orydian
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« on: July 03, 2011, 03:30:25 PM » |
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Hi, looks like I need a new HDD, so getting a 64gb SSD for super quick booting, etc. However, there's a lot of different versions - http://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=64gb+ssdFor a fast boot, am I better off with a quicker read speed, or a quicker write speed, or a compromise? Any help appreciated. Cheers!  ory. |
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keri
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« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2011, 11:05:46 PM » |
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My boss did this on his home pc and has had no end of trouble, yes he can get into windows in <20s and can boot photoshop CS5 in about 3s, he has corrupted his MBR a couple of times on shutting down as the motherboard kills the power before the drive has finished writing. Most mobos can't cope with the SSDs, especially the 700mb/s PCI express ones like he has. If you are going for the slow SATA ones you shouldn't have this problem afaik
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Keri
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Dom
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« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2011, 09:20:29 AM » |
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SSDs are still pretty expensive aren't they? I could do with a new boot drive, but the one I've got now is 160Gb and almost full, so I'd need a 250Gb SSD to make it worth upgrading, but the last time I checked they were about £300.
I've noticed that they're becoming more common now though. If you install the DX11 patch for Crysis 2 on the PC, the recommended specs actually say you should have an SSD. The world's gone mad!
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Steve Lampkins
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« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2011, 09:36:31 AM » |
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You don't need such a big boot drive - you should keep all your actual media files on a second drive.
It seems the tech is moving quite rapidly - every month it seems there is some new technology to improve aspects of it. I think I'll hold off a bit.
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Matt
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« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2011, 10:06:55 AM » |
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You don't need such a big boot drive - you should keep all your actual media files on a second drive.
It seems the tech is moving quite rapidly - every month it seems there is some new technology to improve aspects of it. I think I'll hold off a bit.
WHS  Running an OCZ here, 64B and its fast, and had no issues, on 24/7 and in use 9-5 daily... |
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Steve Lampkins
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« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2011, 11:49:16 AM » |
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64B Looks like Billy Gates was being optimistic with his 640K talk. |
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robwhizz
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« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2011, 12:12:40 PM » |
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My boss did this on his home pc and has had no end of trouble, yes he can get into windows in <20s and can boot photoshop CS5 in about 3s, he has corrupted his MBR a couple of times on shutting down as the motherboard kills the power before the drive has finished writing. Most mobos can't cope with the SSDs, especially the 700mb/s PCI express ones like he has. If you are going for the slow SATA ones you shouldn't have this problem afaik
Sounds a bit odd. PCIe cards for SATA have been around since the first day of PCIe and I've never heard of mobos dropping power before they've finished writing. SSDs on PCIe are essentially the same thing, it's just a drive controller using the PCI bus. Especially as the drive is so fast. It should finish writing quicker than a slow SATA one, and I can't believe a mobo would kill power on the PCI bus but leave the onboard sata controller on for a bit longer to finish writing. Either a poor motherboard or general compatibility problem with the hardware that you can sometimes get, or most likely a driver issue. I'd check the manufacturer forums for similar issues or driver updates or workarounds. I really like the idea of using PCIe drives for boot, but it's too expensive for my tastes. I can live with a longer boot (though I use sleep which is almost instant anyway), and longer to boot programs as once they are open you will get your speed from memory speed and capacity and CPU. Personally I'd invest in 64bit and lots of RAM before buying SSDs if working to a budget. Depends what software you are using though. Lightroom is my most used program, so having 8GB of RAM is better than a fast drive. If you are doing something hard drive intensive though it may well be worth it, even if it's just to have a fast scratch disk for video previews and the like. |
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Great post Jon! I have been following the effort since you started it, and although I have understood its purpose this post does a really great job solidifying the full rationale.
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Matt
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« Reply #7 on: July 04, 2011, 01:05:24 PM » |
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Agreed. But Ory already has a high spec machine, and his current HD could be the cause of some weird hanging and booting issues, I recommended an SSD as he stores all data on a drobo - so he would benefit from the fast boot times and speeds, and does not require a high storage level other then for program installs, which 64GB ( ) will provide him (about 40GB after Windows 7) My boss did this on his home pc and has had no end of trouble, yes he can get into windows in <20s and can boot photoshop CS5 in about 3s, he has corrupted his MBR a couple of times on shutting down as the motherboard kills the power before the drive has finished writing. Most mobos can't cope with the SSDs, especially the 700mb/s PCI express ones like he has. If you are going for the slow SATA ones you shouldn't have this problem afaik
Sounds a bit odd. PCIe cards for SATA have been around since the first day of PCIe and I've never heard of mobos dropping power before they've finished writing. SSDs on PCIe are essentially the same thing, it's just a drive controller using the PCI bus. Especially as the drive is so fast. It should finish writing quicker than a slow SATA one, and I can't believe a mobo would kill power on the PCI bus but leave the onboard sata controller on for a bit longer to finish writing. Either a poor motherboard or general compatibility problem with the hardware that you can sometimes get, or most likely a driver issue. I'd check the manufacturer forums for similar issues or driver updates or workarounds. I really like the idea of using PCIe drives for boot, but it's too expensive for my tastes. I can live with a longer boot (though I use sleep which is almost instant anyway), and longer to boot programs as once they are open you will get your speed from memory speed and capacity and CPU. Personally I'd invest in 64bit and lots of RAM before buying SSDs if working to a budget. Depends what software you are using though. Lightroom is my most used program, so having 8GB of RAM is better than a fast drive. If you are doing something hard drive intensive though it may well be worth it, even if it's just to have a fast scratch disk for video previews and the like. |
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Dom
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« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2011, 01:09:14 PM » |
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You don't need such a big boot drive - you should keep all your actual media files on a second drive.
I do. The 160Gb are taken up with Windows, programs and games. Everything else is stored on other drives. The system has worked well for me for the last few years, and I'd recommend doing it that way to anyone. I guess 160Gb just isn't as much as it used to be. |
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Jem
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« Reply #9 on: July 04, 2011, 01:53:04 PM » |
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Wow. I'm actually a little shocked that you use so much space just for windows / progs and games. I use less than 40GB for everything I have... :|
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oi.
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Matt
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« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2011, 02:27:39 PM » |
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Thanks for the replies everyone. Any chance we could revisit my original question?   ory. Highest of both, but boot would be read speed Write is when saving files, and shutting down Id imagine. |
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robwhizz
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« Reply #13 on: July 04, 2011, 03:46:32 PM » |
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Write is when saving files, and shutting down Id imagine.
Also worth having good write speeds if you use memory intensive programs that will need scratch disks. I would imagine having your scratch disks run off an SSD would do wonders when working with high GB data and video etc. |
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Great post Jon! I have been following the effort since you started it, and although I have understood its purpose this post does a really great job solidifying the full rationale.
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Dom
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« Reply #14 on: July 05, 2011, 10:18:59 AM » |
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Also, if your PC uses the page file a lot (due to not having a lot of RAM or whatever) then having good read and write speeds would be a bonus I'd imagine.
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Dom
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« Reply #15 on: July 05, 2011, 10:20:59 AM » |
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Wow. I'm actually a little shocked that you use so much space just for windows / progs and games. I use less than 40GB for everything I have... :|
I'm sure it's mostly the games to be honest (not that I have that many installed, but they do take up 10Gb a time or something). I try not to install loads of crap on my machine, but even so, I've got about 30Gb free out of 160. I don't really know where it's all gone. |
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Matt
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« Reply #16 on: July 05, 2011, 11:55:23 AM » |
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Also, if your PC uses the page file a lot (due to not having a lot of RAM or whatever) then having good read and write speeds would be a bonus I'd imagine.
I think he has liuke 8GB so should be godo there... |
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Steve Lampkins
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« Reply #17 on: July 05, 2011, 12:26:27 PM » |
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I think he has liuke 8GB so should be godo there...
I'm trying to follow this, so please cut down the technogeekbable, thx. |
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Matt
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« Reply #20 on: July 13, 2011, 12:41:33 PM » |
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After £100+ spent and a full day to reinstall everything the difference is... f all!
Boot time is identical and programs like iTunes still take a decade to load. The only real difference is I have to turn on the Drobo every time I use the system due to the lack of space.
Complete and utter waste of time and money.
Really? I have never known it to not make a difference. Is it the only drive in the PC? I upgraded one yesterday and it was poo fast again. |
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robwhizz
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« Reply #21 on: July 13, 2011, 01:22:31 PM » |
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Really? I have never known it to not make a difference. Is it the only drive in the PC? I upgraded one yesterday and it was poo fast again.
Have you timed it Ory? Could it be that it's only making a small enough difference that it's not noticeable, but if you went back to the old system you may notice a the difference. What drive did you have in before? SSDs score on random access, but might not beat a regular hard drive in sequential read by much. What have you bought, and what has it replaced? Have you tried benchmarking the drives? Is it running in Sata 2 or 3, or is it on an old Sata 1 port? Tried changing drivers? I'm not really up to speed on the latest specs for SSDs, but I think I'm right that you shouldn't expect super fast boot times unless you are buying really expensive drives on Sata3 or those that Keri mentioned that drop into the PCIe slot, or RAID array etc. [edit] A quick search and I've found people running Sata2 SSDs claiming ~25 sec boot times. So what is your boot time? |
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« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 01:28:27 PM by robwhizz »
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Great post Jon! I have been following the effort since you started it, and although I have understood its purpose this post does a really great job solidifying the full rationale.
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orydian
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« Reply #22 on: July 13, 2011, 01:27:12 PM » |
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After £100+ spent and a full day to reinstall everything the difference is... f all!
Boot time is identical and programs like iTunes still take a decade to load. The only real difference is I have to turn on the Drobo every time I use the system due to the lack of space.
Complete and utter waste of time and money.
Really? I have never known it to not make a difference. Is it the only drive in the PC? I upgraded one yesterday and it was poo fast again. Only drive apart from the DVD. Even swapped it so the HDD is on first SATA port. ory. |
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« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 03:05:33 PM by orydian »
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orydian
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« Reply #23 on: July 13, 2011, 01:40:17 PM » |
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Really? I have never known it to not make a difference. Is it the only drive in the PC? I upgraded one yesterday and it was poo fast again.
Have you timed it Ory? Could it be that it's only making a small enough difference that it's not noticeable, but if you went back to the old system you may notice a the difference. What drive did you have in before? SSDs score on random access, but might not beat a regular hard drive in sequential read by much. What have you bought, and what has it replaced? Have you tried benchmarking the drives? Is it running in Sata 2 or 3, or is it on an old Sata 1 port? Tried changing drivers? I'm not really up to speed on the latest specs for SSDs, but I think I'm right that you shouldn't expect super fast boot times unless you are buying really expensive drives on Sata3 or those that Keri mentioned that drop into the PCIe slot, or RAID array etc. This isn't F1. I didn't spend £100+ to sit in front of my computer with a stopwatch. If it made a noticable difference, I would have noticed. I had to swap the drives several times in the 'upgrade' and could see there was (at best) a couple of seconds between them. As far as I know they're both SATAII on SATAII ports. Bought a Samsung 64 SSD to replace a 500gb WD Caviar Blue, as apparently it was playing up. What I'm most annoyed about it the giant leap back in convenience I've taken for a negligible change in performance. I'll fanny around with the drivers to see if it makes any difference, but I'm not expecting much. Cheers both. ory. |
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« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 03:05:19 PM by orydian »
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orydian
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« Reply #24 on: July 13, 2011, 01:48:55 PM » |
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[edit] A quick search and I've found people running Sata2 SSDs claiming ~25 sec boot times. So what is your boot time?
About that, but it was the same before. ory. *edit* All the last edits are because I forgot to add 'ory.' to the end. Seriously losing it. |
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« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 03:08:42 PM by orydian »
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Steve Lampkins
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« Reply #26 on: July 13, 2011, 03:21:18 PM » |
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All the last edits are because I forgot to add 'ory.' to the end. Seriously? Is that some form of OCD? |
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Matt
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« Reply #27 on: July 13, 2011, 04:04:31 PM » |
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Right. I've just been through *everything* and I've discovered the origin of the problem.
Every time I boot up Windows, the first thing I launch is Thunderbird. Discovered it was downloading CRON notifications every five minutes and storing them ALL. Cue huge folder full of a bigillion emails slowing down the whole computer, as Thunderbird is always running.
Changed settings to just keep last 30 and ahem, WOW! Programs are launching in the blink of an eye, installs are super quick, and I have a dunce cap on. Really wish I wasn't so tired all the time, as I would have figured this out ages ago. C'est la vie.
So... as you were. Don't mind me and thanks again for your help guys.
ory.
Plank.
Glad to hear its working. Told you it would make a difference |
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orydian
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« Reply #28 on: July 13, 2011, 04:18:43 PM » |
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All the last edits are because I forgot to add 'ory.' to the end. Seriously? Is that some form of OCD? Short answer - yes. ORY. |
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