Solid State Drive - Worth it?

Personally I would steer clear of the Solid series (and the Core too I think) as they are based on the JMicron controller which has serious issue with stuttering. I'm afraid these are cheap for a reason and that the OCZ ones to consider are the newer Vertex series.

There is a very good article on Anandtech website called "SSD Anthology" which discusses all the relevant points of SSD's in their development up to the current levels. It's heavy going but worth a read if you truly want a good understanding of the issues surrounding SSD performance etc.

So, in short answer - No that one's not worth it (imo!) :)
 
30GB would really be pushing it. Are you running Vista atm? If so, you could just check see how much space it takes up. But if not partitioned seperately, find out how much space is taken up by non-OS stuff and subtract from the total drive space, Windows has hidden files that you otherwise won't normally pick up.
 
Dont currently have vista, planning on buying a new system, and was thinking of getting a solid state drive with it (if its worth it)
 
lamps said:
Dont currently have vista, planning on buying a new system, and was thinking of getting a solid state drive with it (if its worth it)
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60gb is really the smallest you can get away with. More if you're installing lots of games. And the performance is much better with ssds. Personally I don't think you'll be disappointed with the solids but there's no doubt the vertexs are better.
 
I`ll also be planning on buying a solid state drive for my main os and games when i finally plan on building my new system, and will need at least a 250GB drive - 2 partitions, one for the os and the other just for games.

I currently built the system in my sig so i can hold of untill next year before buying the parts for my new system, and im hoping the prices of the solid state drives will be cheaper by then.
 
The prices will be cheaper by then because the next generation of SSD's will be out - the Vertex V2 is rumoured to be 'just around the corner' and I believe it's major advance is to have built in RAID and hence much faster speeds, however we are already approaching saturation for the SATA 2 interface and so these new drives will prob be based around SATA 3 which should be able to support up to 750Mb/s transfer speeds.

So the upshot of all this, if true, is that for the next generation of SSD's you might need a new mobo.

There is also some talk of upcoming SSD product utilising PCIe sockets rather than the SATA bus, so they can take advantage of the huge bandwidth already on offer through that.

As always with high-end equipment, when do you take the plunge?
 
Currently the only thing that lives on my G.Skill 128Gb SSD is Windows 7 x64 and all my games. Windows 7 is rapid to load but only installed as a test - none of the SSD updates (I believe) have been applied so you have to go through and change things ala xp/vista in order not to wear the SSD out too quick.

Games on the other hand load at lightening speed, I have been playing race driver grid recently and the screen that appears during loading is not up long enough to read what it says, just a flash and the driving starts.

SSDs are a bit of a luxury at the mo and you do pay the early adopter tax as with all things, but no doubt this time next year will be standard items as lcds are today.
 
I personally got a SSD for my netbook as it uses a lot less power than a normal HD. I am going to wait until they come down in price and the tech matures, so prob around the same time I will upgrade to Win7.
 
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