X25-M
- Thread starter spluff
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mine arrived yesterday
,,, and like last poster said,, but! im planning on excluding my i7 of hdd's if this ssd works well,
so i have ordered this as it holds 4 x 2.5 drives, and i have a nice lil 320GB WD drive to take 2nd slot in it... it sits in the 5.25/dvd drive bays, leaving my three fans to just cool my video card
http://www.startech.com/item/SATABAY425BK-4-Drive-25in-Removable-Mobile-Rack-SAS-SATA-Backplane.aspx
i got mine for £59 delivered, if your interested ill let you know where i got mine but its not due till monday ,,,
your a hard man to please !!
I know where your coming from though... my x25-m is rapid, and i would never go back to a standard hdd... however, after a week or so I started to want more than i was getting... my conclusion is SSD rocks, BUT simultaneously does not surpass expectations from the hype. Im not sure if this is a fair assessment though?!?
TBH it is phenomenally fast, my system boots in 9.703 seconds (see the boot time thread) but even so, I leave my system on 24/7 so that makes no difference to me anyway and for the mostpart I don't notice things as being more responsive than a raptor. Haven't tested many games yet though, so I may stand corrected.
Soldato
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Yeah I agree, I'm now thinking for over £300 I could got some lovely Senheiser HD650s or put towards a 27' LCD. It's fast but I think I could live with a HDD for the price they cost. I might sell my SSD.
Soldato
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Yeah, It's okay for games though. I can only really fill it with that, maybe 1080p files for sony vegas editing.
Dude your post makes very little sense. 160gb is fail? Actually it is known that the 160gb drives are slightly better performing than the 80gb. Also if you want to have to use a platter drive less, you WILL need the extra room. I could have gone with the 128gb crucial but after the price increases I felt less hard done by going with the slightly superior (performance and storage intel). Technically the drive will last longer as it can store more with each cycle. It replaced at 150gb RaptorX as my system drive so 160gb is fine.
I have all my main programs, commonly used documents (I mean word docs etc, not large memory sapping files like music/videos) and a load of games installed at the same time rather than having to swap things out to platter drive or delete a game to install a new one.
To me it was worth the difference, 80gb is nothing. I have a TB worth of data and I want to get the most out of my SSD by minimising use of platter drives aside from mass storage and media.
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Performance increase is negligible outside of benchmarks; drive lifespan is irrelevant as even the 80GB will last >5years writing >20GB data/day to it. It doesn't follow that just because you can fill a 160GB drive, you need to - by far the most benefit is from having OS/progs, maybe docs on SSD. Games - less so, apart from things like WoW. Are you really saying the £150 extra you spent on that extra 80GB was worth it over upgrading graphics or an extra 1.5TB space, more RAM, etc? If it was worth it, fair enough - but I maintain you will be in <5% of people for whom that is true.
True, tbh this isn't really an important point, was just mentioning it.
Fair point, though that said, I still have comps with operational drives that are 12 years old, so the extra longevity through bigger cycles does count for something, albeit not much. Also they are rated for 100gb writes per day, 20gb was what manufacturers wanted, Intel went 5x better
It doesn't follow to say that because you can install an SSD and enjoy a boot in less than 10 secs, you need one at all! The difference coming from say a Raptor or even just a modern 7200rpm drive just isn't THAT dramatic.
Why less so with games? To me that was a chunk of the point of it. By the time I have my OS Games Programs and documents on, I'd already be nearing the limit of an 80gb. More room is futureproof. Don't forget some games are 20GB alone these days!
I just upgraded with 1.5TB of space, RAM is not cost effective at the moment, I already have 4GB and there's no need for more at the moment. I am sure there are more than 5% of people to whom the extra space would be useful. I am also happy with my graphics card for now, but intend to upgrade soon anyway, so it's not exactly a case of opportunity cost.
My final and somewhat more glaring point. By the time I build my next PC, SSDs will probably have moved on to SATAIII and perform even faster so I will probably get a newer one.
I intend to get a MacBook Pro fairly soon, so I will use this drive in my laptop when I get it (they are generally slower to move onto new standards anyway, I intend to pick one up next refresh. Since you can only fit one drive in a laptop, the bigger the better. Yes, I could have waited till I have my laptop, but I can enjoy the SSD performance while I wait.
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Because for most games, loading times are pretty short anyway. If you game online, you'll still be held up by everyone else. I'm not saying there's no improvement with games, I'm saying that for most people, the improvement for games won't be worth £150 compared to what else they could spend £150 on - and certainly, the second 80GB has less of an effect on system responsiveness/speed than the first. Arguing that you were planning on upgrading soon therefore don't need to spend that money on upgrading now, doesn't work - unless you've decided that an extra £150 isn't worth spending on the graphics. In which case, fair enough
If that makes any sense
Laptops actually are one place I hadn't considered where having a bigger SSD makes more sense. Plus I just got a new laptop which has two hard drive bays, which = win
esp. as I'm a bit of a data monkey 
Futureproofing does make sense in the medium-term. But in the short-term you have less disposable income (obviously not a problem) and in the long-term, cheaper, faster and bigger drives will be out rendering the expensive investment obsolete.
I concede the proportion of people who will gain a significant benefit by having the larger SSD may be somewhat bigger than I first thought.
True, but for most things, loading times are pretty short anyway (assuming a modern SATA II drive with decent cache - a WD Caviar Black, Spinpoint F3 or similar). Going from a 30 second boot time to 10 second isn't going to change your life.
Well, say you play FPS, getting into the map first has it's advantages, you get more time to familiarise yourself, select a team, warm up etc. It does have it's advantages. On public servers you don't wait for other people anyway. Also if you crash or need to reboot for whatever reason, you can get back to your game with less interruption.
True, but I argued that I have more programs and games and so on that I want to take advantage of my SSD with so it does affect their responsiveness.
TBH it does work for me, because it won't be an extra £150 by the time it rolls around. I would have bought the same new card either way. I happen to think there is usually very much a sweet spot of value for money with graphics cards, just like you do with SSDs. I make my choice based on that, not on what upgrades I have spent money on previously. I don't set myself a budget, I just upgrade when I feel the need to.Arguing that you were planning on upgrading soon therefore don't need to spend that money on upgrading now, doesn't work - unless you've decided that an extra £150 isn't worth spending on the graphics. In which case, fair enough
Aye, agreed on all points. Everything is always getting cheaper, faster, bigger (or smaller, rather, in terms of physical size), so yeah. I think the X25-M series is good value for money, don't forget that it is MLC, which is the 'cheap' or 'value' series anyway. I think the drive is good, with price per gb being lower at 160gb and it being less affected by price fluxes, it just made sense to me, especially since I can stick it in a laptop later and get a newer one for my next build.Laptops actually are one place I hadn't considered where having a bigger SSD makes more sense. Plus I just got a new laptop which has two hard drive bays, which = win
I concede the proportion of people who will gain a significant benefit by having the larger SSD may be somewhat bigger than I first thought.
Soldato
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I agree with both of you but since I have no job I agree with miniyazz favourably. I got 22 games on my 160GB SSD and that's 89GB. I think 4-5 games at a time installed is enough for me since you usually don't play a lot of games twice. Just install the good stuff CS:S COD4 etc. I wish I had got the 80GB and saved the rest for some HD-600 headphones.