Some SSD advice for a Newbie

inverseSquare

inverseSquare

inverseSquare

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30 Aug 2007
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Hi all,

Santa has graciously asked if I'd like anything this year and I've been thinking of a SSD.

My machine is as-signature with 2x 1TB Samy Spinpoint F3s.
Main problem with my old (!!) rig is that it only support SATA2, so maybe it's not worth getting something like an 850 PRO?


What I'd like is an SSD for windows / 'main programs'
&
Additional high capacity drive for 'storage' (2TB, slow spin would be ok).


Which SSD are people recommending these days?
The 840 Evo issues make me want to avoid that in-general...





Other SSD newbie questions:
Do people still care about # of writes? I see Samsung offering 10yr warranty on the PRO drives?
Do people put things like temp files / web browser cache on the SSD or set to HD to reduce writes?

Thanks :)
 
I have the Samsung 840 evo 250GB and I have had no issues with the drive at all and also using it on a sata 3 port but with a poor controller.

my read and write speeds are 410mb read and 250mb write.

I would say to get a 840 evo but a lot of people also have been suggesting these drives as well.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-036-CR&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=2394

for a second drive for storage you could use one of these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-410-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1955
 
The Seagate is out of stock at the moment, you can go with the WD nlack but for £99 its more expensive out of the 2tb drives - but it depends if you want to pay the extra for a 5 year warranty.

I currently use the Crucial SSD and for the price you cant go to wrong :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £61.99
Total : £151.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
I don't care about writes at all,
id suggest the mx100 too as you can get twice the space for the money :)
it really doesn't do so bad in the benchmarks,
I think in 2-3 years we wont be on sata3 anyway so...

I don't think id get a black, can get a sshd for less than that
but I guess that's the drive for people who hate Seagate :)

edit; lolz hi rjc!
 
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- SATA2 / SATA3 for hard-drives don't matter (since they'll be under SATA2 max speed anyway). I also have two F3s. Fast drives, those.

- I'd go with Western Digital myself (green or blue).

- For SSDs, performance at the top end doesn't matter. A SSD will be miles ahead of a hard drive, while a top end SSD will feel marginally faster than a regular SSD. So I'd go with capacity over pure performance. Samsung or Crucial would be my choice.
 
don't get the 850 pro,its way overpriced and your only on sata2 so you wont see any real world benefit

the Samsung evo drives are fine,any issues were fixed with a fw update,have one myself and its fab

the #1 drive atm for performance per £ and reliability is the crucial mx100 drives,its perfect imo

as for hdd you wont need to buy any? just use your old Samsung spinpoint f3's as storage drives,they will be far more reliable than any modern hdd atm
 
Thought I'd bump this thread again, the title still fits ;)


I'm getting an SSD from that red-suited guy with the white beard this week...


Are there guides to how to setup BIOS / Windows properly for an SSD?

I can guess stuff like disabling drive sleeping, moving the page file to an HDD, etc. but I'm sure there'll be other stuff I'll miss :)


Any advice or links to good guides are appreciated!

Thanks guys :)
 
Make sure your using AHCI and/or if you migrating an existing OS install how to get AHCI working on it if it wasn't installed with it.

Also find out what the best controller on your motherboard is and which SATA slots that is i.e. intel ones are usually good, marvell not so good.
 
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