SSDs - whats better

dino0392 · 12 Jun 2010 at 16:23

Hey

I posted on the general section about my new build computer and have a SSD drive question that wants answered so thought it might be better in here.

this is the ssd's I have been looking at -
160GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD
or
80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD

Is 2x smaller ssds(not raid) better than 1x 160GB larger one?
As in if i put the OS and storage stuff on one of the smaller drives and then programms and games etc on the other smaller drive, would there be a performance boost or would it just run the same as if everything was on the one 160gb drive?

thanks

Baldrick1001 · 13 Jun 2010 at 10:16

The single 160 gig drive is actually slightly faster than the 80 gig drive from a write perspective.

I would go with the single drive and partition -

Baldrick1001 · 13 Jun 2010 at 10:25

to add...

In the old days - mechanical HDD's - I would always recommend having separate HDD's for OS and other stuff - SDD's are so robust that this requirement has been somewhat negated.

dino0392 · 14 Jun 2010 at 00:02

Baldrick1001 said:
to add...

In the old days - mechanical HDD's - I would always recommend having separate HDD's for OS and other stuff - SDD's are so robust that this requirement has been somewhat negated.

I was thinkin along those lines also and didnt know if it was still the same for the SSD or not, I guess I'll just go with the 1 larger drive.

ta

Bane · 14 Jun 2010 at 22:04

Are multiple partitions still recommended for SSD's?

As I remember reading ages ago that a fuller SSD suffered reduced performance. So would a secondary partition nearly full affect the whole SSD or just that single partition?

Or which is better setup out of the two examples below?

Example 1: 160GB SSD
Two equal sized partitions for 40GB OS data, 60GB games
C: 80GB (40GB free), D: 80GB (20GB free)

Example 2: 160GB SSD
One partition
C: 160GB (60GB free)

Zarf · 15 Jun 2010 at 14:36

Bane said:
Are multiple partitions still recommended for SSD's?

As I remember reading ages ago that a fuller SSD suffered reduced performance. So would a secondary partition nearly full affect the whole SSD or just that single partition?

Or which is better setup out of the two examples below?

Example 1: 160GB SSD
Two equal sized partitions for 40GB OS data, 60GB games
C: 80GB (40GB free), D: 80GB (20GB free)

Example 2: 160GB SSD
One partition
C: 160GB (60GB free)

I'd go with the single partition. It's more flexible. As long as theres some free space anywhere on the drive it will be used to keep performance high , so you could even just create a single 140GB partition and leave the rest unformatted.

Personally though, I wouldn't worry about it, it's not a big issue. The drive already reserves ~7.5% space, which is why your 160GB drive will only appear to be around 150GB.