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Computers and Software => Computers and Software - General => Topic started by: Frog on December 11, 2012, 10:10:06 PM
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Okay, gonna bite the bullet and finally replace an old machine while Windows 7 is still easy to find.
I know that these solid state drives are still pretty new, though price is coming down, and reliability is still a little iffy, but I find that a 128G Intel is within my budget. Is that sufficient for my OS and applications? I'll, of course have another larger drive for data. Pros and cons?
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If you're going to save all your data on a mechanical hard-drive, great.
That is the way to do it. 120gig is tons of room for OS and software ( unless you're a gamer, perhaps ).
Your ssd performance for system bootup and application start will make you smile.
Never defrag an SSD, they have a built in..cleaner, if you will.
A defragmentation program causes an ssd to do extra work, that is not necessary .
.02 off the top of my head.
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We use ssd in 3 of our rigs and its night and day in performance. Cons, non other than cost really.
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frog, i would talk to pierre, he has a great source for used systems that will kick the pants off new. I wouldn't buy anything else. Just bought one last week...freaking awesome.
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If you install an SSD, do you have to re-install everything?....
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you can probably mirror it. I would imagine that as they are out for a while, the price will drop and the size will increase. 120gb won't do anything here...I have WAY to much porn stored. ;)
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Keep the porn on a regular drive..
;)
If I was putting my OS and such on an SSD, I'd just do a clean install.
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Funny seeing references to boot-up because the rig I currently use has essentially been on for almost seven years! Oh sure, every now and then during a cyber brain freeze, I'll reboot, and there was the occasional power outage and hardware upgrade, repair and replacement (one power supply, one fan, and one hard drive), but in general, it's always on.
I can only imagine the increase in efficiency I will see with even a meager newer system let alone one of these quad core ivy bridge 8 or 16 meg memory beasts!
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I built my wife's personal assistant a PC the other day and put a 120 gig SSD in it and it's extremely peppy. I wasn't expecting much but it was pretty slick.
I'm not putting together another one for my father-in-law's fishing buddy.
It's an A8 AMD processor but for what they are doing (including some graphics work) it's extremely peppy!
120 gig is plenty for OS and programs.
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NewEgg has a Samsung 128gb for 139.99.....Seems like a decent price but is it a decent drive?....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL121112&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL121112-_-EMC-121112-Index-_-SSD-_-20147192-L0H (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL121112&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL121112-_-EMC-121112-Index-_-SSD-_-20147192-L0H)
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This came yesterday from Tiger Direct, 256K for $159. I buy from them occasionally, and I got a final price of $129, but when it doesn't know who I am it was a little higher.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=2983951&sku=O261-9802&SRCCODE=WEM3428BY&cm_mmc=email-_-Main-_-WEM3428-_-tigeremail3428&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEM3428&cm (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=2983951&sku=O261-9802&SRCCODE=WEM3428BY&cm_mmc=email-_-Main-_-WEM3428-_-tigeremail3428&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEM3428&cm)
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This is all good news. Been wanting to switch to ssd for a long time now but pricing and reliability have always been an issue. Thanks y'all!
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I'm a full-blown SSD fanboy. These things are just amazing for a boot drive. Reliability and longevity has improved from the early days.
DON'T store your data on them....unless you only use Vector Art (tiny files) and don't ever anticipate needing mega storage, or maybe a laptop that goes on the road with you.
Frog, I think I have the very drive you are looking at in one of my machines... an Intel 520 128GB I believe. It is in a custom built XP box....because we have some legacy software. With the SSD that sucker is a racehorse. I have a Windows 7 box with an OCZ Agility 3 SSD and it's pretty snappy too, but not so much as the Intel 520. I have 2 other SSD's and the Intel 520 is my favorite. I'm eventually going to SSD's for ALL of my Boot Drives.
My new habit is to partition them and store the OS backup (Acronis Clone) to the logical backup partition. It takes just over a minute per GB (with a quick bus) for me to clone our OS partitions. Then that backup file can be copied via Windows to the Network Shared Folders for archiving and easy access, should something happen. Doing fresh OS re-installs, "gives me a PAIN in a place I can't locate"...to quote a famous preacher, Adrian Rogers. Restoring from an Acronis True Image cloned boot drive is fabulously easy, unless you've stored your data there also. Don't do that unless you've no other choice......
AND USE BACKUPS of that boot drive.
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I have a 120gb in my main rig. Often only about 1gb of open space and I do not use that hard drive for storage at all other than the OS and Programs. Just ordered a 240GB today actually.
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NewEgg has a Samsung 128gb for 139.99.....Seems like a decent price but is it a decent drive?....
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL121112&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL121112-_-EMC-121112-Index-_-SSD-_-20147192-L0H[/url] ([url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL121112&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL121112-_-EMC-121112-Index-_-SSD-_-20147192-L0H[/url])
The 120's I just recently bought were a hair under $100 bucks, not worth $40 bucks for another 8 gigs in my opinion.
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But is Samsung a decent brand for an SSD?.....I have lots of Samsung in my house and they seem okay.....But no computer equipment.....
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Just got a 240gb Intel for 165.
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But is Samsung a decent brand for an SSD?.....I have lots of Samsung in my house and they seem okay.....But no computer equipment.....
I don't know. I'd read a few reviews on the net, but that can be frustrating. I bought a Kingston 120 SSD from a Craigslist ad for $50, and it seems fine, even though it's pretty old (in computer years, which are like dog years...only worse).
Wow graphic disorder, you must have some huge programs, or an awful lot of them. Seriously, you don't have any data on your boot drive??!?
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But is Samsung a decent brand for an SSD?.....I have lots of Samsung in my house and they seem okay.....But no computer equipment.....
I don't know. I'd read a few reviews on the net, but that can be frustrating. I bought a Kingston 120 SSD from a Craigslist ad for $50, and it seems fine, even though it's pretty old (in computer years, which are like dog years...only worse).
Wow graphic disorder, you must have some huge programs, or an awful lot of them. Seriously, you don't have any data on your boot drive??!?
No data at all on our boot drives here. Each computer here has a large secondary drive in each machine. Most of the time a drive fail is the OS drive in my experience, so to be most safe data is kept on other drives.
I don't feel I have a lot of programs at all. I have CS5 Suite, Fastmanager, Serpation Studio, Office, Cute FTP, Quicken, Chrome, Versa Check, hmmm that's all the ones that amount to much.
The killer I think and I need to look at it is probably iTunes, that is the one program I think that keeps some data still on the OS drive. (album artwork and so on). I have a HUGE music collection, the actual music lives on a 3rd drive which is music only. Plus I assume my iPhone back ups are living in iTunes I would assume as well. My 240 will be here today. It's one of those things its so cheap for these drives why not have more.
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Just looked, yup iPhone back ups, man those were eating a lot of space. Had some in there from old phones. I now have 13gb free. But hey no big deal, I still want a bigger drive.
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Here is the drives in my main computer.
C: OS/Programs (SSD)
D: Music (WD Green)
E: Scratch Disk (10RPM Vraptor)
W: Main Data Drive (WD Black)
F: Seagate External (Copies W: each night)
Then our server copies all of those every night other than the external. So I have 3 copies of my most important stuff and 2 of everything else. Each computer here is very similar to this.
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But is Samsung a decent brand for an SSD?.....I have lots of Samsung in my house and they seem okay.....But no computer equipment.....
I thought I had posted this, guess I got pulled away.
Samsung is one of the few companies that actually produce all their chips. So, say you buy a Crucial or AData drive... who knows what chips are inside. But with the Samsung, you know you are getting Samsung parts.
Do I have a Samsung? Nope, I got whatever seems to be the best bang for the buck at the time. ;)
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I didn't know Samsung built its own chips. That's good to know.
Brandt, I still think you have something going on with your Boot Drive, some data mirroring or....gosh....I really have no idea. I don't have CS-5 so maybe it's just gargantuan.
If you are doing a clean install on the 240, keep track of how things progress in terms of OS data usage, and if you please, report back to just to satisfy my curiosity. Something seems off to me, and I'll wager you won't get back to 111Gigs when you quit. But hey, with a 240 Boot, you could do 1 (One) cloned backup FAAAAST then send it to your network storage.
I can't tell you how much I HATE doing fresh installs on old rigs, when I could have used Acronis. You'd have to be an egghead to enjoy that sort of thing. If it's a new rig, it's a little less painful. YMMV. I like to do work WITH my computers, not work ON them. (oh maybe a little....)
I LOVE Acronis True Image. Mine is an old version that runs off of a "live" CD, and every so often, I go snatch a new image from each of my workstations. But if any of them were 111GB's it would take a good bit of time.
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Directron is local for me -
Samsung 120G - 99.99
http://www.directron.com/mz7td120bw.html (http://www.directron.com/mz7td120bw.html)
Mushkin 180G - 144.99
http://www.directron.com/mknssdcr180gb.html (http://www.directron.com/mknssdcr180gb.html)
But seriously, don't think size on these like you have been doing for years. I know size matters (in some circles), but these drives are best used as only your System Drive containing just the operating system and the installed application programs. That's where they function the best. Fast boot up, super fast program startup and fast processing.
Keep data on your secondary (non SSD) drives, be they internal or external.
With that said, even a 50-100G drive would be a huge improvement over what you're probably used to.
BTW, I run a 120G SSD. Unsure of the brand. Been using it for over a year.
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Wayne I looked at that Samsung and it has a write speed of 130MB/s.....It looks like the one NewEgg has is newer and has a write speed of 390MB/s....That sounds like a lot of difference but does it matter?...
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By default Windows will create a "swap file" (pagefile.sys) equal to the size of your RAM... so given that Brandt LOVES his RAM so much that means that by default he has a 32 gig page file. Plus they have a hibernate file by default as well, you have to turn that off via some command line magic.
Then add to that Brandt still has some Vista machines, I don't think he has upgraded to Win 7 since last we discussed it. Well, Vista is TERRIBLE with their Winsxs folder and there isn't much you can do about it. Win 7 isn't nearly as irresponsible about it but still pretty bad and there is a slick command line that you can run that cleans it up a good bit. More updates the worse it is, so that is partially why Vista is probably so bad since it had a need for so many updates.
I had to upgrade someone's store bought Vista machine because the Winsxs folder was so out of control... totally dumb, put her on Win 7 and haven't heard a complaint still!
My wife has a measly 60 gig SSD in her system (Windows 7). She has 16 gigs of ram, but I squashed the swap file (she doesn't need it) and also trimmed the Winsxs folder and turned off hibernate. She has CS5 most of the suite (yes, it's a HOG), Office 2007 Pro full suite, Access 2003 (runs better than the 2007 version), Sony Vegas 12 pro... various other programs that she needs to do her work. Her machine is snappy and doesn't really have space issues... she did forget to move the drop box by default and started to run out of space till I showed her what was taking up all the space. I use a nifty little app that visually lets you see the whole hard drive and what is taking up most of the space.
So, 120 should be PLENTY and if it gets tight, a little tuning will fix that up.
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By default Windows will create a "swap file" (pagefile.sys) equal to the size of your RAM... so given that Brandt LOVES his RAM so much that means that by default he has a 32 gig page file. Plus they have a hibernate file by default as well, you have to turn that off via some command line magic.
Mines off, been off since day one.
Then add to that Brandt still has some Vista machines, I don't think he has upgraded to Win 7 since last we discussed it. Well, Vista is TERRIBLE with their Winsxs folder and there isn't much you can do about it. Win 7 isn't nearly as irresponsible about it but still pretty bad and there is a slick command line that you can run that cleans it up a good bit. More updates the worse it is, so that is partially why Vista is probably so bad since it had a need for so many updates.
Correct here, that folder is like 17.5gb on my computer and that is after the vsp1cln.exe.
I had to upgrade someone's store bought Vista machine because the Winsxs folder was so out of control... totally dumb, put her on Win 7 and haven't heard a complaint still!
I assume Win 7 is better for sure, but I haven't a complaint about Vista really. No crashes, very quick, works as described, other than using too much drive space which drives are fairly cheap, that's a very easy fix.
My wife has a measly 60 gig SSD in her system (Windows 7). She has 16 gigs of ram, but I squashed the swap file (she doesn't need it) and also trimmed the Winsxs folder and turned off hibernate. She has CS5 most of the suite (yes, it's a HOG), Office 2007 Pro full suite, Access 2003 (runs better than the 2007 version), Sony Vegas 12 pro... various other programs that she needs to do her work. Her machine is snappy and doesn't really have space issues... she did forget to move the drop box by default and started to run out of space till I showed her what was taking up all the space. I use a nifty little app that visually lets you see the whole hard drive and what is taking up most of the space.
So, 120 should be PLENTY and if it gets tight, a little tuning will fix that up.
We clearly come from different schools. You would rather spend your time to make something work, I would rather spend my money so I can use my time how I want.
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Brandt, I've literally spent 10 mins doing said maintenance. Besides, I've also got people that do that for me given that I own a pc repair shop. ;)
We couldn't find our PC speaker to slap in a customer's pc to test for POST beeps while trouble shooting the other day and I said "I know the wife's computer has one" so I pulled the cover off and noticed the fan had a bit of dust collecting on it. I said "hey, get the can of air and vacuum and clean this guy up real quick." Done. ;)
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Brandt, I've literally spent 10 mins doing said maintenance. Besides, I've also got people that do that for me given that I own a pc repair shop. ;)
We couldn't find our PC speaker to slap in a customer's pc to test for POST beeps while trouble shooting the other day and I said "I know the wife's computer has one" so I pulled the cover off and noticed the fan had a bit of dust collecting on it. I said "hey, get the can of air and vacuum and clean this guy up real quick." Done. ;)
That's awesome, but I don't have a PC Repair shop, so I will buy larger drive ($40 bucks more or something) and not have to worry about it ever again.
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Wayne I looked at that Samsung and it has a write speed of 130MB/s.....It looks like the one NewEgg has is newer and has a write speed of 390MB/s....That sounds like a lot of difference but does it matter?...
Gilligan might be a better source to answer that as he's probably a lot more current on stuff. But I'm thinking yes there probably is a difference. Whether you would or how much you would notice, I don't know. I'm sure other factors can enter into to it too like the buss speed of the motherboard, your processor, etc, etc.
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I think the biggest thing about ssd's for performance,
would be to use them for:
a) a scratch disk, which I think was their initial development thought ( think RAMdisk stuff ), or
b) an OS disk, although untrustworthy, loads OS and programs into RAM in seconds
Problems with both situations.
They don't like alot of constant read/write.
They've stuck around though, and they're much more reliable now than they were, from what I've read..
I still place more trust in a mechanical drive, though I still have no trust in magnetic platters spinning at 7000+ rpm, haha.
Cheers.