How much more responsiveness would I get out of my PC with a Solid State Drive?

[LW07]

Using windows XP and a S939 4800+.

If I got an 8GB SSD and put XP on it, how much responsiveness would I gain from a 7200.9 Seagate 400GB SATAII Drive?

 

[taltamir]

depends on the solid state drive used. Most the cheaper ones (first, second gen) are VERY slow, and will actually make your computer a pain to use...

The NEW (not old) OCZ SSD is the fastest SATA Drive right now:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...es/ocz_sata_ii_2_5-ssd
This is the ONLY SSD drive I Would recommend right now... there is also the new 300GB raptor which is blazingly fast (but not as fast), and much cheaper (300$ vs 600$)...
Only thing faster is SAS 15K RPM server drives... (but they have slower seek times)

But for system responsiveness your FIRST issue should be amount of RAM. Do you have 4GB installed? (XP can only use 3.something, depending on what exact hardware you have installed). By putting in 4GB you get the max amout that 32bit XP can see. This should improve responsiveness the most. Followed by CPU upgrade. Followed lastly by HDD upgrade.

 

[jaqie]

Originally posted by: LW07
7200.9 Seagate

Ouch. Replace that with a nice new .11 with perpandicular recording or the new high perf non-raptor (or even a raptor) WDs and you will be quite happy.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: jaqie

Originally posted by: LW07
7200.9 Seagate

Ouch. Replace that with a nice new .11 with perpandicular recording or the new high perf non-raptor (or even a raptor) WDs and you will be quite happy.

mmm, good point. If you DO have a decept CPU and RAM already then you should replace the drive... You didn't specify what kind of machine you have and I just assumed it is one that is as old as the drive you mentioned.
The new WD 640GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136218
110$ and faster then the older raptors (but higher seek time)

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: jaqie

Originally posted by: LW07
7200.9 Seagate

Ouch. Replace that with a nice new .11 with perpandicular recording or the new high perf non-raptor (or even a raptor) WDs and you will be quite happy.

mmm, good point. If you DO have a decept CPU and RAM already then you should replace the drive... You didn't specify what kind of machine you have and I just assumed it is one that is as old as the drive you mentioned.
The new WD 640GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136218
110$ and faster then the older raptors (but higher seek time)

I've got an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ S939 and 2 gigs of PC2700 ram

 

[Mokmo418]

PC2700 RAM?!?
Isn't that like... DDR1 ? ?
Look there, it's probably not the fastest memory that goes with your Motherboard...

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Mokmo418
PC2700 RAM?!?
Isn't that like... DDR1 ? ?
Look there, it's probably not the fastest memory that goes with your Motherboard...

I know it's not, it really is PC3200 but BSODed at that speed so I downclocked it to PC2700 and it's been stable ever since.

I am thinking about upgrading my system to a Q6600 with DDR2, along with a Raptor 150 and move XP over to the raptor. Either that or a 32mb cache drive.

 

[GundamF91]

Do the SSD eventually wear out due to a finite number of times you can write to the memory block? Have they solved this issue yet?

 

[Ticky]

Originally posted by: taltamir
depends on the solid state drive used. Most the cheaper ones (first, second gen) are VERY slow, and will actually make your computer a pain to use...

The NEW (not old) OCZ SSD is the fastest SATA Drive right now:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...es/ocz_sata_ii_2_5-ssd
This is the ONLY SSD drive I Would recommend right now... there is also the new 300GB raptor which is blazingly fast (but not as fast), and much cheaper (300$ vs 600$)...
Only thing faster is SAS 15K RPM server drives... (but they have slower seek times)

But for system responsiveness your FIRST issue should be amount of RAM. Do you have 4GB installed? (XP can only use 3.something, depending on what exact hardware you have installed). By putting in 4GB you get the max amout that 32bit XP can see. This should improve responsiveness the most. Followed by CPU upgrade. Followed lastly by HDD upgrade.

Does the OCZ still beat the new MTRONs? I'll have to check that.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: GundamF91
Do the SSD eventually wear out due to a finite number of times you can write to the memory block? Have they solved this issue yet?

Yes they do, but I think the read/write rates put them at hard drive reliability now.

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: taltamir
depends on the solid state drive used. Most the cheaper ones (first, second gen) are VERY slow, and will actually make your computer a pain to use...

The NEW (not old) OCZ SSD is the fastest SATA Drive right now:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...es/ocz_sata_ii_2_5-ssd
This is the ONLY SSD drive I Would recommend right now... there is also the new

Since that is a re-branded Samsung MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA, one can alsotry to keep an eye out for an SSD of this type - and maybe get away without paying the OCZ premium.

Its a shame Samsung only supplies OEMs with this drive. Guess they do not intend to hurt their HDD sales just yet...

 

[Ratman6161]

I've got an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ S939 and 2 gigs of PC2700 ram

Given the CPU and memory you have, if you are interested in improving your performance and have $600 to spend, there is no way I'd recommend spending it on an SSD.

I recently upgraded from a Socket 939 system myself to the system you see in my signature and only spent $527 on a motherboard, CPU and the 8GB of ram (and migrated the rest of the components from the old system). If you go with a less expensive dual core instead of my quad and 4gb of RAM instead of 8, you would have plenty of your $600 left to spend on a good quality SATA2 hard drive (perhaps a raptor?). The overall performance benefit would far outstrip any conceivable benefits you would get from slapping an SSD in the old system