SSD dilemma

[steve225]

Hello I have a
- Dell Inspiron 14 5447
- 6 GB 1600mhz Ram
- 1 TB SSHD
- Intel Core i5 4210U

I was wondering which SSD is the best to have I am a medical student so i want a reliable drive that wont fail and I want my battery life to be longer! Im looking at the Kingston HyperX Savage 240gb SSD or the Sandisk Extreme Pro 240gb SSD right now. I prioritize reliability and battery life. PLEASE HELP ME CHOOSE A GOOD DRIVE!!!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Either of those is fine.

Crucial's a frequent recommendation these days, mostly because they 1) haven't had any huge recall issues in recent memory 2) make their own NAND.

Chances are pretty good that your existing HD has power use pretty close to any SSD you would buy - you won't see much of an effect on battery life either way. Laptop (2.5") HDDs usually use 1-3w of power, SSDs use 0.5-2.5w. The big power savings is when you compare an SSD to a desktop (3.5") HD, which usually consume 10-15w.

 

[steve225]

Ah okay thank you so much for the answer hope you can answer my follow up questions! 1) which crucial ssd would you recommend? 2)I actually read that the power consumption of the HyperX Savage is 4.5w but the write speeds are over 500mb/s so do you think the increase power compsumtion is offset by the speed of the ssd compared to a regular hardrive that uses 3w but the write speeds are half that?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Ah okay thank you so much for the answer hope you can answer my follow up questions! 1) which crucial ssd would you recommend? 2)I actually read that the power consumption of the HyperX Savage is 4.5w but the write speeds are over 500mb/s so do you think the increase power compsumtion is offset by the speed of the ssd compared to a regular hardrive that uses 3w but the write speeds are half that?

1) Probably the BX100, if you're on a budget. If you want something a little higher performance, I'd look around for an M550. (They've been discontinued but should still be available.)

2) There are plenty of other SSDs in the <3w range, no reason you need to make that tradeoff. But it is possible to save power by getting the job done faster even if you use more while you're doing it. (Google for "race to idle.")

As far as performance goes, pretty much all SSDs are working in the same performance bracket in terms of MB/Sec. (500+). What you should be looking for as points of comparison are random I/O performance and performance consistency.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Chances are pretty good that your existing HD has power use pretty close to any SSD you would buy - you won't see much of an effect on battery life either way. Laptop (2.5") HDDs usually use 1-3w of power, SSDs use 0.5-2.5w. The big power savings is when you compare an SSD to a desktop (3.5") HD, which usually consume 10-15w.

Not exactly true. Unless you are doing something like Torrent, in which case there is a consistent load on the SSD, SSDs have a much better sort of "race to idle" than mechanical HDDs. SSDs can "do their duty" (read/write), and then go into a sleep mode, immediately, rather than waiting 3-5 minutes and spinning down like a laptop HDD, plus you don't have to wait 1/2 second for it to spin up again. ("click, whirr")

If you are putting an SSD in a laptop, just avoid the SSDs with higher power requirements, like the Intel 730 series, and the Seagate 600 / 600 Pro. (Although a friend of mine bought a Seagate SSD for a laptop, because it was on sale.)

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Not exactly true. Unless you are doing something like Torrent, in which case there is a consistent load on the SSD, SSDs have a much better sort of "race to idle" than mechanical HDDs. SSDs can "do their duty" (read/write), and then go into a sleep mode, immediately, rather than waiting 3-5 minutes and spinning down like a laptop HDD, plus you don't have to wait 1/2 second for it to spin up again. ("click, whirr")

If you are putting an SSD in a laptop, just avoid the SSDs with higher power requirements, like the Intel 730 series, and the Seagate 600 / 600 Pro. (Although a friend of mine bought a Seagate SSD for a laptop, because it was on sale.)

Watch your resource monitor for a while. Most I/O on a mostly idle, web browsing desktop, is so minimal that race to idle doesn't really apply.

 

[Topweasel]

Even if race to idle was an issue and we were talking about OS, general, and application usage a hybrid would minimize the power usage and increase storage per dollar.

But I would second Crucial. M550, MX200, or even a BX100 if you're on a budget. Best mixture of price, reliability, and performance.

Also power wise on a laptop, power usage across the board, HD's are the least of your concerns.

 

[daveybrat]

Can't go wrong with the Crucial BX100 series. Great performance and lowest power consumption of the series. 🙂