The next time I build a power-pc (within the next two years) to replace my current one, I’ll definately keep this in mind.
The next PC I plan on building will be an i7 tripple channel so I’ll see what benefits I can get out of SSD’s.
And I agree with Jeff on the whole two-hdd system (which i use) but I’m a firm believer in partitioning your OS hard drive so your OS is on one section, your programs are on another, and (if you choose) your critical data on another, then a 2nd, slower, larger, hard drive for long-term storage.
Yeah, absolutely agreed. I have an Intel X-25M G2 and it’s amazing–totally changed my computing experience.
One of the interesting results of having a totally silent extremely fast hard drive, also, is that you start to notice where the other bottlenecks in the system are! Before, the CPU spinning was, most of the time, so minor that it didn’t matter. But now I actually notice CPU bottlenecks.
I upgraded to a 128GB OCZ Vertex when I moved to Windows 7 and I totally agree: it’s the most noticeable performance increase I’ve had from an upgrade in recent years. The BIOS start-up takes longer than the Windows boot now, and applications load pretty much instantly. Even MS Office! And running Virtual Box VMs off it is amazing.
For storage I’m still using RAID0 HDs, but that’s because of cost rather than fear of losing data. After all, we’re all professionals and we back up our systems regularly, don’t we?
F’real, article is spot on about people not realizing how much they limit their performance with poor disk technology. The next limiting factor is system bus, for which things like Infiniband were meant to fix.
One day consumers will realize how much money they waste on fancy procs when their memory can’t really supply them with enough bandwidth to use effectively! Or at least, it’ll become so inexpensive to produce the tech that it’ll become ubiquitous (as is the case with SSD storage…). Ha.
This SSD transition has been in the making for quite a while now… been waiting for it since the days of gigantic bulky SSD arrays made by Texas Memory Systems and the like! Ordering one of the Intel drives this week. ; D
I’d love to get an SSD drive, but for an OS and some programs 40-80GB is enough. The post is somewhat implying 128 GB for an OS and programs is enough, yes, but is it more than enough? At around $300 (without being converted to AUD), the Crucial is quite expensive considering my needs. I hope there’s lower capacity SSDs around in Australia that don’t perform horrendously slow…
OMG. People, stop worrying about longevity. This is performance we are talking about here. Who cares how long your data will last on it. Anyways, at this price you don’t want to backup all your data on an SSD drive. Buy the 80GB SSD, make it your OS drive and backup all your precious data on cheaper magnetic drives. The solution is so simple. On board memory will be a thing of the past in 5 years. Hurray!
@Sigivald - Yes, actually, even before that computer became my workhorse. I’m one of those file-loss paranoid types that has more backups of things than is realistically securable, heh. That actually leads back to part of the reason that I can’t bring myself to trust SSD’s yet. The longevity of the drive is actually more important to me than the speed of the drive… I don’t mind waiting a few seconds longer for something to load. Gives me more time to wake up in the morning.
These days, though, that PC is used primarily as a lower-power download machine, and the occasional media streaming box. I don’t keep any important files there anymore, just use it for long downloads that I don’t want to keep my main rig running for. The new rig is worth about five of the old - and has the heftier power consumption for it, too.
I’d still be happier with a standard HD and a decent prefetcher. I got 'bout 300 megs of caches (HD cache, RAID cache, system rw cache) which simply doesn’t kick in because the prefetcher isn’t fast enough.
Talk about durability 1 year of intensive use from now… my laptop SSD is now several times slower than an average USB key (opening control panel takes about 40 seconds, youtube is completely unusable, firefox is a no-no).
Great thread here. My company (Epik) recently led the acquisition of HardDrives.com for development. The first site is live and is focused on shopping comparison for all forms of mass storage. There is of course rampant speculation about the future of the “hard drive”. Looking for subject matter advisors to help build the Zappos of personal storage. Contact at rob (at) epik.com.
JC Said: “I run a workhorse PC that has an 8 year old Maxtor HD in it… and it still runs perfectly well.”
Well, given that the expected lifetime of a hard drive is 5 years (which is what the giant MTBF numbers are for - statistical failure during designed lifetime), I sure hope you have backups.
As the infamous Google Whitepaper on drive failures showed, most drive failures aren’t predicted even by SMART reporting, let alone more obvious warnings, before the data’s trashed.
Still cheaper to just get more ram than you will normally ever use.
8 gb is well beyond what I am likely to ever use, even with 3 virtual machines, a news reader, torrent, web browsing, email and video viewing all going on simultaneously.
My machine doesn’t hickup because it doesn’t bother using the swap. It just does not need to.
Without swapping, an ultra fast HD or even an SSD looses its edge.
Invest in a decent amount of ram first - you will definitely see a difference AND still have a little cash left over.
A lot of the SSDs have a good thourghput but look at the random IO is the most important.
Absolutely. I’ve played with a Transcend SSD, rated as having a very high read throughput, and it was absolutely unusable as a disk drive due to the write latency. Starting up pretty much any app made the whole system freeze for around a minute as the drive absorbed the writes. I should have known how bad it’d get when it took the Windows install progress meter 20 minutes to go from “29 minutes remaining” to “28 minutes remaining”. There’s a review somewhere (can’t find it at the moment) that describes a similar experience with a Transcend SSD. So be very careful to read users’ reviews of what you’re getting before you lay out a large amount of money on it.
A lot of the SSDs have a good thourghput but look at the random IO is the most important.
Absolutely. I’ve played with a Transcend SSD, rated as having a very high read throughput, and it was absolutely unusable as a disk drive due to the write latency. Starting up pretty much any app made the whole system freeze for around a minute as the drive absorbed the writes. I should have known how bad it’d get when it took the Windows install progress meter 20 minutes to go from “29 minutes remaining” to “28 minutes remaining”. There’s a review somewhere (can’t find it at the moment) that describes a similar experience with a Transcend SSD. So be very careful to read users’ reviews of what you’re getting before you lay out a large amount of money on it.
You’re a little late, Jeff.
I’m using an Intel X25 for about nine month now, and it still blasts - it’s like upgrading from an 486 to a decent Quad-CPU.
The boost is not caused from the high transfer-rates, but from the nearly 0 ms seek times.
Starting Visual Studio and Photoshop at the same time - no time penalty any more for doing this
Small correction, X25-E G1 outperforms the X25-M G2.
Overall, very good post, completely agree that an SSD is the single biggest upgrade one can do today. The reason why I prefer Intel’s X25 has to do with TRIM support, wear-leveling and reliability. Frankly, I don’t trust anyone else.
