Still don't think I need an SSD

[Carfax83]

When SSDs first became available on the market years ago, I promised myself I would eventually get one or two once the prices started to drop and the capacity got larger. Both of those conditions have been fulfilled to a large degree, yet I'm still running my trusty 600GB x2 Raptors in RAID 0, with no apparent desire to upgrade to SSDs at all.

I guess I've fallen into the "good enough" category, despite being a high end gamer for years. Or have I? :sneaky:

Since Windows Vista, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to improve the memory efficiency and performance of their operating systems. Vista had very aggressive prefetching, too aggressive in fact. Practically everything you clicked on would get loaded into memory.. SuperFetch's aggressiveness was consequently dialed back with Windows 7 but made smarter, and now with Windows 8, it has improved even more.

For the most part, apps and software that I use routinely open very fast due to SuperFetch because crucial parts of them are already in the memory. What's more important though, is that once the program has fully loaded, it remains in memory so even if I close it and reopen it, it opens practically instantaneously.

So my point is, with the easy availability of large amounts of RAM (which is far faster than any SSD) and the increased efficiency of SuperFetch in Windows 7 and 8, why go to SSD at all? Especially when hard drive capacity is so cheap, that you never have to worry about running out of space..

I suppose I need convincing

 

[MrX8503]

I've never used raptors, but I will never go back to mechanical drives ever again.

A single top end SSD is faster than your raptors in RAID 0. Also if you RAID 0 SSDs, you're looking at 1GB r/w.

 

[Rhezuss]

Once you try a SSD you never go back.

I heard/read this phrase so many time until I say the M4 128gb on sale for under 100CAD. That's when I decided to buy one yelling "What the hell, let's try this".

SSDs are le shiznitz! Win7 installed in minutes and boots in seconds.

Last week I built a gaming PC for my bro and tried to sold him on SSDs. Being OVER conservationist, he declined like there's no tomorrow...

Installing Win7 and booting was a PITA and uselessly long to boot...

I never tried RAID setting but heard good thing about it. The only thing I can say is if you're ok with the speed you got, no need to upgrade.

 

[Ayah]

Because my desktop with an SSD "idles" at ~17GB usage due to the amount of things I leave running. Hell, even my lenovo x220 idles at ~8.5GB (also ssd).

Depends on your usage case I guess. I've always got hundreds of web pages open with datasheets from various projects, matlab, several excel sheets, etc. I hate closing them because I'd just have to open them all up again later.

For you, if your load times satisfy you, I see no reason to upgrade. raid 0 raptors are still decently fast at sequentials, though their random doesn't compete to an ssd, nor their access times. But superfetch does bridge the gap.

Kind of like how some people are running 4-8+ SSDs in raid 10 for speed + redundancy, found it to be too slow and added more drives.

Also depends on how much memory you need available to you, if you're a gamer, you can probably spare enough ram for a ramdisk. If you're doing large computes, probably not, hell you might even need a large amount of swap/page diskspace.

You've definitely fallen into the "good enough" category, with respect to your situation.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

When SSDs first became available on the market years ago, I promised myself I would eventually get one or two once the prices started to drop and the capacity got larger. Both of those conditions have been fulfilled to a large degree, yet I'm still running my trusty 600GB x2 Raptors in RAID 0, with no apparent desire to upgrade to SSDs at all.

I guess I've fallen into the "good enough" category, despite being a high end gamer for years. Or have I? :sneaky:

Since Windows Vista, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to improve the memory efficiency and performance of their operating systems. Vista had very aggressive prefetching, too aggressive in fact. Practically everything you clicked on would get loaded into memory.. SuperFetch's aggressiveness was consequently dialed back with Windows 7 but made smarter, and now with Windows 8, it has improved even more.

For the most part, apps and software that I use routinely open very fast due to SuperFetch because crucial parts of them are already in the memory. What's more important though, is that once the program has fully loaded, it remains in memory so even if I close it and reopen it, it opens practically instantaneously.

So my point is, with the easy availability of large amounts of RAM (which is far faster than any SSD) and the increased efficiency of SuperFetch in Windows 7 and 8, why go to SSD at all? Especially when hard drive capacity is so cheap, that you never have to worry about running out of space..

I suppose I need convincing

Buy one from a store you can easily return it to. Install it. See for yourself. It'll be faster than your Raptors. It'll be faster than your Raptors in RAID. It just is. I'd argue the difference between a high end and a mediocre SSD--besides quality and failure rate--is rather small, so whatever drive you get is probably going to be the only one you need... unless you get one that's too small.

This is like arguing about LCD's vs CRT's. You just have to see it for yourself to believe it, but they're all so much faster than your Raptors it really isn't even a contest.

Oh, and if you have an SSD, you're going to want to disable Prefetch and Superfetch because you won't need all that hard drive thrashing. Plus, I admit my favorite part is that SSD's are silent.

 

[billyb0b]

i've tried SSD, several of them over the past 4 years and i'm currently using a wd black mechanical drive as my primary OS/boot drive

i went back to mechanical because the constant need to watch where certain things install, cache is dropped, and the myriad of tweaks to perform in windows in order to reduce writes to the thing

yea, my boot time is a little slower but i can live with it

 

[Carfax83]

Yes, a high end SSD drive is much faster than my raptors in RAID 0..

But is it faster than memory? Hell no..

That's the entire point of my argument guys. I have 12GB of memory in my machine, so once something loads, it STAYS in memory; and memory loads stuff pretty much instantly.

For programs that aren't in memory yet, there's SuperFetch, which preloads certain critical files. Once SuperFetch has preloaded these files, my favorite programs and games only take seconds to open. A large game like Bioshock Infinite opens in about 2 seconds on my Perfect Disk tuned RAID array...

Things today aren't like they were back in the days of Windows 98 and XP, where the operating systems weren't as efficient with memory usage and large amounts of memory were prohibitively expensive..

Back then, it was common to hear the hard drive grinding away almost constantly during gaming sessions due to the CPU having to access data on it. We called it hard drive thrashing.

But now, gaming machines have tons of not only system memory, but VRAM as well. So data not only loads very quickly, but it rarely needs to be swapped out because you have so much of it.

If memory was expensive rather than cheap, my argument wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But since memory is cheap, what I'm saying makes sense.

Having a hard drive does NOT cripple your system's performance, if you have a large amount of memory in your system (including VRAM) and a fast processor.

 

[Phynaz]

i went back to mechanical because the constant need to watch where certain things install, cache is dropped, and the myriad of tweaks to perform in windows in order to reduce writes to the thing

You don't need to do any of these things.

 

[sequoia464]

Yes, a high end SSD drive is much faster than my raptors in RAID 0..

But is it faster than memory? Hell no..

That's the entire point of my argument guys.

Have you ever used a decent machine with a good SSD in it?

 

[zCypher]

Yeah, except you still have to load everything the first time, and all over again any time it happens to be flushed out of RAM for whatever reason or you reboot your computer. SSD also offers drastically improved multitasking performance which greatly alleviates the most annoying part of the hard drive bottleneck.

Look at it this way, your computer is comprised of all these components, and the hard drive is the slowest part. Why NOT upgrade the weakest link? It will always make sense to keep an HDD for storage as long as the price per GB is so much better, but unless you're really strapped for cash I don't see why you'd pass on an SSD as a boot/app drive.

Now that I've upgraded my mother's computers to SSDs, even she refuses to ever go back and she's definitely no techie type! I think that says a lot!

 

[etrigan420]

I came straight from a 640GB WD Black to a Samsung 840Pro, and after about a month, my reaction thus far is...meh.

I felt more of a "perceived" loss of speed going from 2 raided 75GB Raptors to the WD Black than a "perceived" gain going from the Black to the Pro. :\

The *numbers* are there with the Pro, but I was lead to believe that it would be some "life altering experience" (hyperbole...obviously)

It restarts really fast...I guess...

I would imagine it might have a greater impact based on different usage.

 

[Dadofamunky]

OP: I think you're rationalizing, pure and simple. Get in. The water's fine!

No matter what you argue, eventually you still have to load your OS and applications. I think using a mechanical disk of any kind as your bootloader and apploader is an unnecessary bottleneck. What is especially stupid is expecting an 840 Pro or any other SSD to compensate for performance deficiencies in other parts of the system. To get the most out of a modern SSD, you need to have a well-balanced system, which includes mechanical drives for bulk storage.

 

[Hulk]

OP - Stay with your current setup since you are happy with it. I personally could never go back to mechanical disks but why change since you don't know what you're missing and you are satisfied now?

 

[lagokc]

You spent quite a bit of money on ultra-high-performance drives before SSDs really took off so you're in a bit of an uncommon situation. For new systems it's getting harder and harder to recommend mechanical drives.

Currently a 1TB velociraptor is $230 and a 1TB SSD is $600. That gap closes every year.

 

[dma0991]

You don't think you need it because you haven't tried it. Even so, it might only be of some improvement perceivable to day to day use while the performance is only obvious in benchmarks. I have 2 PCs, one with a 128GB SSD and one with a plain 320GB HDD. The latter feels like a turtle in comparison. I didn't get into the performance HDD/RAID bandwagon so to me the difference felt is huge.

If you don't think you need it now, that's fine. I do suggest waiting for 512GB SSDs to be in a more affordable price range. That would be the ideal time I'd replace my 128GB.

 

[Eug]

I have SSD in all my laptops and in my net top.

I haven't bothered for my AMD desktop yet. It has got a 640 GB regular 7200 rpm drive and 8 GB RAM.

SSD would be an improvement but I don't think it is worth spending $200 for a 256 GB SSD for that machine. I'll probably upgrade when I can get a 256 for super cheap but not now. However, for the laptops and net top, it was absolutely mandatory, because they had slow laptop drives.

BTW, part of the reason on the desktop is storage space. 256 is already a compromise and I only have one drive bay. I suppose I could stuff in an SSD somewhere since they're so small and I do have an extra SATA port for two drives, but it'd be a kludge.

 

[MrX8503]

I came straight from a 640GB WD Black to a Samsung 840Pro, and after about a month, my reaction thus far is...meh.

I felt more of a "perceived" loss of speed going from 2 raided 75GB Raptors to the WD Black than a "perceived" gain going from the Black to the Pro. :\

The *numbers* are there with the Pro, but I was lead to believe that it would be some "life altering experience" (hyperbole...obviously)

It restarts really fast...I guess...

I would imagine it might have a greater impact based on different usage.

Can you boot windows before the window logo completes on a wd black? Can you launch an app and use it immediately right after your windows desktop shows up?

I have SSD in all my laptops and in my net top.

I haven't bothered for my AMD desktop yet. It has got a 640 GB regular 7200 rpm drive and 8 GB RAM.

SSD would be an improvement but I don't think it is worth spending $200 for a 256 GB SSD for that machine. I'll probably upgrade when I can get a 256 for super cheap but not now. However, for the laptops and net top, it was absolutely mandatory, because they had slow laptop drives.

BTW, part of the reason on the desktop is storage space. 256 is already a compromise and I only have one drive bay. I suppose I could stuff in an SSD somewhere since they're so small and I do have an extra SATA port for two drives, but it'd be a kludge.

I have a 256 M4 on my laptop. On my desktop I have a 128 M4 boot drive for important apps. For storage, a 1TB HDD with a 64 M4 SSD cache using Intel SRT.

Overall, every high performance rig needs an SSD.

 

[Blain]

If a person is happy using spinning platters, by all means, they should continue to do so.
We will still love and embrace you as part of the AnandTech Forums family.

Mechanical drive... SSD,
Water cooling... air cooled,
SLI... onboard video,
Desktop... mobile,
CRT... LCD,
AMD... Intel...
:thumbsup: We're all family here.

 

[sequoia464]

If a person is happy using spinning platters, by all means, they should continue to do so.

You have a good point, my particular case was coming from a couple of WD blacks (not raided at the time) to using my first 80 gb X25 - it was an amazing upgrade, but I haven't used raided raptors either, so hard for me to compare.

Quite a few other SSD's since then, pretty much all SSD's these days, even for storage.

 

[randomrogue]

I went Raptor 72GB to SSD and then back to mechanical since the drive failed. There's a difference but you adjust to mechanical in about a day when you go back. This was OCZ though and since then I think reliability has increased (maybe not with OCZ), prices have dropped, and speeds have significantly increased.

Do you need one? No. I still run the Raptor. Thing is ancient but it does the job and it does it well.

There is definitely quite a bit of bandwagon hoopla associated with these drives. I personally am not that impressed by saving 8 seconds on my start up time and 5 seconds on my map loads. When the time comes for my next upgrade I hope things are more impressive. As it was, you saved some seconds here and there and it was kinda "cool" but it wasn't needed.

 

[KingFatty]

Um, it's all about your usage.

Have you ever tried to overclock? That can involve rebooting and loading windows a lot of times. That SSD speed advantage really makes a noticeable difference there.

Ever load software? Installing and uninstalling things is so much faster on the SSD.

If you never reboot, and you never load software, then maybe you won't mind a hard drive.

 

[Eug]

I have a 256 M4 on my laptop. On my desktop I have a 128 M4 boot drive for important apps. For storage, a 1TB HDD with a 64 M4 SSD cache using Intel SRT.

Since I only have one hard drive bay in this desktop, I'd have to do something creative to get a setup like what you have. Maybe I'd have to velcro the SSD to the optical drive or something. And yes I'm being serious.

But like I said, I don't feel a big need to do that for this machine.

Overall, every high performance rig needs an SSD.

Ironically, it's the low performance rigs in my house which all have SSDs. Why? They all had laptop drives, poor to mediocre CPUs, and 2-4 GB RAM. SSD has a much, much greater effect on the overall responsiveness of these machines than it would for a desktop machine with 8 GB RAM and fast 7200 rpm hard drives.

ie. 7200 rpm 3.5" hard drives are good enough for a lot of people, but for the same people, 5400 rpm 2.5" hard drives are not, esp. if those latter machines are low on RAM.

My next desktop will have SSD for sure, but it's not like I have to SSD in it right now.

Um, it's all about your usage.

Have you ever tried to overclock? That can involve rebooting and loading windows a lot of times. That SSD speed advantage really makes a noticeable difference there.

I never overclock anymore. I find it a total waste of time.

Ever load software? Installing and uninstalling things is so much faster on the SSD.

If you never reboot, and you never load software, then maybe you won't mind a hard drive.

Installing software is a one-time deal most of the time. I don't feel the need to install Office on my machine 5X a day.

Also, I reboot my Windows 7 desktop only a few times per month. I'm guessing SSD would save about 15-20 s per reboot.

One benefit for installs would be for Windows Update, but what I do for that is wait until I don't need the machine before I do the update. I start the update and then go to bed or whatever. In fact, I do that whether or not I have an SSD in the machine, so usually no big benefit to SSD there either.

 

[beginner99]

Obviously raptors in RAID 0 are a lot faster than the average 7200 rpm drive so the gain of going ssd will be less.

I don't get it how you can ever go back from ssd to hdd. I could never go back. It's these random stutters and delays that drive you mad with a hdd besides the boot time. What many forget is that even after you see the desktop a hdd system mostly only becomes actually usable another several seconds or even minutes later.

 

[Eug]

Obviously raptors in RAID 0 are a lot faster than the average 7200 rpm drive so the gain of going ssd will be less.

I don't get it how you can ever go back from ssd to hdd. I could never go back. It's these random stutters and delays that drive you mad with a hdd besides the boot time. What many forget is that even after you see the desktop a hdd system mostly only becomes actually usable another several seconds or even minutes later.

Seconds yes, but minutes? Time for a defrag? Or are you running a virus scan after each bootup? I run my virus scans at 3 am while I'm asleep. Or maybe it's time to clean out your Startup folder or something.

And like I mentioned earlier, I only reboot a few times a month.

Don't get me wrong, I really like SSD. As alluded to earlier, I have 3 machines with SSD already. However, I also fully understand why someone might not feel the need to run out and upgrade his/her desktop machine with SSD now. There are things one can do to keep a desktop running smoothly, like maxing out the RAM, keeping the drive defragged, and deleting all unnecessary software. A lot of OEM machines come with loads of crapware that load up at boot, and I always make a point of deleting it all before I actually start using the machine.

 

[randomrogue]

Obviously raptors in RAID 0 are a lot faster than the average 7200 rpm drive so the gain of going ssd will be less.

I don't get it how you can ever go back from ssd to hdd. I could never go back. It's these random stutters and delays that drive you mad with a hdd besides the boot time. What many forget is that even after you see the desktop a hdd system mostly only becomes actually usable another several seconds or even minutes later.

I'm not sure the relationship between seconds and minutes but my home system is seconds while my netbook is defintely a minute or so as it loads skype and a few programs into the taskbar. If I was to guess I'd say it's more related to memory though than the hard drive. I have 8GB on my home system and 1GB in my netbook.