Move to SSD?

Cavallino

Cavallino

Cavallino

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8 Dec 2004
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I have a Samsung F3 1TB affair at the moment.
More and more people tell me that their windows experience is much more "prompter and nippier" using an SSD.

I would like to ask your opinions on this and also, if you have any recommendations for an SSD to buy?

I primarily use my PC for Word/Excel/Browsing and gaming.
TIA :)
 
When you open an application from a hard drive, there's always a bit of a delay before it comes up. When you open one from an ssd, it's there as soon as you hit enter. As such it's very good for a low latency desktop. Computer turns on quicker too, for what that's worth.

If you can afford it, definitely do it. They don't depreciate much at the moment, so you wont make much loss if you sell it on.
 
rumble291 said:
Just don't get a cheap one as some aren't that quick. My RAID 0 array benchmarks higher than a couple of the OCZ ones.
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Only for moving large files around, which given the capacity of the average SSD, evidently is not the point of them at this moment in time.

I have recently purchased the Intel X25-M after months of deciding. I chose it because of the great reviews and overall speed. The write speeds that let it down make absolutely no difference to anything, so don't be put off by that, it's the seek time that is amazing.
I have upgrade my PC to what is below from a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop ( 2Ghz core 2 duo, naff graphics etc, and windows vista ).
I can honestly say that after building this computer ( bit by bit )... the new SSD is the biggest performance boost yet. I spent more on the processor ( I7 920 ), and that improvement didn't give even as much of a boost as the new SSD.

Think about this, because it sounds like you use your computer for the same things as I do,.. i'm a student, and have about 2 games which I play ( not too often ).

You boot up your computer, and want to start up your browser, and maybe MS word and put your music on. All of these are things that are literally instantly opened ( maybe not the music if you store it on another HD, but at least that HD is free to do only one thing ). Every time you do anything that requires the HD, opening your game, any files... snap.. it is literally, INSTANT.
The only time you will see loading bars is likely to be processor heavy tasks, such as un-rar-ing. etc. Most of the things I do on my PC are now super fast.

As far as game loading times, they no doubt will be faster, but I only have one game on mine which I never had on a HDD, so I wouldn't know the exact extent to which it improves. I have Napolean Total war ( 18gb! ) on mine, and it loads up pretty fast.

P.S The intel x25-m also shipped with the latest firmware, including TRIM, making it a pretty hassle free installation ( apart from my bad windows DVD but hardly the SSD's fault ).
 
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I would just like to add at this point that the latest X25-M firmware also increases the sequential write speed of the drive by about 40%.
 
Thank you all! Very insightful.

PCM - The latest FW you are refering to, is that one and the same as NutterzUK is refering to?

And is the Intel the best SSD out there at the moment? Is there anything better for a little more wonga?
 
Sorry for the confusion - the 160GB version of the drive had some problems with the sequential write that were fixed by the latest firmware but I believe the 80GB one never had these problems. I've done a lot of research on this very drive Cavallino and have just placed my order. The access times are fantastic, random and sequential reads are blisteringly fast and the write speed is very good too.

In terms of reliability, value for money and performance I would say that the X25-M is your best bet at the moment. Well I just ordered one anyway so that's what I think :D
 
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PCM2 said:
Sorry for the confusion - the 160GB version of the drive had some problems with the sequential write that were fixed by the latest firmware but I believe the 80GB one never had these problems. I've done a lot of research on this very drive Cavallino and have just placed my order. The access times are fantastic, random and sequential reads are blisteringly fast and the write speed is very good too.

In terms of reliability, value for money and performance I would say that the X25-M is your best bet at the moment. Well I just ordered one anyway so that's what I think :D
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Excellent thank you again PCM.

Do you have any review sites you have looked at about the X25-m?
 
I would just like to add at this point that the latest X25-M firmware also increases the sequential write speed of the drive by about 40%.
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This applies only to the 160 GB drive, although the 80 GB will see a small improvement. Seq. writes are now around 100 MB/s and 80 MB/s respectively.
 
Although SSDs are prohibitively expensive and something most people would put low on their list of PC upgrades after graphics cards, CPUs, motherboards and memory, I think it is the best thing you can add to your system because it literally transforms it from being occasionally slow to being always fast. The quicker boot up times of 25 seconds for Windows 7 are very nice but that's not the reason you should upgrade because you get a much more responsive operating system that makes it feel like someone has turbo-charged your machine. I really could not go back to using Windows on a hard drive.
 
Darren1967 said:
Although SSDs are prohibitively expensive and something most people would put low on their list of PC upgrades after graphics cards, CPUs, motherboards and memory, I think it is the best thing you can add to your system because it literally transforms it from being occasionally slow to being always fast. The quicker boot up times of 25 seconds for Windows 7 are very nice but that's not the reason you should upgrade because you get a much more responsive operating system that makes it feel like someone has turbo-charged your machine. I really could not go back to using Windows on a hard drive.
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This is what I wanted to know. I.e. is it more a prompter and nippier experience using W7 with an SSD.
 
I remember when I first got 512Kbit broadband at £40 a month. Going back to 56k at mates houses was bad. Worse was when it failed at home and you had to get out the modem backup.
I now have SSD, I wouldn't want to go back to spinning metal for my OS!
 
Well I was gonna post some more reviews, but as it turns out that AnandTech one is pretty good! Seems you have made up your mind.

Can't wait until tomorrow ;)
 
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