I'm still on the fence over HDD versus SSD

[Tempered81]

It's time to upgrade my laptop's old 80GB HDD. I previously made a thread/poll with the options to choose between HDD, SSD, and SSHD. SSD got the majority vote.

I just would like to hear some positive experiences you've had with your SSD upgrade. Suppose you can get a good mechanical 500GB HDD for $100. The 512GB SSD is $1500 - fifteen times the cost of the HDD. When you turn on your computer, boot up the OS, launch and use apps, and transfer files, is the SSD upgrade experience noticeably fifteen times greater?

I'm on a budget and don't want to sink lots of money into this laptop. I can get a 160GB Intel X-25 M G2 SSD for ~$400, or a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200 HDD for ~$59. Is the speed increase worth 8 times the cost and 1/2 the space as a trade-off? I've also heard that owning and maintaining the SSDs isn't exactly hands-off / hassle-free.

Is the verdict out for these new drives? Where are the most noticeable day-to-day improvements (aside from synthetic read/write/IO benchmarks)? And what would you say are the SSD's greatest shortfalls?

 

[flamenko]

The only downfall of the SSD is definitely the cost per GB ratio, however, many people have gotten around this by getting a sub-$100 drive and using external storage for the things you simply don't need to store on the ssd. Others have simply swapped their DVD for the original HD and a $20 mounting bracket....still making an amazing upgrade for under a hundred bucks.

Other than the process per GB downfall if you are looking for a higher costing ssd, the difference can be described as this... It is like the system knows what button you are going to press before you press it.

Start time is alot quicker, application loading times are alot quicker, the system is alot cooler which results in less fan use, less noise and depending on the system a better battery life. The SSD will definitely outlast any computer you put it into and if your system is a mobile laptop and you drop it accidentally, you can feel safe knowing that the drive isnt dead which has occurred to many in the past including myself....lost a 800 page doc many years back.

It will probably change the way you see your computer and many have used SSDs to breath new life into their old systems. Having said that, many really only see the performance increase in start times of the OS and applications with typical use but the possibilities are endless.

For example, in my work I have to compile 6000 page plus Adobe reports with multimedia included. They have to be vetted as they are security sensitive documents. On a non-ssd system like my work system, this is a very cumbersome project and there have been more than a few times I have had to reboot as I thought the system froze. This doesnt occur with a ssd and the same process may take a few seconds at most....unlike the minute plus the other way.

JMHO and good luck with your purchase.

 

[Zap]

If you are "on the fence" then how about buying a hybrid drive? Seagate Momentus XT 500GB is available (if you find it in stock - first batch sold out quickly) for $130. It gives a price and capacity like a hard drive (it is a 7200RPM HDD after all) and with the "hybrid" part can act closer to an SSD some of the time, such as during Windows booting. Heck, a lot of people buy small SSDs as a boot drive just to speed up Windows booting, so the hybrid drive is similar.

Read Anand's review

 

[Soulkeeper]

It almost entirely comes down to personal preference imo
you just gotta bite the bullet and decide what computer hardware best describes you

 

[jjmIII]

If one thread didn't help, will two?

Just get a WD Black if you can't decide.

 

[capeconsultant]

SSD is the future. Life is short. Get an SSD. You will love it!

 

[poofyhairguy]

I personally think that an SSD for a notebook (or an all-in-one like a iMac) that is someone's primary computer is maybe the only place SSD doesn't currently dominate because you need one big enough to hold all the data regularly used.

The current sweet spot is around the 60-80gb price point, and that is where desktop users (who can put the data on a second HD) can get the most value as a boot drive.

With that said I put an SSD in my only notebook (my ION netbook) because now that I have experienced a SSD I can't go back. But I can swing a 60GB on there because my real data is on my desktop/server- I just need the 30+GB to dual boot!

I often think about this problem because a friend of mine with an iMac is super jealous of my SSD hackintosh. My advice to him will probably get a hybrid drive until the larger SSDs get cheaper.

Or wait for one of these:

http://hothardware.com/News/HitachiLG-Debuts-HyDrive-An-Optical-Drive-With-BuiltIn-SSD/

Avoid experiences with SSDs between now and then though- once you use your computer with an SSD everything else is immediately junk...

 

[Binky]

Silly examples of the cost/benefit relationship don't really prove anything:

A bicycle can ride at about 20mph on a flat road. Lets assume that the bicycle costs $100. A car can drive at least 70mph on the same road. Let's just assume it costs $15,000.

That's $5 per mph on the bicycle, but more than $214 per mph in the car! This is almost 43X the cost per mph! And we haven't even considered fuel, insurance, and maintenance costs yet.

So...even the fastest mechanical drive can't touch the actual speed and the perceived speed of an SSD. If you want to make it faster, an SSD is your only real choice. Both will allow you to perform basically the same tasks in the same time. You don't "need" an SSD, but then again, many people don't really "need" a car.

 

[pitz]

Let's face it, when someone's on the 'road', how many applications do they use anyways? Not usually that many with a laptop. So can one get away with an 80-120gb SSD? Probably. The rest of one's storage requirements can be mounted into the system over a network using iSCSI, from a SAN that has proper redundant backup (ie: RAID-1).

 

[mooncancook]

I think if you can afford it, get a SSD, if you are in a tight budget or if you need the money for something else, just get a 7200rpm HDD. My laptop currently has a 320GB 7200rpm HDD and it's plenty fast and I'm fine with it. I'd love to upgrade to a SSD but it's just not my priority now.

 

[Emulex]

i got an ipad 16GB 3G since everything can be streamed /cloud now. it is the future. so get that small ssd and rock out man.

 

[Al Koholic]

I sprung for an X25-M 160 for my holiday build. Don't regret it a bit!

a) It makes the system zoom so much that when you go use ANY computer without one, you know it RIGHT away. And then you get sad that yours is at home (unless it's in your laptop).

b) If you are the kind of person who likes to tweak settings, optimize, etc (and I think you are since you posted your build in your sig)...SSD's offer PLENTY more fun trying to get your comp set up optimally with one. Owning one causes you to do a lot of learning about how they work and whatnot...

c) Just do it.

 

[Remobz]

Get a 10k rpm Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB SATA HD and wait till SSD goes down in price or improves a little?

 

[AdamK47]

I went with an SSD to simply get around the 2TB limitation of MBR. I use a 50GB SSD for the OS and volume mount a 3TB GUID partitioned array to it.

 

[dbcooper1]

The durability alone convinced me to put one in the laptop I use while traveling. I keep most of my documents and data on an external drive and have it on when needed. Even USB drives are getting large enough for many applications.

 

[konakona]

I may already know the answer to this question, but here goes nothing anyway:

I am a casual user at home that does nothing but browsing on the web, watching videos and playing games. My system is well maintained (4gb ram on win7 x64), I do not feel any signs of slugishness or need to wait for things to process after I issue a command regular day to day usage as is.

Reboots on my computers only happen when I have made some changes (windows settings, apps that require reboot) or tweaking something on hardware, and don't really care how long it takes to boot either way. Same for app load times - nothing is taking all that long other than BF2BC and even that isn't really bugging me at all.

So would I be correct in assuming that aside from boot times and application load times, there wouldn't be a whole lot of difference in my case? Kinda wanna see what the fuss is all about, and that intel 40gb deal at fry's seems almost affordable. Then again, I know I would be a much happier man with the same money spent elsewhere (like GPU cooling and such).

Just wondering if there is something I am missing in terms of what real world benefits it has. Things are so snappy and instant even now without an SSD, I just don't see how it could be improved so much! My guess is I just don't run any storage intensive tasks as many of you might on regular basis? FYI, I do have a WD black and don't have all that much cash to spare. Hence also on the fence as the OP is, and awfully curious as subjective reports seem overwhelmingly positive to go unnoticed.

 

[Voo]

No from what you're describing it doesn't sound like you'd notice much of an improvement, except for some faster game loads..

 

[one30eight]

I would just get the HDD. I don't think you will be 350 dollars happier with the SSD

 

[Emulex]

if you ever have to look down to see if the hard drive light is on - you need ssd

 

[poofyhairguy]

So would I be correct in assuming that aside from boot times and application load times, there wouldn't be a whole lot of difference in my case?

I think that is an incorrect assumption. Once you get an SSD, you realize how your "perfectly fast enough before" computer was actually a slow as molasses.

Happened to me too. I thought" How much faster could a SSD make my already fast system?"

Then I got one, and experienced what a 21st century computer feels like. Now all my machines (even my Netbook) has an SSD because I don't want to deal with that former slowness anymore.

 

[Idontcare]

SSD in my rig just makes things all the snappier. I went from raid0 raptor to a single 160GB G2 on a Q6600 @ stock and could not be more happier with just how well the computer responds when I open apps, files, etc. The useability factor went to 11.

I was on the fence about getting the G2 or upgrading to a Thuban. I'd venture to say the SSD upgrade has breathed at least another 2yrs of life into this aging Q6600.

 

[Voo]

I think that is an incorrect assumption. Once you get an SSD, you realize how your "perfectly fast enough before" computer was actually a slow as molasses.

Happened to me too. I thought" How much faster could a SSD make my already fast system?"

Then I got one, and experienced what a 21st century computer feels like. Now all my machines (even my Netbook) has an SSD because I don't want to deal with that former slowness anymore.

If you'd like to elaborate how exactly an SSD would speed up the "browsing and looking videos" usage pattern I'd be rather interested, because the only thing that'd be faster would be the browser and player startup, which is neglegible.

I love my SSD and wouldn't want to replace it, but for that usage pattern the speedup will be minimal..

 

[konakona]

SSD in my rig just makes things all the snappier. I went from raid0 raptor to a single 160GB G2 on a Q6600 @ stock and could not be more happier with just how well the computer responds when I open apps, files, etc. The useability factor went to 11.

I was on the fence about getting the G2 or upgrading to a Thuban. I'd venture to say the SSD upgrade has breathed at least another 2yrs of life into this aging Q6600.

So again, it's all about opening aps and files and nothing else huh? I keep thinking it might have to do more with what we do with our computers. Wish I could "borrow" a SSD from someone just to see what it is like. Too bad I don't have any tech savvy friends around me My gut feeling is I wouldn't notice much of a difference if at all with the kind of stuff I do.

 

[Voo]

So again, it's all about opening aps and files and nothing else huh?

Ahem, yes that's usually the stuff where IO comes into the play, I mean I'm sure you know enough about your PC to find out when you're IO bottlenecked (performance monitor can give a nice overview), but if you're really mostly watching videos (those will be stored on a HDD in either case so no performance gain for those) and browsing the web (startup is almost instant even with FF and lots of addons, but that's it) you don't touch your disk most of the time..

 

[konakona]

that's what I was thinking too. when people say 'kinda hard to explain, but a whole new experience' I want to believe them, having experienced similar feeling in different areas on other occasions. It really doesn't seem to fit my usage pattern though