Kingston 64gb SSD or 10krpm WD Sata

[StarsFan4Life]

I have a new build on the way:

* Cooler Master Elite 330
* Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G motherboard
* AMD Phenom II Quad 940 Black Editon - Stock cooling
* 8GB G-Skill PC2-6400
* XFX Radeon 4870 1GB
* Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA II
* 2X Dell E207WFP 20" WS LCD
* Antec Earthwatts 650wt psu
* Logitech DiNovo Keyboard
* Logitech MX Revolution Mouse
* Onboard LAN/HD Audio

Now, instead of using the 1TB HD as the main OS/apps HD, I want to get something faster. Do I want to go with an SSD (this one particularly - 64GB for $138 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16820139004) or a Velaciraptor 10k rpm 150-300gb?

Which one performs better?

 

[StarsFan4Life]

Anyone?

 

[dguy6789]

SSD drives are too premature right now. The capacity vs price problem is staggering and they degrade performance wise over time. You'll probably be kicking yourself when in two years you get a 1TB SSD drive for $100 that is also faster than anything out today.

I also say that raptors are a waste of money. The latest 1TB drives are just as fast as the fastest velociraptors. You could always run Raid 0 for a little bit of performance increase.

To answer your specific question, in terms of raw performance, the SSD drive is faster.

 

[hclarkjr]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
SSD drives are too premature right now. The capacity vs price problem is staggering and they degrade performance wise over time. You'll probably be kicking yourself when in two years you get a 1TB SSD drive for $100 that is also faster than anything out today.

I also say that raptors are a waste of money. The latest 1TB drives are just as fast as the fastest velociraptors. You could always run Raid 0 for a little bit of performance increase.

To answer your specific question, in terms of raw performance, the SSD drive is faster.

the price on velociraptors has dropped lately as i just picked a brand new 150gb for $99 shipped on ebay. as for the blacks being as fast as them, that is not true. i have both in my system right now and used the black for the boot drive before buying the vraptor last week. you can not beat the access time of the vraptor. look here for some benchmarks comparing the two drives.

 

[dguy6789]

There's numerous benchmarks showing 1TB+ drives comparing favorably to the raptors. I don't know if it's the black 1TB Western Digitals specifically though. Seek time is the only thing the raptors have an edge on now if I recall correctly.

 

[deputc26]

For performance SSDs will kill all mechanical drives, but it is true that in 2 years the cost per Gb will make todays prices look silly. That said I still think it's worth it.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: deputc26
For performance SSDs will kill all mechanical drives,

This is patently false.

but it is true that in 2 years the cost per Gb will make todays prices look silly.

This is true for almost everything.

 

[jae]

Id settle for a WD Black drive until SSDs come down in price. Price/Performance is great, and you cant go wrong with more space.

 

[deputc26]

Originally posted by: Slugbait

Originally posted by: deputc26
For performance SSDs will kill all mechanical drives,

This is patently false.

but it is true that in 2 years the cost per Gb will make todays prices look silly.

This is true for almost everything.

Wow you must have stock in the HDD manufacturers. Every single review of a modern SSD (one that doesn't use the JMicron controller) shows all HDDs getting destroyed, here are a bunch:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...el/showdoc.aspx?i=3403
http://www.anandtech.com/stora...howdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1
http://www.pcper.com/article.p...670&type=expert&pid=14
http://benchmarkreviews.com/in...&limit=1&limitstart=13
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...el-x25-e-ssd,2158.html

here's a nice quote from Benchmark Reviews "the Vertex SSD easily outperforms a RAID-0 set of Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drives."

here's a quote from the great Anand La Shimpi " the biggest upgrade you could do for your PC - whether desktop or notebook, wouldn't be to toss in a faster CPU, it would be to migrate to one of these SSDs"

oh and here are some hard facts:
Fastest Average Sequential read speed for an SSD: 228 Mb/s
Fastest Average Sequential read speed for an HDD: 104 Mb/s
advantage SSD by 119%

Fastest Average Sequential write speed for an SSD: 205 Mb/s
Fastest Average Sequential write speed for an HDD: 103 Mb/s
advantage SSD by 99%

But the reason HDDs simply cannot compete is this.
Fastest read access time for an SSD: .1ms
Fastest read access time for an HDD: 7.09ms
Advantage SSD by 70,900%

Yes SSDs have had some teething problems but for raw performance... the numbers speak for themselves.

Oh and I didn't bother to include the extremely expensive PCI-e based SSDs but for the record they are capable of reads and writes at over 500Mb/s. The reason these drives exist is that SATA II cables are simply not fast enough to let SSD tech really stretch its legs.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: deputc26
Fastest read access time for an SSD: .1ms
Fastest read access time for an HDD: 7.09ms
Advantage SSD by 70,900%

Spoken like a true FanBoy

 

[hclarkjr]

nobody is debating that SSD is faster than mechanical, at least i am not. i look at the price and say no way am i paying that much for one.

 

[hclarkjr]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
There's numerous benchmarks showing 1TB+ drives comparing favorably to the raptors. I don't know if it's the black 1TB Western Digitals specifically though. Seek time is the only thing the raptors have an edge on now if I recall correctly.

yes they compare with the old raptors but not the vraptors, look at the link i gave and you see that they are ahead of the blacks

 

[Eureka]

Here's a nice report on how the 1TB drives compare to a vrap:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15363/1

They're ahead, but not by much and are still a bit expensive:
http://techreport.com/r.x/wd-c...-black/hdtach-read.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/wd-c...black/hdtach-write.gif

SSDs are faster than any mechanical hard drive, but a WD Black has a 10gb/$ rate right now. For comparison, an OCZ Vertex has a .34gb/$ rate right now. Advantage HD by 28500%.

 

[hclarkjr]

in the link i showed they get different results,s o which one to believe? i have both in my system right now and say the vraptor is better

 

[Eureka]

I wouldn't doubt that the vraptor is better. But how much of a margin?

And your links show pretty much the same results:
http://common.ziffdavisinterne...0,1425,i=218429,00.jpg
http://common.ziffdavisinterne...0,1425,i=218430,00.jpg

Remember, we're comparing a single VRaptor vs. a single Caviar Black. Those massive results are for the Raid 0s.

 

[hclarkjr]

well for me the boot time is about equal. it is the app start up and installing of programs that impressed me.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: hclarkjr
well for me the boot time is about equal. it is the app start up and installing of programs that impressed me.

Count on the same (or greater) improvement going from VR -> SSD that you already saw going from regular HDD -> VR.

Assuming you get one of the new generation SSD without the stuttering problem, that is.

 

[hclarkjr]

that will not happen for me till the prices come down. not worth it to me for the price they want

 

[deputc26]

Yes, I'm a fan of SSDs, yes they are overpriced. For HDDs I tend to agree with eureka, the Black is slightly slow but much bigger and much cheaper. There is no night and day difference like there is when going to... an SSD

 

[Fox5]

Raptors aren't fast enough for the cost/size. I wouldn't buy a raptor at this point, especially when you could do a RAID setup of two larger drives and achieve about the same access times (since raptors aren't far ahead the caviar blacks anyway).

SSDs are worthwhile if you can find a specific usage for them, such as an adobe scratch drive, a drive for the swap memory (though I really hope vista is smart enough by now to make use of excess memory before hitting swap), or just a boot drive.

That said, I don't know what the performance specs of the kingston 64GB are. Last time I checked, only the Intel drives and Corsair Vertex drives were truly worth looking into. I guess if you're just using it as a boot drive (rarely do writes to it), any SSD drive should be way faster at reads.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: deputc26
Wow you must have stock in the HDD manufacturers. Every single review of a modern SSD (one that doesn't use the JMicron controller) shows all HDDs getting destroyed, here are a bunch:

Wow, that was great...your first link was exclusive to the X25-M, which has been long known to kill other MLC-based drives. MaxPC tested a handful of MLC drives in November, and found they could barely compete with a Spinpoint F1, much less kill the Velociraptor. The only SDDs to truly beat the mechs were SLC-based.

And your last link was exclusive to the X25-E. Only $80 more expensive than the much, much larger X25-M...unless you wanna shave the space difference to just 16 gigs for a cool $750.

"Modern SSD"? You didn't say that, and there are still SSDs being released that don't have that kind of perf. Plus you're comparing with both apples and oranges. To broadly declare that SSD will kill all mech drives is patently false.

 

[alcoholbob]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
You'll probably be kicking yourself when in two years you get a 1TB SSD drive for $100 that is also faster than anything out today.

In 2 years the manufacturing process will move down by 1 node. You'd be lucky to see the costs halved. 60GB for $100 would be beyond expectations.

Unlike the rest of the consumer drives, Intel manufactures its own NAND so it does have the ability to lower the price tag but Intel is and always has been happy to price themselves against the competition and isn't going to do the buyer any favors.

 

[masterbm]

I would go with the sdd if was building game rig. But if it is your only machine and you will be storing lots of data on then go with 1 tb hd

 

[Pollock]

I would wait for newer and cheaper SSDs that perform better. As it stands now, only the Intel X25-M and OCZ Vertex are worth owning, so they command premium. But TRIM is right around the corner (next couple months, I've read), so that alone is worth waiting for. I really want to get an SSD, but I think I will hold out a little while longer*.

* Unless money doesn't matter. In which case, buy a nice SSD.

 

[deputc26]

Originally posted by: Slugbait

Originally posted by: deputc26
Wow you must have stock in the HDD manufacturers. Every single review of a modern SSD (one that doesn't use the JMicron controller) shows all HDDs getting destroyed, here are a bunch:

Wow, that was great...your first link was exclusive to the X25-M, which has been long known to kill other MLC-based drives. MaxPC tested a handful of MLC drives in November, and found they could barely compete with a Spinpoint F1, much less kill the Velociraptor. The only SDDs to truly beat the mechs were SLC-based.

And your last link was exclusive to the X25-E. Only $80 more expensive than the much, much larger X25-M...unless you wanna shave the space difference to just 16 gigs for a cool $750.

"Modern SSD"? You didn't say that, and there are still SSDs being released that don't have that kind of perf. Plus you're comparing with both apples and oranges. To broadly declare that SSD will kill all mech drives is patently false.

All bluster, no facts. Implying that HDDs are faster than SSDs is simply ridiculous. I'm not talking about capacity (which is crappy) or price (which is crappy) but purely performance (which is untouched by HDDs). You seem to have a personal interest in bashing SSDs, why not let the numbers speak for themselves? Yes X-25m is the best MLC drive but Indilinx based drives are not far behind.

"Modern SSD"? You didn't say that

Why on earth would I be talking about SSDs that are not modern or that are crappy? The point of this thread is to help the OP find what is best. For the record, all JMicron based SSDs suck (arguably).

Instead of trolling and trying to start flame wars I suggest you take some time to read up on SSDs, the links I provided in my previous post are excellent references. The max PC article you mentioned is from Nov 2008, I read it long ago, it is now out of date. Also Notebookreview.com has a massive thread with a lot of good info on the subject here.

To the OP, the SSD you specified has a Jmicron controller, avoid it. Try this one instead, also see my breakdown from another post here for the current non JMicron SSDs available.

If you decided to go HDD, I would get a 1Tb (or so) Caviar Black drive as they are only slightly slower (faster at some things) but much larger and much cheaper than a vRaptor.