Good value SSD?

Brumboy · 15 Feb 2012 at 21:07

Hey guys, so I'm having major issues with my HDD at the moment. It is quite slow I guess and can be a pain with booting up (I'm getting between 5 minute - 8 minute boot up times!), transferring files etc.

Current HDD - Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

Seeing as the SSD prices have dropped in price I'm tempted to buy one for the OS and use my 2TB HDD as a storage device with media on it.

However I don't want to spend over £100. Since my budget isn't big, would it be possible to install games on both the SSD and 2TB drives? I would install the OS and main programs on the SSD and maybe the odd game but for my other games which run fine on my normal HDD can I install those on the 2TB HDD as usual?

Surveyor · 15 Feb 2012 at 21:24

If you're getting 5-8 minute boot times then something is seriously wrong.

jason_s · 15 Feb 2012 at 21:32

I use a Crucial M4 128gb and it is the purchase of my life!

Brumboy · 15 Feb 2012 at 21:48

Surveyor said:
If you're getting 5-8 minute boot times then something is seriously wrong.

I've been trying to find out the cause all this evening and cannot find a solution

.

Brumboy · 15 Feb 2012 at 21:51

jason_s said:
I use a Crucial M4 128gb and it is the purchase of my life!

That seems like a popular one. Spending an extra £30 will get me a decent 128GB it looks like. Nice size too!

Read Speed: 550MB/Sec, Write Speed: 200MB/Sec

Wow, that's insane compared to the HDD I have now :eek:

wazza300 · 15 Feb 2012 at 22:06

Rossuk89 said:
Current HDD - Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

im using that drive with os on it and it doesnt take me 8mins to boot up,1minute max,did you set to ahci in bios?? those drives are pretty fast for 2tb

download atto and bench the hdd and post results here

ThomBassmonkey · 15 Feb 2012 at 22:37

I'm using a Crucial M4 128GB too and it's great.

Spenty · 15 Feb 2012 at 22:39

I use a 500gb Spinpoint F3 and atm I cant justfiy an SSD upgrade as my boot times are around 30 seconds into windows and chrome and outlook loaded. 5-8 minutes sounds like a virus or a lot of large and fragmented files are trying to load.

Mookzen · 16 Feb 2012 at 02:33

Crucial M4 128GB here as well, easily the part of my current build I have the least second thoughts about.

Guest2 · 16 Feb 2012 at 16:00

Are, I see you have decided to go down the format and new drive route instead of trying to get rid of the virus / spyware. Good choice

I have just got the Crucial M4 128gb too and will be installing tonight. Based on reviews I recommend this one too. You might get away with the 64gb version if you only have your OS. I have turned auto recovery off so may have got away with a 64gb too, but windows update starts piling on the GBs

I also recommend a second, cheap SATA drive that you can make an OS image too. If it all goes t*ts up again, you can just boot off the other and clone back to the SSD

ezekial · 17 Feb 2012 at 19:09

I use an OCZ agility 3 128 gig and oh man, I too was getting 5-8 minute boot times (as in getting to a usable desktop state) but then when I put this in, bam 30 second full boot time! It is incredible. Definitely the best upgrade you can get for a PC imo!