes because my 6 hour gaming session depends so much on that vital minute I have saved booting my PC.

Honestly, I wish people would give up this boot up/shut down nonsense

+1

 

[robgmun]

+2

Also, 8 seconds? Post video from cold boot (Not hibernating) with hovis for proof