Considering getting SSD(s)

[stuckinasquare3]

I was looking into getting the Crucial M4.

My first concern is, my mobo only has SATA II (3Gb/s). Will I even notice the speed improvement with an SSD over my 2 x 7200RPM in RAID0? I don't want to buy a SATA II SSD because one day I will probably upgrade to a newer mobo.

My second concern is, which SSDs to buy. My desktop really only has around 200GB of stuff on it, most of it is games + the OS. I want everything to be faster so I really would like all of my games and apps to fit on the SSD. A 128 GB drive might be too small. I think a 256 GB drive would be good and give me a little more room for growth, and I can also start thinking about what I need to move onto a secondary storage drive. I was thinking that it might be worth it to buy 2x128GB SSDs and run them in RAID0 vs a 256GB SSD. I've done some reading and I've read that SSDs in RAID aren't necessarily the best idea because they don't work with TRIM so performance can degrade over time. I've also read that the garbage collection on the drives themselves makes this not as much of an issue. I'm not sure if the motherboard plays any role in this but I have an EX58-UD3R mother board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128375) which has two different chipsets, although to be honest I'm not entirely sure what that means!

What do you guys think?

 

[Topweasel]

I would hold off. A new SSD can get ~500MB/s reads. But with Sata II you would only get as my laptop has shown, ~280MB/s. A Normal HDD will be about 130MB/s - 150. Raid 0 would pull that to about even with an SSD. Problem is if you want to go with a Raid SSD setup you need to get a good drive. Meaning spending $50-$60 per drive to get one with a good GC (Professional drives, like the Plextor M3P). In the end you are doubling up on drives, spending $100 more then normal together for the two drives, just to hit what you should be getting with one drive vs. already running a setup that will give you around the single drive SSD setup would get you on your machine.

 

[kbp]

Intel 320's have great GC. Get two 160gb's and RAID them gets you a nice "size" drive.

 

[Topweasel]

Intel 320's have great GC. Get two 160gb's and RAID them gets you a nice "size" drive.

But you could get another 100GB for 30 bucks more by getting the M4.

It all comes back to the original point. Getting 2 SSD's at an increased cost per, just to get the performance a single much cheaper SSD, doesn't make sense, and purchasing just one of them while already getting near SSD performance doesn't make sense either.

 

[F1shF4t]

I would hold off. A new SSD can get ~500MB/s reads. But with Sata II you would only get as my laptop has shown, ~280MB/s. A Normal HDD will be about 130MB/s - 150. Raid 0 would pull that to about even with an SSD.

You know that doesn't mean anything right? Unless all you do is move large files around even a cheap SSD will be hundreds of times faster when it comes to random reads and writes.

OP, getting a single largest SSD you can afford would be best. Also you can use your existing HDDs for storing things which don't benefit from an SSD or you don't access often. Such as music, videos etc. The only thing the M4 will be limited by Sata II is read speeds, which would be capped between 260 - 280MB/s.

 

[Topweasel]

You know that doesn't mean anything right? Unless all you do is move large files around even a cheap SSD will be hundreds of times faster when it comes to random reads and writes.

OP, getting a single largest SSD you can afford would be best. Also you can use your existing HDDs for storing things which don't benefit from an SSD or you don't access often. Such as music, videos etc. The only thing the M4 will be limited by Sata II is read speeds, which would be capped between 260 - 280MB/s.

Actually i would say hard drive read speed is the one thing you can assess impact solely from it own performance numbers.

 

[F1shF4t]

Actually i would say hard drive read speed is the one thing you can assess impact solely from it own performance numbers.

That read speed of HDDs plummets as soon as the data being read is not contiguous. This is one of the reasons why SSDs are so much better OS boot drives.

OP wants an OS drive. Hence my initial point, its completely pointless to compare HDD and SSD linear read speeds unless your workload is to move/read large files.

 

[stuckinasquare3]

It seems like opinions are split except that you all think I shouldn't go raid because it's expensive all though in some cases it seems that two ssds cost less than one larger ssd

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ial+m4&x=0&y=0

Looks like I can get 2 128s for cheaper than 1 256. If that's the case is raid worth it or will I hit trim issues

 

[stuckinasquare3]

If sata ii speed tops out at 280 ish does raiding them effectively double that?

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Buy the best, biggest, single SSD you can afford and you won't regret it one single bit.

 

[Topweasel]

That read speed of HDDs plummets as soon as the data being read is not contiguous. This is one of the reasons why SSDs are so much better OS boot drives.

OP wants an OS drive. Hence my initial point, its completely pointless to compare HDD and SSD linear read speeds unless your workload is to move/read large files.

Still not sure a Raided HDD setup is going to be slow enough on random reads specially with twice as many heads then a single HDD, that replacing them for a single SSD capped at 280 is going to be a smart choice.

 

[bryanW1995]

But you could get another 100GB for 30 bucks more by getting the M4.

It all comes back to the original point. Getting 2 SSD's at an increased cost per, just to get the performance a single much cheaper SSD, doesn't make sense, and purchasing just one of them while already getting near SSD performance doesn't make sense either.

Just because his sequentials look nice doesn't mean that he is already getting "near ssd" performance. Random read/write is where ssd's really shine (and hdd's really suck). A decent ssd will be several orders of magnitude faster than his current setup in random read/write, yielding a significant reduction in latency and much happier user experience for the OP.

Still not sure a Raided HDD setup is going to be slow enough on random reads specially with twice as many heads then a single HDD, that replacing them for a single SSD capped at 280 is going to be a smart choice.

Please go educate yourself on the differences between ssd's and hdd's before spreading your misinformation in this thread. I used to be quite leery of the supposed improvements that ssd's offered over hdd's but since starting my research in 2009, and staying current over the past few years I can say that I'm a convert. If you read the following links and buy an ssd then you'll be a believer as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2614 - good review on the first good consumer ssd
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2808 - x25m g2 review, also excellent
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738 - ssd anthology
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829 - ssd relapse

Those 4 are a good starting point. After reading those before my first ssd purchase, I've just stayed up to date by visiting this forum regularly, and sometimes checking out the ssd/hdd section on the Anandtech main page. If you want to get really crazy, Anandtech has probably 100 or so ssd-related articles there, going back 5-6 years.

1. Once you've read all of that, then buy a quality drive like a samsung 830, intel 510/320, crucial m4, or any of the plethora of non-ocz marvell controller-based ssd's on the market. 320 series would be great b/c it's nearly as fast as the others at SATA II speeds, though many of the others (especially the m4) are often less expensive.
2. Put your computer through it's paces using your old hdd RAID 0 setup
3. Put your computer through it's paces using your new, single ssd
4. ...
5. Profit!
6. Send me a thank you letter

 

[fuzzymath10]

SSDs were already a worthwhile upgrade when 6Gb ones didn't exist, and they often couldn't saturate a 3Gb line particularly for writes. In fact none of my SSDs can crack 100MB/sec writes but I wouldn't trade them back for hard drives ever

 

[kbp]

It seems like opinions are split except that you all think I shouldn't go raid because it's expensive all though in some cases it seems that two ssds cost less than one larger ssd

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ial+m4&x=0&y=0

Looks like I can get 2 128s for cheaper than 1 256. If that's the case is raid worth it or will I hit trim issues

There are benefits using a RAID array. If two 128's are cheaper than one 256, I'd go that route. And the M4 is a good choice.

 

[bryanW1995]

Deals on ssd's are somewhat random. Sometimes it's cheaper to get 2 x 128 instead of 1 x 256, sometimes it's even cheaper to get 1 x 512 instead of 2 x 256 for that matter. Just remember that if you do go raid 0, make sure that you get very high quality ssd's (think samsung, intel, or m4). Odds of failure are only 1/2 as high (obviously) on a single drive, plus you could always raid 0 that drive later on if you needed more space.

 

[Coup27]

I would recommend getting a single 256GB Samsung 830. It's the best SSD on the market. It's SATA 6Gbps so it's future proofed for your next motherboard (if its in the next 12 months), top notch toolbox application and proven to be a solid reliable drive. Since it's release, I haven't seen a single report on any forum of a fault with it which wasn't diagnosed as either user error or a different hardware issue causing the fault (eg. onboard Marvell 6Gbps port). And if you look on AT bench at that vs SF-2281, you can hardly split them.

 

[Fornax Eridanus]

Like a few others I disagree with Topweasel here.

I replaced my harddisk with an SSD a few weeks ago and the difference is like night and day.
My motherboard only supports SATA-1 so in the best case it can only reach speed of 120-ish megabytes per second in benchmarks.
In normal use however the machine is much more responsive, it boots faster, after booting to the desktop I can fire up programs at an instance, in games loadingtimes are lower, loadinglag when moving to new areas is nonexistant, my computer is a better computer now.

Although I do not get to enjoy the maximum throughput my SSD could do I lost all the seektimes a mechanical HD needed, the difference is immense even when I am missing out on 75% of the theoretical speed the SSD can do.

 

[Topweasel]

I will back out of this. I just know I replaced a pretty decent 7200RPM drive in my laptop with an M4. I like the M4, but I was getting good results from my HDD as it was. I know my SATA II is holding it back, but it wasn't a night and day difference.

I think you guys are missing major points. I like SSD's. I would recommend them all in most use cases. I just don't recommend getting rid of a healthy raid environment where several of major performance marks are met by these drives to a capped SSD. Not saying an SSD isn't better. Not saying it wouldn't be an upgrade. I just doubt that someone that is still using a system with no 6Gb connections, is going to see enough of an improvement to replace a quick and viable setup. I also don't think one should pay nearly a ~125-150 extra in drives to hit the performance of a 6Gb SSD setup.

Lets not get to over blown with the but he wants an SSD and SSD's are great so we should be telling everyone to get some approach. Think rationally about what is getting asked is he really going to see a ~$300 upgrade?

But like I said. I am done. I don't see it. But obviously I have been voted off this island.

 

[icanhascpu2]

I would hold off. A new SSD can get ~500MB/s reads. But with Sata II you would only get as my laptop has shown, ~280MB/s. A Normal HDD will be about 130MB/s - 150.

What kind of rubbish is this? First off what 'normal' HDD is getting 130-150 by itself that doesnt cost more than an SSD anyway? What a fuckn liar. Not to mention the real preformance boost of an SSD comes from its access time.

Dont wait, get the SSD, it doesn't matter if SATA II limits the sequential its not going to limit the access times. Besides this, the SSD will be future-proof for the next system upgrade that does have SATA III.

Also the 64GB version is 80$. Also usually when people say they are done, they dont follow it up with a few extra paragraphs regurgitating their inexperienced, misguided and already intelligently refuted points.

 

[Coup27]

most?

My WD Blue 1TB 3Gbps drive does 130mb/sec seq read and 130/mb seq write..

 

[icanhascpu2]

Sure, on the outer edge.

 

[exdeath]

Lol HDD. Do HDDs come with free VHS tapes too?

 

[Coup27]

Sure, on the outer edge.

Not sure on that. My WD Blue 1TB has 512GB stored on it. Going on the assumption that it began life on the outer edge and worked generally inwards that would put it half way.

I'm not defending HDDs, I am in agreement with you. Topweasel has totally overlooked the access time and random reads and writes being the biggest benefit of an SSD and got lost somewhere in a game of top trumps on sequentials. Plus it would take an array of totally impractical proportions to match a single SSD on access time and randoms.

 

[stuckinasquare3]

I'll probably spring for the 256 then! Thanks

 

[Topweasel]

What kind of rubbish is this? First off what 'normal' HDD is getting 130-150 by itself that doesnt cost more than an SSD anyway? What a fuckn liar. Not to mention the real preformance boost of an SSD comes from its access time.

Dont wait, get the SSD, it doesn't matter if SATA II limits the sequential its not going to limit the access times. Besides this, the SSD will be future-proof for the next system upgrade that does have SATA III.

Also the 64GB version is 80$. Also usually when people say they are done, they dont follow it up with a few extra paragraphs regurgitating their inexperienced, misguided and already intelligently refuted points.

This is starting to become a personal attack. My point was only ever about improvement level. I never one made a point about access times or latency. I do question random reads when dealing with properly defragged discs. But again its not about whether it was an improvement but whether its an efficient and cost effective upgrade considering the limitation of the controller. But i guess SSDs are the new "IT" devise and people on a tech forum cant have intelligent conversations about technology if someone even suggests it might not be the best upgrade in this one use case.

As for the OP gratz on your decision. Hope you enjoy it.