Does anyone run a ssd in their laptop?

[elitejp]

What are your thoughts on it? I recently asked when ivy bridge will be released for the laptop and in attempt to just make the overall laptop experience more enjoyable Im thinking about installing an ssd in there. This will probably be me needing to buy a separate ssd drive and then transferring the laptops hd out myself. Really the only negative I foresee is having a low amount of storage. That and the price:'(

 

[TheStu]

If you don't need the optical drive you can probably just replace it with an optibay enclosure, drop the SSD into that.

Anyway, to answer your question, the laptop in my sig has an SSD, and it is very fast and responsive, I really dislike using systems without SSDs anymore.

 

[Infraction Jack]

I run an ssd in my netbook and it makes a world of difference in everyday use.

 

[elitejp]

Very interesting.

So I can just pop out the dvd drive and put a ssd drive in?

What programs besides the OS do you like to have on an ssd?

 

[nardz84]

I'm putting a ssd in my laptop, but it isn't my primary computer, so I'm ok with the reduced space. After installing one in my desktop, I don't think I could stand not having one If I really did need the space, I'd look harder at the Seagate hybrid drive or one of these newer laptops which come with an msata slot for a cache drive.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

With good performing 120GB SSD's costing $100 now, I put one in my Ivy Bridge based laptop and it is crazy quick. I just put the OEM 750GB hdd in a USB 3.0 enclosure and use it for storage if I need to take a bunch of movies or music on a trip. But for the most part all my storage is on a shared drive on my home network so storage space on the laptop is pointless. I just need enough to install the OS and a few games.

 

[ericloewe]

I have a Samsung 830 128GB in my Sony Vaio SE. It's a huge difference compared to the crappy Toshiba HDD it came with. Since it's not my main computer, the space is more than enough. 256GB should cover most of your needs, 512 is probably overkill.

 

[TheStu]

At some point I will get around to getting a 128GB blade SSD for my Air, but i have been lazy and don't use my laptop for all that much anymore.

 

[Infraction Jack]

Just for comparison I cloned my boot drive a 128 Gig kingston ssd to a 500 Gig Momentus XT hybrid drive. Boot time and firefox load time with 20 tabs pinned seemed like it took forever to open on the hybrid whereas on the ssd it was almost instant.

 

[Zap]

I run a really old (original Indilinx) 256GB SSD in my notebook. I wouldn't want to use a notebook without one. Hate using other people's notebooks with HDDs.

 

[sgrinavi]

Right now I have 6 laptops & a windows tablet. All but one have an SSD as the primary drive.

OP, you really don't want to use the drive bay for your primary drive, what if you need to stick your DVD player back in there to get a file? Changing a hard drive in a laptop is, usually, really easy.

How much space do you need? You can get a decent 240 GB ssd for around $200 these days if you look and are patient.

 

[God Mode]

SSD for OS/apps with a HDD for games and storage in the optical bay. I placed all my extra notebook optical drives in a cheap $8 external enclosure.

 

[IntelUser2000]

If you are getting one for the laptop, try getting an Intel controller or a Samsung controller based SSD. They offer noticeable battery life improvements in light usage scenarios that other SSD controllers don't. Apple also uses Samsung controller SSDs which may be the reason for generally better battery life than others.

SSD 320 is the latest Intel controller based SSD(and may be the last consumer one), and for Samsung the 830 and the 470s are good.

 

[thedarkwolf]

I went with one of the seagate hybrids and am happy. I'd love to have a pure SSD but didn't want to loose my DVD or be stuck with only 128mb of storage so the hybrid seemed like a good compromise. Things I use a lot load faster but even then it isn't holy crap this is fast fast just faster.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

If you are getting one for the laptop, try getting an Intel controller or a Samsung controller based SSD. They offer noticeable battery life improvements in light usage scenarios that other SSD controllers don't. Apple also uses Samsung controller SSDs which may be the reason for generally better battery life than others.

SSD 320 is the latest Intel controller based SSD(and may be the last consumer one), and for Samsung the 830 and the 470s are good.

This is true. The SSD 320 is on par with the Crucial m4 when it comes to idle and read/write power consumption. The Samsung 830 is the best when it comes to mobile battery life, though.

The SSD 330 is horrible when it comes to battery life, so don't get it if you'll use it in a laptop:

 

[IntelUser2000]

The SSD 330 is horrible when it comes to battery life, so don't get it if you'll use it in a laptop:

Yea, that seems to be an issue for Sandforce controller based SSDs. Maybe it'll improve on the future, but that's not the reality right now.

Soon enough Intel controller ones will go away(except for servers) since synthetic* performance takes priority over power usage in sales apparently.

*While Samsung SSDs don't score well, they perform well in real world usage and benchmarks that are based on real applications.

 

[Meghan54]

Stuck a small Intel SSD, 60GB, into the laptop I gave my father-in-law, an IBM T61 laptop. Was rather pokey before the SSD's install, now is reasonably quick for his use....internet browsing, email, YouTube, etc. Really perked up that C2D-based laptop enough to keep using it without enduring tedious boot times and application load times.

 

[elitejp]

Cool posts! This is really making me want to get an ssd. Glad I asked.

 

[emptyshell]

I don't have any computers that don't use a Samsung 830 as the primary boot drive (edit: actually I have one with a Force GT 3). If I use a second app drive it's also a Samsung 830. I use WD Caviar Greens for data.

It's very painful to go back to the spindle after using SSD as an OS drive.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I have a Intel SSD 320 120gb in my Thinkpad X220 and a OCZ Vertex 2 40gb in my netbook. Even on the netbook the SSD significantly improved performance.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yes, I do.

Although, for the sake of comparison, an OCZ Vertex 3 uses about 1 more watt than a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (one of the fastest non-hybrid platter drives.)

I was surprised when I found that out.

 

[jihe]

What are your thoughts on it? I recently asked when ivy bridge will be released for the laptop and in attempt to just make the overall laptop experience more enjoyable Im thinking about installing an ssd in there. This will probably be me needing to buy a separate ssd drive and then transferring the laptops hd out myself. Really the only negative I foresee is having a low amount of storage. That and the price:'(

My thoughts? Best thing since sliced bread.

 

[kbp]

Lenovo 570 - Intel 320/160gb
Asus G53 - M4/128 and 500 seagate in other bay
HP 2219 - OCZ vertex 3/128 that i gave away.

 

[elitejp]

My thoughts? Best thing since sliced bread.

Ya! and I like bread too!

 

[Anonemous]

Yep, use SSDs in 2 laptops. I had issues with an 120 gig OCZ vertex plus and a 160 gig Intel 320 with sleep and hibernate. I got a mushkin deluxe chronos and it sleeps just fine (albeit it does eat battery life fast now).