Anyone not using a SSD boot drive?

After having used an SSD (crucial m4 128GB) on a fresh install of windows over the last few days, I personally don't think it is worth the price for performance alone.

I even thought this before I bought the SSD and just couldn't understand how people say it is the best upgrade to get a large performance jump (maybe it is with lower spec PC's?/laptops), seems to be very popular this opinion so I was expecting good things! :p

Granted in benchmarks it is way way way better, but in real world usage, opening times aren't much different i.e. firefox still takes like a second or 2 to open, some programs are a bit snappier when launching them. Installing stuff is much quicker as well as extracting files etc. and I would say that the speed is consistent throughout the system, less slow downs throughout the PC, but they are still there. Can't deny that overall the PC is more responsive/snappy.

The boot times are great, at first wasn't too bothered about this but with my old hard drive I had to leave the PC for like 5-10 minutes before logging in as if you logged in straight away it would take forever to load stuff and the system would become unresponsive whilst loading everything where as with the SSD as soon as the login screen comes up, you can just log in straight away and everything is loaded in like 8-10 seconds.

But for the price difference I don't think it is worth the difference when it comes to performance in real world usage.

My previous hard drive was the Samsung F3 1TB.

The biggest advantage for me is the noise or should I say lack of noise :p, it is so good not hearing the hard drives click away (still have 3 hard drives but they are only for storage really, therefore they only make some noise when I am accessing the files on them :p), with my old hard drive, it would just click away etc. when using the PC and this was a real pita especially at night time :p PC case sits right next to me on my desk. I knew it would be silent but when you have one in your own PC for the first time and don't hear anything it is soooo good :D


Overall SSD's are great but are still over priced IMHO, they really need to drop in price by at least £30 i.e. crucial and the samsung 830 128GB should be priced around £60-65 and no higher.
 
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Indeed, love the boot up times now :cool:

It was probably the one area that I couldn't care less about, but after having experienced it for myself, I absolutely love it now! :p :D :o
 
C64 said:
Nope don't see the point really I am happy wait 10 seconds longer to boot up or 10 seconds longer for a game to load.

People act like it's a good upgrade I just cant see how or why though.
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Load times aren't even slightly the reason I use one. Its on a HDD, when running a virus scan and the computer bogs down, yeah maybe not noticeable when you're just reading a web page, but you can get a bit of stutter when gaming, video playback stutter. Lag loading new web pages, same would happen if you try and do anything while unraring a file, particularly something with lots of new files, or transfering data.

This is all less to do with the outright speed but more to do with the multitasking ability of an ssd that comes from instant access and magnitudes higher 4kb random read performance.

SSD's are to HDD's what dual/quad core cpu's were to single core cpu's.

While a single core cpu still ran most games fine and pretty much all software, and a dual core could often double performance in many cpu based activities that wasn't why I got one. Game speed, av speed 99% of what I did day to day didn't improve from the jump to a dual core(years later the difference between single/dual core was night and day in everything), but being able to game and have again an av scan run on the other core without interferring anywhere near as badly, being able to run an encode and have a responsive computer for browsing/doing other things.

The speed of ssd's is a BONUS to everything else, saving time booting and loading games just wastes less of my life, but its how a ssd feels in windows while doing normal things that is SPECTACULAR.

For me it also means low power states are worthwhile, IE my old system booted slowly enough that if I was only away from the computer for 20 mins I wouldn't turn it off. The boot time now means I far far more frequently turn my computer off.

Ultimately its this, I don't have an ssd because the quickest things are that much quicker, I have an ssd because the SLOWEST situation is absolutely so far ahead of the slowest situations with an hdd that its like night and day.

I don't run a av scan, install a program, have an encode running and a game like Eve open at the same time, on an HDD everything would run and basically kill your computer to unusable unresponsive crap, on an ssd, when that happens, I'll still be able to open firefox and read some news or whatever else.

Systems based around hdd's are fairly easy to make very unresponsive, open a game while an unrar is going on... do something else as well and you get that familiar chugging noise while half your apps say not responding, or the mouse stops moving. SSD, never, not once has that happened, it can slow down but often barely noticeably and in the very worst case scenarios its still completely useable and responsive.

SSD's aren't about the best case, they are about the worst case where they are SO superior to an HDD its laughable.
 
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I still rate my first ssd upgrade two years ago as one of my favourite upgrades (and that was a sata 2 drive).
Got sata 3 drives now and even more impressed.
 
I only run SSD's in my system, have 2 Crucial M4 128GB and a Samsung 830 256GB as a games drive, don't use mechanical hard drives for anything else but backups now.
 
Broken Hope said:
I only run SSD's in my system, have 2 Crucial M4 128GB and a Samsung 830 256GB as a games drive, don't use mechanical hard drives for anything else but backups now.
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Same here.

A bit of an extravagant expense. But hell no pockets in a shroud :cool:
 
I have an SSD in 3 systems now, 120gb OCZ agility in my desktop, 128gb Crucial m4 in my laptop, and a 60gb OCZ agility in my htpc.

All of them have made a massive difference, boot times and loading apps etc. especially on my htpc, XBMC loads instantly and menus are instant to load. I love ssd's and will never go back :)
 
i got my first SSD about a year ago now was an M4 64Gb on an old SATA 2 mobo.

Now im running 2 X 128GB M4's in RAID 0 on a SATA 3 mobo and can deffinatly tell the difference.

Would never go back to not having an SSD again.
 
I used to use SSDs and was very impressed with the boot times. Then I switched to using a RevoDrive. The problem then was the RevoDrive is not much quicker than a HDD at booting up because the card needs to initialise at boot up. Once in windows and doing stuff like loading games, speedwise it blows everything else away.

I am quite happy with long boot times (I only have to boot up once a day) if it means much faster loading times on things I do a lot.
 
Just installed a 128Gb Crucial M4 in my 5 year old Q6600 which runs at stock 2.4Ghz, and did a fresh Windows 7 install. The boot time is not as fast as I expected from comments here, but man what a difference once in Windows. This thing feels like a new machine now, smooth as silk and amazingly fast loading apps etc. Feels as quick as a new i5 with a conventional hard drive :D (For anything that doesn't load the CPU too much of course, and it doesn't play games. The Q6600 is well under-stressed in this box, so the CPU was never a limiting factor. Hard drive clearly was though.)

The hard drive had been replaced on this a few months back, and was quite a quick drive. So it isn't as if I'm comparing to a 5 year old drive.
 
I was quite late to the SSD party, at least for my own use - I installed my first SSD about a month ago (samsung 830 128gb).

easily the single biggest upgrade I've made to any pc I've owned. Absolutely a must for any build now that the drives are in the right price range.
 
chippy08 said:
No ssd here there a bit exspensive for what space you get.
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Also don't have one. Not convinced it's more than a luxury item. Quite happy to spend £200 on a cpu/mobo upgrade, but an SSD just doesn't have the same appeal.

My PC is never shut down, so boot times are meaningless. It comes out of S3 sleep in less than two seconds :p

Currently the only drive in my PC is a 1TB WD Green. It's supposed to be a "slow" drive. I still don't notice any real loading going on, unless I reboot. Games load in a matter of a few seconds, so why do I need an SSD?
 
FoxEye said:
Also don't have one. Not convinced it's more than a luxury item. Quite happy to spend £200 on a cpu/mobo upgrade, but an SSD just doesn't have the same appeal.

My PC is never shut down, so boot times are meaningless. It comes out of S3 sleep in less than two seconds :p

Currently the only drive in my PC is a 1TB WD Green. It's supposed to be a "slow" drive. I still don't notice any real loading going on, unless I reboot. Games load in a matter of a few seconds, so why do I need an SSD?
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if there's anything you should take away from this thread, it's that boot times are the last thing you buy an SSD for. Forget them, i dont know why people keep bringing it up. The difference it makes to windows in use is astounding, really. Huge improvements all rough.
 
Use my SSD for smart response. Machine feels brisk when opening and using applications.
It would be interesting to disable it and see how my system responds.
 
Not sure why people keep bringing up boot speeds either when discussing SSDs, yes it makes a difference and is a good point of comparision, but how fast your system boots up is not an issue for most users anyway. Same with the issue of storage of capacity, people are missing the point again. The main difference in owning an SSD comes from having your OS on it, which is what, 40gb tops? With 240gb+ SSDs rapidly dropping in price, that should be plenty of space for all your frequently used programs or more importantly, apps you want to load quickly. You can put the odd game on the there, but it's not essential and doesnt make a massive difference anyway. Everything else should go a HDD. I think a little common sense goes a long way when using an SSD.

As for the difference when using an SSD over a HDD for your main drive, well for me it's a bit like the difference your get when going from a TN monitor to an IPS monitor, or a 60hz panel to 120hz panel. Yes, it's not essential (for the average user anyway), but once you get one, there's no going back, especially when you compare them side by side. Also, it's one of those things that is quite difficult to convey in words, you need to experience it first hand and make comparisions side by side.

For me, going to an SSD and then comparing it to an HDD, was very noticeable. Everything just feels far more snappier and more responsive. But, as I said, you need to experience it yourself before making judgement.
 
Still running a pair of 500GB mechanical drives in RAID0 in my workstation, tops out at about 250MB/s read/write which is comparable to an SATA2 SSD of course. I think for that reason I've not really felt the need to upgrade yet, the system's pretty quick in general.

However, having just fitted an SSD in my netbook I will be seriously considering the best way forward with SSDs in my workstation. Hopefully GB/£ will continue to increase :)
 
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