Give me one good reason that I should buy/use an SSD...

[VirtualLarry]

... if I don't care about bootup times (leave my computer powered up 24/7), if I don't care so much about app load times (keep my apps all running all the time), and am concerned about the ability to secure-delete an SSD, as well as the still-(IMHO)-exhorbitant price of SSDs?

I mean, I get along fine with my 6400AAKS drives, they are nice and snappy (for magnetic drives).

I installed two computers with SSDs so far, with Win7, and I honestly don't see the improvement. Maybe it's just me, I'm very patient, waiting short periods doesn't bother me. It didn't seem like it installed Win7 all that much faster than a non-SSD system.

I did have to wait several minutes for an SSD to delete the "Windows.old" folder on one machine though. Which honestly surprised me. I thought the whole point of an SSD was so that you would never have to wait on your HD.

So I guess I'm saying, I bought into the hype, bought some SSDs, and didn't see the improvements that I thought I would, so I've put off the idea of investing into an SSD for my personal rigs.

 

[Emulex]

ssd's have encryption built in now so secure delete? not really necessary unless you are hiding from the government. once the key is destroyed the disk is rendered useless until someone cracks AES or figures out your key

 

[VirtualLarry]

ssd's have encryption built in now so secure delete? not really necessary unless you are hiding from the government. once the key is destroyed the disk is rendered useless until someone cracks AES or figures out your key

But how does that work? Doesn't that require a system BIOS that supplies an ATA password to the HD upon bootup? I would go that way, but I'm uncertain if the mobo I'm using supports that. It seems that desktop boards don't really tend to do so, while laptop boards do. I'm using a GA-P35-DS3R v1.0, if that matters.

I really wish Gigabyte would consider releasing some updated BIOSes for all of their semi-recent (P35 and newer) boards, that would support Hybrid EFI, along with the BIOS HD password support. I can dream, I suppose.


I came across this:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?78049-Setting-ATA-password-without-BIOS

I don't see any support for ATA device passwords in the mobo manual.
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-p35-%28d)s3r_e.pdf

 

[nusyo]

I installed two computers with SSDs so far, with Win7, and I honestly don't see the improvement. Maybe it's just me, I'm very patient, waiting short periods doesn't bother me. It didn't seem like it installed Win7 all that much faster than a non-SSD system.

I also installed two computers with ssds & Win7 and i did noticed a huge difference. Probably the nicest thing is when u do a cold boot and you can use the pc right away without waiting 1-2 minutes for every thing to load up.

I also tend to close the programs i don't use, like i dont open Ms Word in the morning and leave it on until evening when I am sure I'm going to use it.

if the difference is not noticeable then you shouldn't upgrade from a 5400RMP hdd to a 7200RPM or 10,000RPM either.

btw my post is not necessary directed towards you Larry, but to general crowd :>

 

[Veliko]

I installed my new 160GB 320 Intel G3 SSD this morning. Other than the installation of W7 itself - 8 minutes from a USB thumbstick - I haven't really noticed any difference at all.

I only tend to have my web browser and a game open at any one time so it's down to how and what you use your PC for.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you are a patient person, don't invest in one for your PC

Although I do have an SSD on this machine and a WD 1Tb Black on my game rig, the only difference seems to be the boot time. I can turn both machines on at the same time and the SSD machine will always beat the game rig. On a side note, this machine has to go through 2 add-on card bios before hitting windows startup. They are about 4-5 seconds per card.

 

[groberts101]

Kinda sounds like the OP doesn't "see" or "need" the benefits of an SSD. Hardly worth trying to convince someone to use one in that scenario.

PS. My system also runs 24/7 and I love mine everytime I navigate my GUI and especially when I push the system hard.

 

[sandorski]

All the cool kids are doing it.

<<<<<<<Not Cool

My system is on 24/7, so would see little benefit from it. When Capacity/Price starts matching traditional HDs I'll be all over it. Until then I'll manage with my 50-70 second Boots/Reboots.

 

[aphelion02]

You don't need an SSD. (But I do love mine)

 

[WildW]

The other nice thing about an SSD is that they are really really quiet, if you care about such things.

 

[SickBeast]

You'll save 5-10 watts of power consumption, plus in all likelihood an SSD will last longer than a regular HDD so long as you don't abuse it.

It's great to be patient, but really, I love my 10 second boots and my instantaneous app loading times.

What kinds of SSDs have you used? Perhaps you used an older and slower model.

 

[Zap]

Give me one good reason that I should buy/use an SSD...

Obviously no reason is good enough for you.

For me, "faster" is a good enough reason.

I have a Core i7 975X CPU in my system right now, and today I bought a Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500K to replace it with. Why? Because I can OC it to the mid-4GHz range and have a faster system even if I can't tell the difference.

I also run SLI, and own a reasonably fast car.

Thus, give me one reason that I should NOT buy/use an SSD.

VirtualLarry, seeing the systems in your .sig, I can see why you aren't into owning the fastest.

 

[SickBeast]

I figure it's kind of a waste having a modern CPU with no SSD. Your CPU is capable of doing so much more when it's not bottlenecked by your hard drive.

 

[Drsignguy]

It's like getting into a corvette and driving a 140 miles an hour, then, getting into a Porsche and driving a 125 miles an hour. You really wouldn't feel what the difference in speed were, but you had fun as hell feeling the rush! There is a difference in speed with SSD and HDD, I know. Its the fun of it and it is a rush to have a much quicker and better responsive system that is more amplified without the HDD bottleneck.





Edited do to a fast approaching thunderstorm.... 1 Question though, Does the chipset make a difference from p35 to p45 to p67? Only reason I ask is the OP is using a SSD on his P35. I have a p45 with a Vertex2 on it and a p67 with the Agility2. The Agility2's bench score was higher. Now my C300 on a P67 is 6Gb so I wont even go there. Just wondering as if, VL were to upgrade to a p67 chipset if he would feel this were justified.

 

[LxMxFxD4]

Do you play MMORPGs? Huge differences. HUGE.

Have you tried using a 5400rpm laptop? Yeah, huge difference too.

If you make $50+/hr in the IT business, your clients will love the fact that you can solve their problems faster. Pretty important.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I'll never go back to a mechanical boot drive. I have a ton of start up programs and the ssd screams right through them. I also have a velociraptor 600gb for my programs however the ssd smokes it plain and simple. If you don't care about boot or access times then save your money.

 

[Old Hippie]

Give me one good reason that I should buy/use an SSD...

I can't and I suggest you don't.

 

[hclarkjr]

Obviously no reason is good enough for you.

For me, "faster" is a good enough reason.

I have a Core i7 975X CPU in my system right now, and today I bought a Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500K to replace it with. Why? Because I can OC it to the mid-4GHz range and have a faster system even if I can't tell the difference.

I also run SLI, and own a reasonably fast car.

Thus, give me one reason that I should NOT buy/use an SSD.

VirtualLarry, seeing the systems in your .sig, I can see why you aren't into owning the fastest.

this the same for me, the need for speed. another aspect of SSD for me is the install time for apps. SSD blows mechanical away on install times. i like to try out different setups and reformat 2-3 times a year so the SSD is good for me. i am on my second one now and will never go back to mechanical drives

 

[beginner99]

First of new installs of windows always seem fast but once the user starts installing ton of apps and windows starts "degrading", the benefit of an ssd will get bigger and bigger.

The second thing is that IO has always been the slowest part of the systems and hence everything was tweaked to hide it. The newest addition being superfetch, which IMHO has a pretty huge impact. And then it's just what we have been used to. Personally I absolutely hate a PC that stutters all the time. And this is always because of the HDD.

 

[Zap]

1 Question though, Does the chipset make a difference from p35 to p45 to p67? Only reason I ask is the OP is using a SSD on his P35.

I would not discount that possibility.

quick search results

ICH10R is capable of performing more storage I/O operations per second than the predecessor ICH9R

Aha! One of the three performance benefits of SSDs over HDDs is negated with the older chipset.
- high sequential performance
- low seek times
- high IOPS

Another reason for upgrading. I've always said that it is better to upgrade motherboards when upgrading a CPU (a few years down the line) to get newer technology.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No, actually, the two SSDs that I installed, one was for my BIL's gaming rig, on a Gigabyte X48 board (Adata SF1200 S599 64GB), and one was on a Gigabyte 785G board (Phoenix Pro 128GB, also SF1200).

Have not tried an SSD on a P35 board yet.

 

[fuzzymath10]

First of new installs of windows always seem fast but once the user starts installing ton of apps and windows starts "degrading", the benefit of an ssd will get bigger and bigger.

The second thing is that IO has always been the slowest part of the systems and hence everything was tweaked to hide it. The newest addition being superfetch, which IMHO has a pretty huge impact. And then it's just what we have been used to. Personally I absolutely hate a PC that stutters all the time. And this is always because of the HDD.

Yep. Even a P4 can benefit, much less a Core CPU. In heavy I/O you're stuck at 1-2MB/sec on a hard drive. A good SSD in the same situation will easily be in double digits and that makes a huge difference.

Power users who carefully tune their startup programs and/or keep their system running all the time will indeed benefit less, as everything gets loaded into memory. These users tend to have huge amounts of RAM as well (often 16GB, sometimes 8 or 24, but never less than 6).

The funny part is that some folks have told me they notice the difference in noise/vibration more than the performance (using a laptop), and that they'd miss that the most.

 

[alaricljs]

VL - it's all determined by how you use your system. I installed an SSD in my work laptop.

I run Gentoo Linux and therefor end up compiling quite a lot. Right there I see an immediate benefit on the SSD, compile times go down since the biggest wait time on compiles these days is disk IO. Nice, but since I'm not a developer waiting to test what I'm compiling, who cares?

Here's where it helped immensely: email. I have all my email local since the craptacular imap server doesn't support complex searches. Switching to an SSD made searching through my ~35000 email fast. Searches that used to take ~5 minutes take ~30 seconds. Searches that took 30-45 seconds are nearly instantaneous.

The other place that having an SSD is nice: VMs. I run a Windows VM on my laptop for those times when there's no choice but a Windows app. Get both systems chugging away and with an SSD it's no big deal, on a spindle it's just hell.

I run a home server with xen and several VMs, one is my fileserver, one for mail/web, and one for downloading and virus checking. They're on an sf1200 SSD and the mail/web portion has massively improved response times. MailDir is used for email storage so every email is it's own file, IOPs rule here. Every inbound email gets virus scanned, spam categorized and then delivered. This went from not fast enough on a platter to giving me plenty of head-room for even more processing if I want.

I admit that I would see nearly no benefit in my home rig but there's still the urge to get that instant application response

 

[beginner99]

The funny part is that some folks have told me they notice the difference in noise/vibration more than the performance (using a laptop), and that they'd miss that the most.

They miss the noise? I agree it was strange at first, no HDD noise. I also have couple of green drives. They are dead silent too.

 

[fuzzymath10]

They miss the noise? I agree it was strange at first, no HDD noise. I also have couple of green drives. They are dead silent too.

The reverse--if they had to go back to a spinning drive laptop, the noise and vibration would drive them crazy