Are cheap SSDs any good or is there a catch?

[lttlejoe]

I've been playing catch up recently as it was back in 2011 that I last built my computer so have been trying to get up to speed with regard today's kit.
Basically, I am doing a full rebuild of my system ( new mobo, cpu, HDD, ram etc) and for the HDD I'm leaning toward a 1 Tb Seagate Firecuda with around a 250 Gb SSD to house my OS.

It's amazing what you get for your money these days with regard to an SSD when compared to when I last built my computer so the question is...

Given that you can get a 250 Gb SSD for around just £50, are these drives actually any good or is there a catch? Back in 2011, such a drive of that size would have cost an arm and a leg!

I mostly want to use it from which to boot my OS so it's more a case of generally speeding things up rather than having a supercharged bit of kit. I would presume that an SSD costing over double the price of a cheap one must have something in its favour so what are the benefits for going for a more expensive SSD?

Any advice welcomed as I want to get my order for the bits placed asap.

Cheers!

 

[lttlejoe]

welcome to 2018 lol


i'd suggest getting an ssd that's big enough to put not only the OS, but also your most used apps on it (+50%). no point having your computer boot superquick, but everything else runs like a pig.
240gb is the bare minimum, suggest a 480gb ssd instead. ssds also like to have free space so their garbage collection algorithms can run properly - else its performance will take a massive hit. normally should run an ssd no more than 75% capacity.


performance (both sequential and random IOPS), warranty and durability.

if you're going to go cheap, then get the teamgroup L5 lite 3d nand. else, if splashing out for something better - then either the samsung or crucial
(wd can also be considered, depending on the specific drive in question)

Makes sense what you're saying... however, I've just done a quick check of how my existing 1 Tb hard drive is divided up and on the 128 Gb partition which holds the OS and progs there is still over 20Gb free and over half of the remaining second partition is free which is around 480 Gb actually free.... what's taking up the rest of the disc space is mostly images so I could actually get away with 128 ssd if stretched but I would have thought a 250 Gb will more than cover my needs as I don't have lots of progs that I use regularly but having said that, there's only £30-odd difference between the 240 and 480 Teamgroup L5 lite so I might as well install the larger capacity drive. I'd have thought it's got to be faster than even the fastest of mechanical hd drives.

 

[lttlejoe]

It is unexplainable the difference going from HDD to SSD

I managed to pick up a 480gb crucial mx500 last month for stupid cheap, since then I've gone and bought another 1tb SSD because they are truly magical in terms of speed difference

I used to be in the camp of "if I don't know the difference I won't miss it" but my regret is I never got to experience the wonders of SSD's sooner

In terms of speed it's like going from a Bicycle to the Enterprise at warp 10

I've just looked and the Crucial MX 500 is going for only a bit more than the cheaper 480 SSD I had in mind so it's really a no-brainer... I might even end up getting a 240Gb SSD for the OS etc which would be enough and a 480gb SSD for my other stuff. A cheap external 1Tb HHD would back everything up nicely so it might be worth the extra investment for the definite speed increase!

 

[lttlejoe]

yes, definitely. by an order of magnitude lol. having an ssd as the main drive is the best quality-of-life improvement you can do to a computer.

(skip to 3:40 for comparison)

I'm definitely an SSD convert now! Even a cheaper SSDs would half most of the task times so really it's got to be a huge improvement over a regular hard drive.

 

[lttlejoe]

Buy the best you can with whatever budget you have.

I just purchased a samsung 970 evo 1tb m.2 drive to replace two 500 gb ssd's.

All main programs and games will be on the evo and music, videos and photos etc will be on the two 500's.

As I am rebuilding/upgrading my computer I intended to put in an SSD for the OS etc and a new HDD for the other stuff but I might now go down the route of a 250Gb SSD for the OS etc and a 480Gb SSD for the general files etc.
After 7 years of constantly using this computer, although I've got many 1000s of image files stored on backup drives, on the current 1 Tb HDD, including the 128Gb partition for the OS, progs etc of which 20Gb is still free, I've still only used up a total of around 500Gb of the entire drive as most of my important image files are backed up onto external drives so actually most of the files on the onboard HDD could even be deleted and only re-loaded in as and when necessary.

I could easily get away with a 250Gb SSD for the OS etc and a 480gb SSD for other stuff which would be a much faster file handling combination than an SSD and HDD. If I found in the unlikely event that I needed more space, I could always swap out the smaller SSD and transfer it to my backup computer and fit a larger SSD in my current one.

I always try to keep my onboard file storage to a minimum and clutter free and prefer backup drives for their storage to avoid the risk of a single drive failure or corruption so it makes sense to go down the dual SSD route.
One thing is for sure, I'll certainly notice a definite speed increase over what I'm using now if I fit SSDs!