Is Speed Improvement with SSD Significant in Normal Computing Use?

[Whisper2]

My system has an i7 860 with a WD Velociraptor. I am considering the purchase of an Intel X25 -M to replace the Velociraptor. I know that the SSD will do much better with benchmarking and shave a few seconds off the boot time. Will I notice much difference with app's, especially games?

 

[EarthwormJim]

Vista and Windows 7 are pretty good at pre-caching your commonly used programs, but they're still limited by how much RAM you have.

Things like Firefox (or whatever browser) and maybe Office programs are easy enough to cache, so they already open instantly on most systems even with hard drives.


The programs I noticed the biggest difference with an SSD are Adobe's Suite programs, Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Premier; Matlab; Altera Quartus; and Cadence's suite.

You gotta define "normal" computer use better. "App's" is pretty vague.

Since you did specifically mention games, yes an SSD will make a big difference (but a Raptor can too). Boot times, an SSD has cut my Windows bootup time (not counting BIOS' POST) in half compared to my hard drive (WD 640gb Black).

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't know, I upgraded my main desktop to a SSD recently and I think it was by far the most significant speed improvement I have ever gotten out of an upgrade. I didn't even know how much WAS I/O bottlenecked until the SSD set me free.

Now I am SSD crazy: I put a SSD in my Netbook and I plan to put one in my HTPC next week.

Well worth the dough, and I was really skeptical beforehand.

I only have OCZ Vertex and Samsung SSD, and I like the Vertex more out of the two for the much better firmware...

 

[Yellowbeard]

The improvement on notebooks and netbooks is outstanding. Desktop improvements are good too but they are not typically as HD limited as portables.

 

[mooseracing]

At work we have fully spec'd x200's, T400's, and t410's. All from the factory with 7200RPM drives and 80-100MB Read time hard drives.

The CPU's on these systems have been choked by the drives. I swapped my work x200 to a X-18 80GB and boot went from 2.5 mins to the login screen down to 30 seconds. Also system searches and email searches are instantaneous.

I have placed them in a couple desktops to try out at work in our enviro, build times are down significantly. I know people that have them at home also report gains. Definitely best bang for the buck.

 

[Seero]

My system has an i7 860 with a WD Velociraptor. I am considering the purchase of an Intel X25 -M to replace the Velociraptor. I know that the SSD will do much better with benchmarking and shave a few seconds off the boot time. Will I notice much difference with app's, especially games?

Normal operation:
Apps pops up far quicker than on HDD.
Anti-virus protection is far less effect on performance.
0 delay when scrolling spreadsheets.
internet explorer pop as quick as chrome, fully loaded with addons.

Gaming:
FPS games, faster loading game, no impact on FPS, but no more shutter lag due to network or read.

MMORPG, network ping delay reminds, network lag is gone. Large group/Huge scale PvP feel much smoother. Again, the network lag is minimized.

 

[Hacp]

Its what you don't notice, not what you notice with ssds. You won't notice hanging anymore. Everything will just work.

 

[SergeC]

Hugely noticeable. Seriously the best upgrade to performance and feel I'd done for years.

 

[vj8usa]

I don't have a system with a Raptor for reference, but I swapped my laptop's 5400 RPM drive for a 60GB OCZ Agility (Indilinx) SSD and the difference is very noticeable. Stuff just comes up in a fraction of a second now, and I've started using my laptop a lot more than my desktop just because the desktop feels so sluggish now (keep in mind everything on this desktop other than its hard drive is significantly faster than my laptop). It's great being able to hit Ctrl+H in Firefox and having the history sidebar load instantly, instead of hanging for a few seconds while the list of pages is populated.

 

[iahk]

I'm also interested in moving to an ssd too. Moreso in my laptop than my hdd though. How's the battery life improvement?

 

[EarthwormJim]

I'm also interested in moving to an ssd too. Moreso in my laptop than my hdd though. How's the battery life improvement?

No real improvement. 2.5" hard drives are already very power efficient. Some SSDs use more power actually.

Putting an SSD into a laptop will make a bigger difference than into a desktop. Laptop hard drives are significantly slower, with way longer access times compared to 3.5" disk drives.

My slow as molasses netbook boots into Windows 7 in under a minute with an SSD (including POST time). Photoshop CS4 opens in under 10 seconds. It used to take 2 minutes to boot up on the hard drive (was Windows XP though).

 

[iahk]

Good info, and good stuff knowing what I meant when I wrote hdd rather than desktop hehe. I'll probably wait out until the 80GB ssd's drop into the ~$150 range.

 

[Whisper2]

Thanks for the comments. It appears all are overwhelmingly positive in favor of SSD's, especially those with laptops.

Is there anyone who has replaced a Velociraptor with a SSD and concluded it was not worth the money?

 

[allthatisman]

I went from a 150gb velociraptor to a 7200 rpm seagate 750 to an intel x18-m... I would say that the speed difference was noticable going from a hdd to an ssd, buy not from the VR to the seagate. The only real concession is the space difference... With windows 7 64 ultimate, Ati and creative drivers, allye windows updates, iTunes, and c&c3(I felt like replaying it)... I have 51 gb free. I offload as much as I can to a spare terabyte drive... You just have to think about the space you use is all... I will likely buy a larger, TRIM enabled drive at the end of the year... I just got such a great deal on this drive I figured I would play with it until the next generation of drives come out.

 

[QueBert]

Spybot can take along time to run on my HDD, who has has ran it on a SSD?

 

[Makaveli]

I have ran spybot on my SSD that speed increase is also there when scanning for spyware.

 

[klocwerk]

Hugely noticeable. Seriously the best upgrade to performance and feel I'd done for years.

This.
Now I need one for my work laptop... Gotta see about sneaking one in on my next hardware order.

 

[Tristor]

At my employer, I have recently deployed 3 OCZ 60GB Agility, 1 OCZ Vertex 60GB, and 1 Intel X-25M G2 80GB with the 3 Agilities and the Intel in laptops and the Vertex in my desktop. This is primarily with standard office work, heavy on Excel usage, and in one case the Agility is a laptop used by an in-house software developer. Personally, with the Vertex I'm more heavy towards web browsing and file transfers. I do little "office" work, as I'm email/phone driven and primarily deal with server/network administration.

Based on in-house reports and my own personal experiences, plus the research I've conducted into the matter, we feel that this small trial in our own offices has been wildly successful. There is a significant difference in speed, especially when dealing with large reports in Excel or dealing with our in-house CRM software, both of which are common tasks in this company.

We have plans to replace all HDDs in the company issued laptops and desktops with SSDs by August, with deployment starting in July. Budget discussions and vendor bids are in progress currently.

Hopefully this helps to answer your question

 

[Hacp]

At my employer, I have recently deployed 3 OCZ 60GB Agility, 1 OCZ Vertex 60GB, and 1 Intel X-25M G2 80GB with the 3 Agilities and the Intel in laptops and the Vertex in my desktop. This is primarily with standard office work, heavy on Excel usage, and in one case the Agility is a laptop used by an in-house software developer. Personally, with the Vertex I'm more heavy towards web browsing and file transfers. I do little "office" work, as I'm email/phone driven and primarily deal with server/network administration.

Based on in-house reports and my own personal experiences, plus the research I've conducted into the matter, we feel that this small trial in our own offices has been wildly successful. There is a significant difference in speed, especially when dealing with large reports in Excel or dealing with our in-house CRM software, both of which are common tasks in this company.

We have plans to replace all HDDs in the company issued laptops and desktops with SSDs by August, with deployment starting in July. Budget discussions and vendor bids are in progress currently.

Hopefully this helps to answer your question

You may want to wait for intel's 22nm ssds.

 

[EarthwormJim]

You may want to wait for intel's 22nm ssds.

Yes we may see double the capacity for the same price compared to this generation.

 

[skid00skid00]

I run -full- scans in NOD32, Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware -at the same time- while surfing, and there's NO lag in IE8. Pages load just as fast, and scroll without pauses. Gives the cpu a workout, though!

 

[adeepercut2k]

Does it make a difference in speed to install the os on a small ssd and programs on a larger ssd? Or just load everything on a huge ssd and have some fun?

 

[EarthwormJim]

Does it make a difference in speed to install the os on a small ssd and programs on a larger ssd? Or just load everything on a huge ssd and have some fun?

Large SSDs are faster than small SSDs.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Where is the most improvement noticed; seek time? I just don't' want to be let down after experiencing 15K scsi drives; the impression over regular 7200 rpm drives was probably what most desktop users feel today about their SSDs: can any 15k scsi drive to SSD drive people chime in on this for me and share their experience. Thanks

 

[EarthwormJim]

Where is the most improvement noticed; seek time? I just don't' want to be let down after experiencing 15K scsi drives; the impression over regular 7200 rpm drives was probably what most desktop users feel today about their SSDs: can any 15k scsi drive to SSD drive people chime in on this for me and share their experience. Thanks

I had a 15k scsi drive awhile ago. I think it was a gen 2 Seagate drive. I wasn't really happy with it versus a 7200 rpm drive. It was faster, but not really that much more so.

By comparison, going to an SSD from a 7200 rpm drive, made a huge noticeable difference.

Going from any spindle disk (including 15k rpm drives) to a fast SSD is going to make a nice improvement.