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I don't come to this forum very often and this topic may have been discussed before, so forgive me if I'm repeating something.
Has anyone here tried the solid-state storage devices? I know right now they have their disadvantages, mainly their price, and in terms of giga-bytes-per-dollar, it's much higher than the common disk drives, and I also know that you can get a lot more storage capacity than you can with a solid-state storage device. The last time I checked, the largest solid-state device had a capacity of around 300 giga-bytes, and if I remember correctly, the price of it was around $700. The only advantage that I know of, or at least from what I've seen in advertising, they are much faster than regular disk drives, and they probably last much longer.
If anyone here is using them, let me know if they really do have the faster access speed than regular disks and if they are worth the higher price. I would also like to know if they were easy to install, and if they can be configured in a RAID array, and if they can be installed without any major hassles, and replacing hardware components in the computer.
Your information will certainly be appreciated, thanks in advance.
Last edited by Magnum Mike; 07-19-2012 at 11:04 AM..
I have an SSD in a Netbook. Netbooks are pretty crappy computers, so I can't really say it runs much faster than the one I have with a mechanical drive.
My DH replaced the hard-drive in a 5-year-old Dell laptop with a solid-state drive. He says it now performs like a new machine. It really is faster. It wasn't too difficult to install, but you do need to change some settings so that the operating system understands this is a solid-state device and doesn't try to, for example, defrag it. If you treat it like a standard hard-drive, you'll wear it out pretty quickly. He found a pretty decent tutorial page on how to go about that.
I've done a couple of SSD upgrades. Yes, SSDs are fast and relatively small in capacity. Crucial's 512GB M4 is $399 on Amazon. They're meant for use in a laptop or as a boot/apps drive in your desktop with a hard drive or NAS storing your big media files. They can be RAIDed but unless the controller supports TRIM, you'll lose performance over time. Intel claims lack of TRIM only costs a 10% performance hit but others have reported much greater losses. Its best not to RAID them unless you've fully investigated the details. TRIM was already enabled on my Win7 PC before installing the SSD but you'll want to check that your's is and enable it if its not.
What version of Windows are you using? Was that originally installed on your PC or was it an upgrade? Windows 7 is fully SSD-ready and will create partitions with the proper offset to work right on an SSD. The wrong offset will cut your write times in half.
Also, what level of SATA interface do you have? SSDs need a SATA III interface for maximum performance. Good drives today do about 500MB/sec read and 250MB/sec write. If you're using a SATA II interface (3GB/sec), cut that read speed in half. Its still faster than any hard drive though.
Since going from a hard drive to an SSD usually means downsizing, you'll need to shrink your C drive partition before moving. Windows 7's Disk Management can do this. Start by running CCleaner and Defraggler to clean up and defrag your drive. Then in Disk Management, right click your C drive and choose Shrink Volume. Shrink it enough to fit onto the SSD but don't cut it too close, you'll expand it later. If the SSD is 128GB, shrink it to 100GB or so.
Use the Backup and Restore app in Windows 7 to make a system image. This makes a complete copy of your C drive to an external drive. Use the option in the left margin called Create a System Image. Also create a system repair disk.
Now that you have a backup, take your old drive out and install the new one. Boot from the system repair disc you just made and restore your backup to the new SSD.
When you boot up on the new SSD, go back to Disk Management and extend your partition to take the rest of the SSD. You will also want to disable the automatic disk defrag from the Task Scheduler.
Yes, they are faster. Are they worth the price? That is really up to you. Personally, I think it is but I have a lot of disposable income. If I had a bunch of bottle suckers, I might not think it was worth it.
I've done a couple of SSD upgrades. Yes, SSDs are fast and relatively small in capacity. Crucial's 512GB M4 is $399 on Amazon. They're meant for use in a laptop or as a boot/apps drive in your desktop with a hard drive or NAS storing your big media files. They can be RAIDed but unless the controller supports TRIM, you'll lose performance over time. Intel claims lack of TRIM only costs a 10% performance hit but others have reported much greater losses. Its best not to RAID them unless you've fully investigated the details. TRIM was already enabled on my Win7 PC before installing the SSD but you'll want to check that your's is and enable it if its not.
What version of Windows are you using? Was that originally installed on your PC or was it an upgrade? Windows 7 is fully SSD-ready and will create partitions with the proper offset to work right on an SSD. The wrong offset will cut your write times in half.
Also, what level of SATA interface do you have? SSDs need a SATA III interface for maximum performance. Good drives today do about 500MB/sec read and 250MB/sec write. If you're using a SATA II interface (3GB/sec), cut that read speed in half. Its still faster than any hard drive though.
Since going from a hard drive to an SSD usually means downsizing, you'll need to shrink your C drive partition before moving. Windows 7's Disk Management can do this. Start by running CCleaner and Defraggler to clean up and defrag your drive. Then in Disk Management, right click your C drive and choose Shrink Volume. Shrink it enough to fit onto the SSD but don't cut it too close, you'll expand it later. If the SSD is 128GB, shrink it to 100GB or so.
Use the Backup and Restore app in Windows 7 to make a system image. This makes a complete copy of your C drive to an external drive. Use the option in the left margin called Create a System Image. Also create a system repair disk.
Now that you have a backup, take your old drive out and install the new one. Boot from the system repair disc you just made and restore your backup to the new SSD.
When you boot up on the new SSD, go back to Disk Management and extend your partition to take the rest of the SSD. You will also want to disable the automatic disk defrag from the Task Scheduler.
The PC is an HP with an AMD Quad processor, it's almost 4 years old and has Windows Vista 64-bit, but I was planning on backing up the files (Documents/Pictures, etc) and erasing the entire C drive, and replacing the mechanical 600-gig drive with an SSD and installing Windows 7 64-bit on it. The last time I checked into SSDs was back in January of this year, at Fry's Electronics, I believe it was about 300 gigs in capacity, and cost about $700, but like everything else in technology, it's probably less expensive now. I'll also have to look at other online retailers, like Amazon.com, I was also looking into the possibility of building a completely new computer with an SSD array, but with the 512-gig SSD you mentioned, it sounds like I won't need to create a RAID array. Right now I'm only using about 200 gigs on the 600-gig hard drive, so 512 gigs should suffice.
I don't have defrag scheduled on the Vista computer, or the Wn 7 laptop. I've only run defrag manually maybe twice on both, they seem to do a pretty good job in keeping fragmentation to a minimum.
Windows 7 defrag is by default scheduled to run in the background, so if you go the SSD route you do need to disable the schedule, along with a couple other things I like to do, make sure to confirm that Windows 7 has enabled TRIM, and disable disk indexing. Also make sure your BIOS is set to AHCI for the hard drive controller before you install the OS.
The speed difference with an SSD is in fact quite amazing, probably the best thing you can do to improve overall performance.
Installing Win7 fresh on to the SSD is the cleanest option and will ensure everything its configured right for the SSD. Prices have really come down a lot this year. $400 is kind of a lot of money to put into a 4 year old PC. Personally, I'd probably get a 128GB SSD for Windows and reformat the current drive to hold data, assuming the case has room for both.
Win7 has defrag scheduled by default so its running every night as long as the computer is on unless you disabled it. Not sure about Vista. Still, check out Defraggler. You might be surprised how badly its fragmented.
I have a Plextor 256gb as my primary in my desktop and it really hauls. Got it for about $280 on newegg. Paired it with superspeed ram cache and it is just stoopid fast now.
Other than maxing out RAM, an SSD is the best thing you can do to breathe new life into an older machine. Sell a kidney if you have to. And once you scrap the old machine, you can put the SSD into you next one.
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