Yesterday I had my first experience playing with a new PC fitted with an SSD and wow!
This may sound odd as they've been around a while now, but some things take time to reach us south of the border.
This particular PC belongs to a friend who I can only describe as a 'serial upgrader' and was also fitted with an Intel i7 3770 and 12 gb of RAM.
The boot to desktop time was incredible, maybe less than 20 seconds and the general response time, just incredible.
The problem with seeing new toys like this is the temptation to buy one for my main machine at home.
What are others' experiences with SSD's?
I've also read that that Seagate have a line of hybrid HDD's which are designed to combine the best of both worlds.
I've been on the SSD bandwagon for over a year and I haven't looked back!
I don't see an advantage for the casual user (email, basic web, etc) just yet, unless boot time is very important to them and if that is the case using the sleep function is probably sufficient. However, for anyone above the casual user level it offers huge benefits in overall speed and reliability - not that they don't/won't fail.
The progress made in SSD's is pretty amazing and in 2 or 3 years they'll be mainstream, I believe, while spinning drives will become the mainstay of budget devices and large file storage.
What size SSD are you using Dave?
Down here I can get 120 or 250 Gb.
I have a 256GB (240 useable) Samsung. On my next laptop I'll probably look into a 512GB.
Yes, I've read good reports about the Samsung SSD's and believe it or not, there are a few down here.
250Gb seems the ideal size to go for.
David Hartsock said
I have a 256GB (240 useable) Samsung. On my next laptop I'll probably look into a 512GB.
I have the same size SSD on my laptop and its fantastic. Its a sandisk and Boots in 22 seconds to the desktop and definitely completes tasks much quicker. I have only 4gb RAM but she behaves like I got 8gb+. I run win7 and I partitioned it 60gh for operating drive and the rest (180) for storage and backup system images. I also have 2 x 2TB external drives so I don't see the value of using higher capacity SSD drives really. In theory a 60gb SSD is ample. There is no way I could ever return to the cheaper standard drives.
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease being honest
SSd's...I heard somewhere that they have a lower life than ordinary drives if they are constantly writing/deleting files/
I use Max and Unity and various other underling 3d programs.
Whilst I realise that computation times are not affected speed wise...however would the SSD be compromised somewhat by these types of programs?
Good point Colin.
Apparently it helps to have the SSD no more than half full and some reports say that 10,000 writes is the MTBF (mean time before failure) or life span of SSD's.
Seems like there are quite a few variables; on the other hand, I've had HDD's fail after six months and some that have lasted donkey's years.
Hi Marc.
Interesting about the failure rate of the mechanical drives.
I sort of thought about a SSD but was warned off because of the programs I use.
I guess bootup time is the main gain? Apart from that I guess file reading is faster as well?
What programs would mostly benefit from a SSD?
At the moment I have a query in the Windows7 section of this fine group about, I think the term is "cloning"?
Can one "clone" to a SSD from a mechanical drive?
Would everything..I mean everything be copied so I could simply swap drives and continue if the need presents itself?
Would I need to reconfirm all my software or not.
I'd be using the exact same computer.
Cheers, Colin
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