SSD or VelociRaptor

_TubbZ_

_TubbZ_

_TubbZ_

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Joined
30 Jun 2009
Posts
405
Ok i am looking to replace my OS drive with something a bit snappier. But i really don't want to spend £250+ doing so and also need about 100GB+ so a 64GB drive really seems too small. I have been looking on a lovely auction site and it seems i can pick up a 300GB VelociRaptor for about 150 quid or a 64GB SSD for about the same.

Now the question is what would be the better buy? I don't believe 64GB will be enough and i can provide a larger portion of my stuff sped up with a 300GB slower (but faster than my current setup) drive. Which seems like a much better option for that price range.

Or am i just being an idiot?
 
Why not get a small SSD as above for the OS / apps (64GB is more than enough) and use your exisiting HDD for storage, games, etc ?
 
Ziggy4 said:
Why not get a small SSD as above for the OS / apps (64GB is more than enough) and use your exisiting HDD for storage, games, etc ?
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Seconded about 18 months ago i got a Velociraptor for my OS drive and games....was not impressed no speed in windows,loading times about the same as a standard hdd
Changed to a SSD about 9 months ago and have not regretted it one bit
 
ANDARIAL said:
Seconded about 18 months ago i got a Velociraptor for my OS drive and games....was not impressed no speed in windows,loading times about the same as a standard hdd
Changed to a SSD about 9 months ago and have not regretted it one bit
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i've got a ssd for os and a velociraptor for my games, i disagree about loading times in games i thinking mine is at least 1/4 to 1/3 quicker then a standard hdd,but you don't need it for games a standard hdd is more then adequate and has then capacity you need.
 
If you are shopping around on the famous auction site, you may as well consider going the SAS route. These types of drives can spin up to 15000rpm and have the lowest seek times, on average, amongst other mechanical competitors. They are not often found in desktops, though, so you will need to get an adapter card to hook the drive up to. For your budget, I would be looking to get a 150GB variant for £80-£105 and a basic adapter for £45-£60 without RAID support. (plus the all important cables to connect the two!)

It is not ideal - SAS drives can be noisy things - but it is something to keep in mind as a balancing act between a smaller SSD and a larger 10K mechanical drive.

If we are just looking at the previous two options, though, I believe a SSD drive will provide the highest jump in access times and read speeds from your current setup. It makes good sense for a system drive. There is nothing wrong with using slower storage for extra data you may have either.

To conclude, think carefully about the number of games you want installed at any one time and how many out of those will really need the extra boost from fast storage; then balance it against your desire for 'snappier' general computing and make your decision based on that.
 
billysielu said:
300GB velociraptor.
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Absolutely not. Whilst I've never had one, a friend of mine had 2 raptors in RAID 0. He has since upgraded to the intel 80GB and thinks the world of it.

I've upgraded to the same drive and have to say, it beats all the raid setups I've ever had.

What HD(s) do you currently have?
 
I currently have a 320GB Seagate Barracuda, which I've had for 3+ years. I've never had any complaints over the speed of it. When I make my next PC, soon probably, I'll put a single 1TB F3 in it. I can't justify the kind of spending we're talking about here, because a regular drive performs great. I also would get really annoyed with a boot drive smaller than 256GB.

So relevance:
- A small boot drive can annoy some ppl (but some dont mind)
- SSDs are relatively very expensive per GB
- Regular 1TB drives perform fine
 
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Have a couple of Intel SSDs and a 300 GB VR and I can definately tell you the former will easily outperform the HDD and you will notice a big difference to the OS and apps. The 300 GB VR just isn't worth the money these days, given you can buy a good SSD for almost the same. Unless capacity is an issue then an SSD is the better option. Yes, price per GB is higher than HDD but comparing apples and oranges to some extent. If it's a performance drive for OS and you are dead set against an SSD the smaller 150 GB VR would be a better option. Have to disagree with the comments above about the VR not being a good performer as a boot drive.
 
Sequential writes are good for copying a series of files over to the drive which makes these new high capacity models ideal for storage or backup, as well as offering good value. I often see folks who've dropped a ton of cash on the latest and greatest GPU / CPU, high end motherboard, outrageously fast RAM, etc yet balk at the prospect of spending a few extra quid on a drive...?
 
Ziggy4 said:
Sequential writes are good for copying a series of files over to the drive which makes these new high capacity models ideal for storage or backup, as well as offering good value. I often see folks who've dropped a ton of cash on the latest and greatest GPU / CPU, high end motherboard, outrageously fast RAM, etc yet balk at the prospect of spending a few extra quid on a drive...?
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Sorry I see what you mean, I use my computer to game and browse my music library, not for copying files around.
 
I think that TubbZ is asking the right questions here and his budget is a sensible one. Given he already has the storage space, an SSD would provide tangible performance benefits as an OS drive. Don't get me wrong here, I've recently built two systems for friends / family and I chose Samsung F3's for both but the main use was browsing / solitaire. Hell, I own one myself and the seq. writes are fantastic for backup purposes but would I want one as the primary drive? I could live with it but...
 
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I think i will grab an SSD soon after pay drive, I have spent today moving stuff off the boot drive to see what sort of size i can get it down to realistically and its currently about 45 GB with some more stuff to move. I gather as it will be a boot drive then random reads are important especially since everything will already be installed.
 
I gather as it will be a boot drive then random reads are important especially since everything will already be installed.
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Correct, and related to that, the much faster access times of SSD.
 
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