SSD vs. HDD for new system O/S drive - are SSDs equal to HDD in reliability?

[Cerb]

3) Do you put page files on it or on HDD drive?

SSD, unless you get one small enough that you need to save a few GBs. Also, even with a fair sized SSD, you may want to turn hibernate off, unless you use it, to save space.

4) About every 9 to 12 months, I reinstall my O/S versus trying to clean-up registry etc. Is that okay to do on SSD? Will it still last 3 to 4 years, if that is done 4 or 5 times?

It should last well in excess of 5 years, unless used as a heavy DB server drive. Re-installing Windows isn't much to it. If you want to be paranoid about write cycles, though, only do quick formats.

I am confused on failure rate versus bugs. To me failure means hardware problem, whereas most of the problems with SSD seem to be software/firmware related.

There have been HDD firmware bugs, too, but they tend to be rare. SSDs are still not a mature technology. New controllers and flash are coming out all the time, and so new software has to be written/ported to use them to their fullest, and it needs to be done fast enough to make a profit before the next generation comes out. As SSDs mature, such problems will go away, but we're not quite there yet. Don't let that dissuade you from an SSD; but do let it dissuade you from venturing too far beyond the common Intel/Samsung/Crucial recommendations, as they are serious about making SSDs commodity HDD replacements, and put effort reliability and compatibility at least as much as performance.

 

[groberts101]

If SSD was just about "not waiting that extra 10-30 seconds?".. I wouldn't have dropped over 2 grand on them. Not to mention the other 8 grand to "buy and try" various models/capacities for the sake of testing.

If you don't multitask heavily or have disk intensive usage patterns?.. don't waste your money.

If you don't see gains in time saved when moving from a 60Gb SSD to a larger 240Gb model(for those of you that actually have tasted the speeds with an entry level drive).. don't waste your money.

If you don't have a life and/or really care about saving minutes a day.. hours a month.. and maybe even days per year depending on specific usage levels/patterns?.. don't waste your money.

In the end.. SSD gives the ability to do more in a given timespan and ultimately amounts to buying time. So, if you don't care about time saved?.. don't waste your money.

 

[nine9s]

In windwos 7,

If you turn "system Restore" off on the SSD but turn it on for the HDD will it still work automatically or does it need to be on the same drive as O/s? Any problem in doing that?

How do you move your temporary folder? I see how to move Document folder etc. but not the temporary folder.

Or do I not have to be paranoid of the SSD running out of "writes" over 3 or 4 years?

 

[nine9s]

If SSD was just about "not waiting that extra 10-30 seconds?".. I wouldn't have dropped over 2 grand on them. Not to mention the other 8 grand to "buy and try" various models/capacities for the sake of testing.

If you don't multitask heavily or have disk intensive usage patterns?.. don't waste your money.

If you don't see gains in time saved when moving from a 60Gb SSD to a larger 240Gb model(for those of you that actually have tasted the speeds with an entry level drive).. don't waste your money.

If you don't have a life and/or really care about saving minutes a day.. hours a month.. and maybe even days per year depending on specific usage levels/patterns?.. don't waste your money.

In the end.. SSD gives the ability to do more in a given timespan and ultimately amounts to buying time. So, if you don't care about time saved?.. don't waste your money.

I use my computer for everyday things (email, internet browsing, news, etc.) and playing games. Your comments are another concern for me - while I imagine that my computer will boot night-and-day faster and applications will load instant-like, I wonder if it will truly improve my computer usage.

For example, I do not notice my hard drive light on nor hear my HDD for more than a blip ever now and then, so my usage does not seem impacted by HDD speed much at all and my guess is that besides booting and possibly initially loading games, I would not see a great benefit besides the "wow factor" as some have put it.

Based on my description of use, do you agree?

 

[Jman13]

After having an SSD at home, my work computer, which is no slouch (a Core i7-870 with 12GB of RAM) feels downright sluggish. Don't get me wrong...in computing tasks it's fine, but it seems like it takes forever to boot, and forever to load large applications. A fast SSD is truly an amazing experience, frankly, and well worth it. As a whole, it just makes your computer feel so much more responsive. It's a bigger jump in usable speed for your machine than two generations of CPU upgrades. I don't think you'd see any appreciable difference in day to day speed from a 128GB SSD to a 256GB SSD, though the 256 would be faster, but at that point, it's like asking which is faster, a fired bullet from a pistol, or one from a rifle. Sure, the rifle round will almost certainly have a higher velocity, but how fast they hit their target after pulling the trigger is essentially the same in perception.

So, if a 128GB modern SSD is a pistol bullet, and a 256 GB modern SSD is a rifle bullet, in this analogy, a fast HDD is like driving a sports car to the target. Sure it gets you there fine, but it sure isn't a bullet.

 

[zCypher]

I would never build a computer without an SSD as a boot drive, unless the whole computer needed to be built for like 200-300 bucks. I have several SSDs in operation and all are perfect so far. I did however have issues with my first SSD, had it RMA'd and never had a problem after that.

It's such a huge difference in performance that I would never consider an HDD as boot drive again. If you're running a recent system with all the proper BIOS, OS and driver settings / updates and latest SSD firmware, I don't think you will be disappointed.

The only real question is, are you going to get a single large SSD, or a couple of smaller ones in RAID-0. Having large HDD as backup/storage is fine, but anything you want to access quickly on any regular basis - definitely put that on SSD. There is no shame in buying one now, and, when you feel you're running out of space, buying another one then.

 

[Cerb]

In windwos 7,

If you turn "system Restore" off on the SSD but turn it on for the HDD will it still work automatically or does it need to be on the same drive as O/s? Any problem in doing that?

I was not aware that you could specify where restores went. However, I would imagine installing your average .NET update probably wears it out more than several incremental restore points. In addition, I have rescued Windows Vista and 7 installs with the help of restore points, after decrapification, so I would just leave them alone.

How do you move your temporary folder? I see how to move Document folder etc. but not the temporary folder.

You might be able to, but don't bother. Temporary stuff goes in temp. Clean it often, and leave it where it is.

Or do I not have to be paranoid of the SSD running out of "writes" over 3 or 4 years?

Testing done by a handful of people with wallets that are too thick has shown most SSDs surviving years while writing terabytes per day in mixed write loads.

Now, if you're running a write-heavy DB server, where you may have several hours per week filled with many thousands of 4k-32k writes per second, don't expect years. Truly random writes at rates too fast for quality garbage collection are what kill them fast. You're not doing that. You will be doing small amounts of random writes, mostly moderate amounts of sequential writes, and most large sets of writes will be brand new, not edited, data, on top of that. The drive's firmware will have plenty of time and RAM to optimally remap and write your data, and perform idle-time GC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_collection_(computer_science) - read through the principles section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_collection_(SSD)#Garbage_collection - read however much you can until it's gobbledygook.

 

[Anteaus]

If SSD was just about "not waiting that extra 10-30 seconds?".. I wouldn't have dropped over 2 grand on them. Not to mention the other 8 grand to "buy and try" various models/capacities for the sake of testing.

See, that's the thing. You say that you spent 2 grand on SSDs, yet say it like you can't believe everyone is isn't doing it. That's like saying you shouldn't drive a car unless it's a ferrari and you shouldn't buy a CPU unless you're willing to dump a extra grand in water cooling in order to OC that b*itch into the ceiling.

I would never tell the OP not to buy a SSD, but on the flip side I'm not going to disregard the viabiliy ofa HDD boot drive based on some insane speed fetish, especially when he can build an entire other machine with that money. It makes us sound like snobs.

I've been running my 1TB Black Series as my primary drive for a couple years now with no regrets. I have dabbled in SSD, but at the time they were so small I could barely fit Windows on it. My boot times were naturally fast, but my games loaded the same speed they always did.

I'm in full agreement with you that the redunction in loading times can be worth the money, depending on what you're using your computer for. But for average joe gamer? That's his call, but let's not act like there is only one option.

 

[groberts101]

Then there is surely a loss in translation to what I said in response to your previous reply of "but it doesn't actually help with overall performance. Is spending 3-5 hundred dollars worth not waiting that extra 10-30 seconds?". Way too simplistic of an approach to building a solid and fast system these days.

If anything I was simply pointing out what many others would tell you as well. SSD is not just about boot times and overall performance is most definately increased as a result of removing the largest bottleneck in just about any system. Hell.. even a lowly netbook will run much faster and it has all sorts of other bottlenecks that would make it seem as if it would not be worth the effort. Ask the folks who installed one?.. and they will tell you it surely did help to improve the overall impression during even light usage.

So, in a nutshell, if you bought the absolute cheapest and slowest hardware available and cost savings is paramount?.. sure.. save your money as the speed gain is probably not worth the cash. BUT.. for the majority of others out there?.. these SSD's will improve the overall experience moreso than any CPU or ram upgrade ever will.

I even put one in my little kids P4 system and it is night and day for improvement over the IDE drive that it replaced(even they notice it quite easily and I really cannot fathom how an adult could not see the very same result from using one). And that would also be despite the whopping 26MB/s max throughput capability of that systems chip. Fact is that the majority of the perceivable gains for most users is all about the ultra-low latency. It's like you just supercharged the system and are now working from ram.. rather than being disk bound and/or very limited in multitasking capability. Caching to ram is not instantanious and the data must be seeked/read by the HDD before it can be cached to ram. That's why opening Adobe PS is painfully slow in the intial load as it gets cached to ram and then isn't so bad on each subsequent opening. Other apps will be the same as well, although most aren't as sluggish as that large app will be.

As for the OP's question in regards to my previous statements?.. well.. I was actually not being too dramatic there and really tryed to spell it out quite clearly. If you seem to not be disk bound in your current system due to that much lighter usage model?.. probably not worth your time and money. But to reiterate what I just said above.. I have absolutley no clue as to how anyone short of a 2 year old would not enjoy the near seamless speed increases and overall improvement in user perspective when operating from any system with an SSD boot drive. And despite what some may say about caching to ram.. if that Windows accelleration technique really was that good?.. not nearly as many would be buying SSD's.

I would urge you to try and locate a local vendor with a liberal 30 day return policy to test drive one for yourself.. or try to get your hands on a system.. any system.. with an SSD installed. Because the perceptible improvements in efficiency will be quite profound, to say the least.

 

[exdeath]

I would never tell the OP not to buy a SSD, but on the flip side I'm not going to disregard the viabiliy ofa HDD boot drive based on some insane speed fetish, especially when he can build an entire other machine with that money. It makes us sound like snobs.

Really? A 120GB high speed SSD runs around $100. What kind of other machine can you build for $100?

 

[Coup27]

Any enthusiast or power user simply has to have an SSD as their boot drive. Yes they are expensive, so thats why you need to size one accordingly. Most people can live with a 128GB drive reasonably well.

"I just want it to work" is a fair concern. My advice would be a Samsung 830. Top notch reliability, toolbox application, free copy of Norton Ghost 15 and current generation speed. The Intel 510 is far too expensive for what it is and the 830 would be a lot faster. The Intel 520 is there but thats a little more of a risk IMO. The 830 has been out a good 4 months and even with no reports of bugs in the wild Samsung still fixed a few things with it.

I do disagree with exdeath about HDDs. I have a 1TB HDD for all my music, videos, p0rn, and backup images for when I fix peoples PCs for them. There's certainly no way I would store >200GB of Acronis or Ghost images on an SSD when I access them once a year.

 

[mkmitch]

I am notoriously cheap, in fact I take pride in my cheapness. A month ago I updated from a Dell Dimension purchased in 2001. Of course we have laptops. Anyway I love the 2550K, the 6870, the Seasonic gold, but far and away the best part I purchased and installed was the Corsair 90GB Force GT ssd (yes it was on sale). Its the one part I would not exchange. I had to rma one of the two western digital HDDS as it failed after one week.

 

[Anteaus]

Really? A 120GB high speed SSD runs around $100. What kind of other machine can you build for $100?

I was specifically referring to getting an SSD that has enough space to do everything from it. A 120GB drive isn't large enough for that. IMO an SSD isn't worth the trouble if you don't enough space to install all of your normally used software. For myself, I would need to dump at least $600 into one that has enough usable space, and my comment was pointed at the other poster who claimed he spend 2 grand on his SSD setup. As I said, I'm not anti-SSD. I just don't think the price point is low enough for general consumption yet. You need to spend almost $800 just to get near 500GB with the newest gen SSDs.

 

[thelastjuju]

I always find it odd how these "power users" don't just leave all their applications running in the background like I do. Why would I ever wait for apps like photoshop to load, when I could just load it ONCE, minimize it, and leave it opened in the background for good while I do whatever else I have to do? I also hibernate, so I then get to return exactly where I left off. You would think you guys with your 1200w power supplies, i7s, tri-SLI setups, and 32GBs of ram can handle leaving photoshop running in the background. :sneaky:

I now hibernate in 3 seconds with the SSD instead of 15 with my HDD.. I must say I do LOVE how instantaneously I can access my desktop, but if I knew this was the only gain I'd get, I definitely would have held off while they increase significantly in capacity and give us more gb for the buck.

I think that SSD drives will be truly AMAZING once we can clone a 2tb SSD to another in like an hour.. but I really don't care too much about how fast I can back up a measly 64gb of data.

 

[Jman13]

You have 500GB for 'normally used software?' Wow. My 128GB SSD has 40GB free right now. I've got Windows installed (though my user folder is on my HDD), Photoshop CS5 (and CS6 beta), Lightroom 4 (and my newest catalog...old catalogs stay on a HD), all my web programs, OpenOffice, benchmarking software, 4 steam games, iTunes, Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum and other assorted things. Now, sure, this isn't an absolute ton of software, but it's a fair amount, and definitely what I use on a day to day basis.

If you have a crap-ton of software, or have like 30 games installed, sure, you're not going to have all of them on the SSD, but how much of that do you use on a day to day basis? The day to day stuff is the stuff you really need on an SSD...programs you run once every two weeks can go on a hard drive. If you have to wait an extra 8 seconds once every two weeks, it's not a big deal. If you're waiting 30 times a day, it starts to add up.

 

[Coup27]

You have 500GB for 'normally used software?' Wow. My 128GB SSD has 40GB free right now. I've got Windows installed (though my user folder is on my HDD), Photoshop CS5 (and CS6 beta), Lightroom 4 (and my newest catalog...old catalogs stay on a HD), all my web programs, OpenOffice, benchmarking software, 4 steam games, iTunes, Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum and other assorted things. Now, sure, this isn't an absolute ton of software, but it's a fair amount, and definitely what I use on a day to day basis.

If you have a crap-ton of software, or have like 30 games installed, sure, you're not going to have all of them on the SSD, but how much of that do you use on a day to day basis? The day to day stuff is the stuff you really need on an SSD...programs you run once every two weeks can go on a hard drive. If you have to wait an extra 8 seconds once every two weeks, it's not a big deal. If you're waiting 30 times a day, it starts to add up.

+1. An SSD requires you to decide what you need fast access for, and what you don't. Maybe I am wrong, but I do find it hard to believe that somebody needs a 500GB SSD just for starters and none of those programs or whatever they are could be hosted on the HDD with the SSD only used for the most frequent.

 

[Anteaus]

Yep...by the time I install Windows, FSX with all of its addons (50GB right there), Steam...my normal compliment of 5-8 games (8-20GB a piece) I play regularly, Wow and any number of other things it adds up. I also don't like to operate with < 10% free drive space. I also need space for new stuff as it comes up. Like I said, for my habits I need more space than you.

I'm not asking you to justify what you install on your SSD so I do expect reciprocity on that. Anyways I think we are offtrack. Bottom line is everyone has different computer habits. I'm glad you get by with what you have. For me I would need at least 250GB to make it worth while with 500GB being ideal. That's with current software. As 64-bit software becomes more common, so will bloat.

 

[exdeath]

For me it's just the notion that when I am using an electronic machine capable of performing trillions of operations per second, that I, a human operator, should never under ANY circumstances be the one waiting for trivial operations to complete.

I click something, I want a response, not 2 seconds of lag and drawing things one at a time or staring at a half painted and not responding splash screen for 15+ seconds while a disk light stays solid. I might as well just go back to a single core Celeron if my $1000 CPU is going to be sitting idle 100 centuries at a time waiting on disk interrupts.

With all our modern technology and computer evolution, we as a species should NOT be measuring ANYTHING in mere kilobytes or megabytes per second anymore in the year 2012.

We like to think we are awesome and pat ourselves on the back for our technological accomplishments, but in reality our technology really sucks. 50+ years go by and we still can't even figure out how to store and retrieve data in a manor that isn't similar to the methods which a caveman uses with a hammer and chisel.

 

[thelastjuju]

but in reality our technology really sucks. 50+ years go by and we still can't even figure out how to store and retrieve data in a manor that isn't similar to the methods which a caveman uses with a hammer and chisel.

This is such outrageous hyperbole its almost sickening. Its amazing how little appreciation some people can have for how far we've came.

You claim our technology SUCKS, but do you even know how it works? Just how many contributions have YOU made to the field? Why don't you make the necessary changes if you're such an elite in the world of cutting edge technology where every nanosecond counts?

 

[nine9s]

We like to think we are awesome and pat ourselves on the back for our technological accomplishments, but in reality our technology really sucks. 50+ years go by and we still can't even figure out how to store and retrieve data in a manor that isn't similar to the methods which a caveman uses with a hammer and chisel.

Been lots of progress. I used to load programs from a cassette player ~30 years ago. Took 30 minutes to load a < 48 KB program.

 

[groberts101]

sheesh.. this place is full of more self-proclaimed experts and narrow minded overly opinionated people than any other forum that I've ever encountered. Thank god for the one's who actually contribute thoughful and meaningful help, opinions and/or support or I'd never even step foot in here at all. Would just travel through ocassionally for a good laugh or two.

Does the average user need 500GB's of SSD space to hoard everything they could ever need?.. abso-firggin-lutely not. Because if that was the reality?.. we wouldn't have SSD under 1 GB/$ right now due to folks who don't mind installing something when they actually decide to use it after 2 months of never opening that app or file. Not to mention that 128GB and smaller SSD would not even exist. So, get real already.

And modern HDD is too slow? Raided HDD is to slow? 4-8 HDD running off a raidcard is too slow? Well.. there may even be some form of truth to that depending on the configs but is laughable at best for most usage models. AND.. for those who can barely afford to run an SSD in the first place?.. that's reality and not many can afford the capacity necessary to run a purely SSD based system for their OS and storage volumes.

Constantly spreading FUD only makes you guys look like you're extremist's and don't have a clue as to the general publics viewpoints of what a "fast system" is comprised of or how the majority of users would make use of this technology.

It's fast becoming a reality where entry level SSD's will be starting at 128GB's in size rather than the current 64GB models. But we certainly won't be jumping into 1TB sizes anytime soon and that's a fact. For those who think it's too expensive and not worth their time until that day finds them?.. get in the slow lane and stay the hell out of the SSD users way because we will tailgate you and bully you out of the left lane. These things go far beyond benchmarks.

And based on that reality of SSD not growing at the required exponential rate of the current data sets available to us?.. HDD will not be going away any time soon either. If you have the money to avoid using them for storage or simply don't have large enough archives of data to need all that space?.. then more power to ya and I for one am truly envious. But.. get married and have a few kids who enjoy watching movies in mobile environments?.. and good luck with the second job typically required to afford enough SSD space to hold it all.

Live and let live.

 

[nine9s]

Game play video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQpiZ44GyYU&feature=related

Loading O/S and applications:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiLSXvNaCME


Are these accurate? Or would one see more of a differenec?

 

[Veliko]

Game play video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQpiZ44GyYU&feature=related

Loading O/S and applications:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiLSXvNaCME


Are these accurate? Or would one see more of a differenec?

I have an Intel 310 160GB SSD and think that the hype behind them is a bit overblown.

Maybe I am misremembering things but whenever I watch those comparison videos I swear to God that my HDD never took that long to load Windows or World of Warcraft.

 

[nine9s]

Maybe I am misremembering things but whenever I watch those comparison videos I swear to God that my HDD never took that long to load Windows or World of Warcraft.

Same, I have a 4 year old computer with HDD only, and it loads stuff faster than those HDD examples.

 

[bryanW1995]

If SSD was just about "not waiting that extra 10-30 seconds?".. I wouldn't have dropped over 2 grand on them. Not to mention the other 8 grand to "buy and try" various models/capacities for the sake of testing.

If you don't multitask heavily or have disk intensive usage patterns?.. don't waste your money.

If you don't see gains in time saved when moving from a 60Gb SSD to a larger 240Gb model(for those of you that actually have tasted the speeds with an entry level drive).. don't waste your money.

If you don't have a life and/or really care about saving minutes a day.. hours a month.. and maybe even days per year depending on specific usage levels/patterns?.. don't waste your money.

In the end.. SSD gives the ability to do more in a given timespan and ultimately amounts to buying time. So, if you don't care about time saved?.. don't waste your money.

This is a very good description of ssd benefits. The reason exdeath freaks out so much about ssd's is because they can save him a LOT of time. The reason most of us moderate users love ssd's is that we can regularly save a minute here, a minute here, until eventually that time really adds up. And going back to a spindle drive makes us feel like our computer is somehow broken.

After having an SSD at home, my work computer, which is no slouch (a Core i7-870 with 12GB of RAM) feels downright sluggish. Don't get me wrong...in computing tasks it's fine, but it seems like it takes forever to boot, and forever to load large applications. A fast SSD is truly an amazing experience, frankly, and well worth it. As a whole, it just makes your computer feel so much more responsive. It's a bigger jump in usable speed for your machine than two generations of CPU upgrades. I don't think you'd see any appreciable difference in day to day speed from a 128GB SSD to a 256GB SSD, though the 256 would be faster, but at that point, it's like asking which is faster, a fired bullet from a pistol, or one from a rifle. Sure, the rifle round will almost certainly have a higher velocity, but how fast they hit their target after pulling the trigger is essentially the same in perception.

So, if a 128GB modern SSD is a pistol bullet, and a 256 GB modern SSD is a rifle bullet, in this analogy, a fast HDD is like driving a sports car to the target. Sure it gets you there fine, but it sure isn't a bullet.

I'm typing this on my work computer, and I know exactly what you mean. Ugh...I think that I might eventually retire my x25m g2 to my office rig... Maybe I'll just buy IVB sooner instead of waiting for BF...