Unimpressed by new SSD!

[hipshooter]

I tried a SSD, I am rather unimpressed - I have one question:

How come everybody proposes I should like have a 'new' machine?

It is all sitting on the same old 6GB/ sec interface as the HDD.

PS. The Install procedure was amazing - no doubt about that. But in daily operation I am still sort of waiting for the commands to execute.

 

[lagokc]

What are the rest of the specs for your system? A SSD will help a lot with load times but it can only make up for so much.

 

[Eug]

1. If you have a fast system with a fast optimized hard drive, running a relatively clean install of Windows, and lots of memory, then an SSD will be faster, but not Oh-my-god-that's-totally-awesome faster. In fact, while I love SSD, I didn't bother with one for my Windows desktop because it's already decently fast. I don't think it's worth it to spend another $100 on it.

2. If your CPU is very slow, your computer will still likely feel slow.

3. If you did a clone of your hard drive to SSD, then the SSD may be mis-aligned, which significantly affects performance of the SSD.

 

[hipshooter]

The system is no speed demon but it should be 'decent' it is:

AMD FX 990 board, FX 4170 CPU, DDR3 1600, GT 640 2GB for a quick rundown

 

[lagokc]

What commands are you waiting on to execute? Even my AMD E-350 with a SSD feels pretty fast for most tasks but completely chokes on games.

 

[hipshooter]

I should add - I built this myself, as I have done since -94, more or less. The machine was quite responsive and when I say 'waiting' that does not apply to the situation with the HD in it. But you execute something and take a breath of fresh air and then it lights up. It is still pretty much like that. And I have 8GB Mem. And the SSD is Samsung 840 Pro. The OS is freshly installed Win 7 U and it has been updating for round about a week or so.

 

[hipshooter]

Lagokc:

I haven't really been doing a lot of actual work here, it's completely new but a couple simulators, nothing like heavy gaming, doing the e-mail and doing some surfing, stuff like that. It's beginning to dawn on me that this may only be GOOD in the workload situation?

 

[GlacierFreeze]

Post screenshot of AS SSD benchmark results.

 

[hipshooter]

Ah - I took it out thinking I would try it in another system, roughly likethis one. Same memory, AM3 MB, Phenom ll CPU, but XP x64.

I do know Win 7 is better suited, but I do a bit more disk intensive work on that system, I'm not sure at the moment. . .I feel much better now because to be frank I only just installed Win 7, and I realize I do NOT do anything that would trigger the SSD to show its potential, also after many years on XP x64, I felt alienated on Win 7, and felt I had been isolated from my old management routine, but already all this is coming back. So, perhaps Ill just put it back in and not feeling bad about anything. Cost-wise, it's hardly a waste anymore, I could afford it (Just).

Moreover, I don't have the AS Bench available. So, let's give that a rest for a bit.

I sincerely want to give everybody a big 'THANKYOU' for rapid respons, interest and kind suggestions.

I still may wonder, though, about the SATA3 interface:

Since both these systems (HD & SSD) is being served this way and the SSD isn't being held back, that would mean the old HDD's throughput cannot serve, or fully utilize the interface, does that mean SATA3 is wasted on non RAID'ed HDD's? Because I can't remember anyone ever suggesting that!

 

[24601]

If you have 16gB of ram and aren't running things that approximate databases as a majority of what you are doing on the computer then SSD is 100% pointless compared to a good hard drive (120+ mB/s) that isn't fragmented.

 

[KillaBong]

A lot of people say that an ssd makes a huge difference in system performance, but I think it is highly dependent on what kind of computer work you do.

If you're like me and mostly play multiplayer games, then you are just waiting on everyone else anyway, so the ssd provides zero benefit. Your money would be MUCH better spent on more graphics power.

However, opening up windows and productivity software will seem much snappier. The system should boot much faster and programs seem to pop open almost instantly.

So in my personal usage, it is pretty much the least important piece of hardware, and I would only suggest an ssd to a computer gamer after absolutely all other hardware is updated.

 

[dagamer34]

What were you running previously?

 

[hipshooter]

Yes, pretty much the conclusion I've arrived at - an expense that could have been spared. But richer for the experience! Someone else could benefit, hopefully.

I just helped my old scottish medicin to evaporate and the smell fills the room, not a bad evening!

 

[hipshooter]

@dagamer:

On the XP x64, I did some coding, trying quite modestly to brush up on C#. But Otherwise I've made myself a name as a ' goofy' style system builder. No business!

 

[HardcoreRobot]

in every system i have installed on its made an immediate, noticeable difference.

does that mean SATA3 is wasted on non RAID'ed HDD's?

YES

i too am curious to see a benchmark on the new drive

 

[dave_the_nerd]

does that mean SATA3 is wasted on non RAID'ed HDD's? Because I can't remember anyone ever suggesting that!

No, we have been - usually at the same time we're endorsing SSDs as THE NEXT BIG THING.

Even SATA1 isn't a bottleneck for most consumer-level HDDs. (<150MB/sec.)

But anyway; yes, if you're a light computer user and don't have I/O intensive habits or workloads, you'll notice less of a difference.

It certainly doesn't boost FPS in gaming, MP3 encoding time, or web page loading.

If you have an HDD and you notice it crunching, chewing, vibrating, and blinking a lot a lot while you contemplate the deeper meaning of progress bars, you need an SSD. But if you most of your time waiting for your CPU to do stuff while your HDD sits idle, then you won't notice an improvement.

You can use System Monitor to watch you computer as it does things and see what the bottlenecks are.

 

[hipshooter]

@HardcoreRobot:

I am sure there is nothing mysterious with the Samsung, I simply expected too much - or rather, I was sceptic from the start, but then the system installed with such excellence that even surprised me (Around, or less than 10 min. for Win7 U)
The win index was 7.9 Which I don't think mean anything other than it's a modern device.

I'll be busy the next couple of days, but come Week-end I may have a chance to come up with something. I have another problem with the 'thing' you see, it's my case is an Antec p180 and I have not found a way to fit it in securely but had it wedged into place but now that it's out I want a proper way to fix it in permanently

 

[hipshooter]

@Dave:

No, my HD is rather snappy and I am certainly quite happy wiith it. It's a WD Blue drive, but whenever you issue a menu item you can inhale while the machine thinks about what to do. My issue with the Samsung was that not much had changed that way, but I shouldn't have expected anything else since all I actually had it doing was to have it idling while the rest of the machine collected the e-mail and websites i needed.

It's much too early to start feeling bad about anything. Me for one, should not have let the reviews run away with my mind without at least giving it a fair chance of strutting it's stuff.

I am really very happy about the response I got from this 'wailing' I am not at all surprised to find that I could (most probably) have saved the money but I don't think it's been any waste. It has been an experience and one that will serve me well I believe.

Thanks to everyone!

 

[pcslookout]

Yeah I feel the same way with SSDs but I still have one.

I noticed a huge difference when opening more than one program at once really quickly or doing heavy load on the system.

 

[dma0991]

You might not tell the difference going from a SSD to a HDD. However, try going back to a HDD based rig and the difference becomes quite obvious. For me, going back to PCs(my laptop and secondary PC) with HDD is an unpleasant experience, slow and unresponsive.

 

[pandemonium]

Obvious question, but is AHCI mode enabled in BIOS? And which SATA port are you using? From all of my experiences with JMICRON controllers, don't use the black SATA ports, use the brown ones that are native (and also 6Gpbs).

 

[beginner99]

You might not tell the difference going from a SSD to a HDD. However, try going back to a HDD based rig and the difference becomes quite obvious. For me, going back to PCs(my laptop and secondary PC) with HDD is an unpleasant experience, slow and unresponsive.

I fully agree. Because with an SSD stuff seems to work as you expect you don't really notice it. But once you go back to HDD and random stuttering happens...you will then really see the difference.

 

[hipshooter]

Yes, this all seems natural now. I shall try and find a way to have the antec accommodate for the SSD during the W/E.

And 'ahci' is certainly enabled, the SATA connectors I used one of the first three. My Asrock, has 8 with the last two being for RAID. They are all grey!

When I have it reinstalled I shall find a way to give it a real 'whacking'.


Thanks,all!

PS: This, so long, has been a revealing ordeal - if not profitable. . .

 

[BrightCandle]

It makes a really notably difference for me. I see a good 50% reduction with compilation, I see my IDE load in about 1/4 of the time, my web browser loads like its been cached everytime and any application I load is notably faster than without it. I have run things off the HDD and some of the apps take a while to load from disk.

But its not fundamental, if you don't spend your day opening and closing and reading and writing files it really wouldn't make much difference. Email, web surfing and watching media really don't benefit from an SSD. Occasionally a game will load quite a bit quicker, for Shogun 2 that makes a lot of difference but for most it doesn't make much difference at all. I haven't bothered to upgrade from my m4 because I suspect I am seeing the benefits now and wouldn't see much from going twice as fast in a few key places, my CPU I think is the limit now in a lot of things I do, but it used to be the HDD.

 

[nk215]

My SSDs are used as boot drive, cache drive for photoshop/bridge and to host VMware virtual HDs.

Outlook pst files, along with programs are also on the SSD drives. (I use junctions to move programs from one SSD to another to make space when needed).

I see very large performance improvements with SSD.