SSD drive almost full - thinking of going back to hard drive

[MongGrel]

...

 

[Magic Carpet]

Going back to an HDD after an SSD is a big step backwards.

Windows caches most of the stuff into ram, so after while, it's not so bad to be using a spinner. It's shutting down / starting up seems to be the most annoying. The one I am using here is ST500DM002, works fine with 8 gigs of ram. Have a bnib Intel 240gb SSD but too lazy to install. With next OS reinstall, perhaps.

With 4 gigs of ram or less, it is absolutely a pain to be using a mechanical drive in any scenario though.

I try to store as little as possible in one place, so space is never an issue.

 

[Cerb]

You can move whatever wherever, but IMO, go ahead and use the MX200. Sell the 840 Pro if you don't need it.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37327015&postcount=3
Unless Micron has regressed quite a bit with new drives, I would expect OK performance as you fill up an MX200 (consumer M600), so long as you let it have lots of idle time. This has been a weak point for Samsung until the 850 non-Evo, and a strength of Intel (Marvell or Intel units), Micron (Marvell units), Plextor (Marvell units), and Sandisk (Marvell units), over the past few years.

Holy crap, $285? That's tempting. I might have to bite. I'll probably buy it, and then they'll have a cheaper 3D NAND refresh, though. Hmmm... :hmm: $299, now...

 

[ddarko]

Thanks to all for the feedback and suggestions. I returned the Crucial SSD, freed up an SATA port and re-installed the WD Black as a gaming drive. I've moved Steam and Origin onto the drive which freed up 70GB of space on my Samsung SSD. I'm keeping GTA 5 on the Samsung for now in case that game might benefit from being on an SSD. So far, the setup seems to be working well - the OS is responsive again and games off the WD drive seem fine.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

So . . . you're telling us that either an SATA-III (or SATA-II?) connection for a WD drive for reading game program and scenery modules shows satisfactory response for you ?

Whatever floats your boat. My two near-twin SB-K systems differ: sig-rig has only SSD boot-drive (-III) and SATA-II access to a 1TB drive -- providing buffer and DVR storage for Media Center. There is no caching for the HDD. The other system has a smaller SSD boot-disk, and a cached 500GB drive. I don't need the caching for the MC disk, but I prefer it for the cached-drive, with only game programs and files stored there.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Of course, playing larger games of SSD is much nicer. I remember playing FC4 from HDD and SSD, and the difference was quite noticeable, especially when moving around the map.

 

[ddarko]

Well, this is interesting. Both Amazon and B&H are selling the Sandisk Extreme Pro 480GB for $216 right now:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extre...8&qid=1429314396&sr=8-1&keywords=sandisk+480g

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._sdssdxps_480g_g25_480gb_extreme_pro_ssd.html

It's not an all-time low but it's a pretty good price for a top-tier drive. Hmmm.....

 

[freeskier93]

I have a 250 GB SSD for OS and applications and a 2TB RAID array for media/data. I keep Steam libraries on both drives and just move games I don't play to the array and games I do play on the SSD. Moving games back and forth is a bit faster then re downloading them.

 

[BFG10K]

SSD space is becoming a problem in general given games are pushing 60GB per install, and consumer SSDs top out at 1TB. I have over 700GB worth of games installed on mine.

If we don't get 2TB (or higher) consumer SSDs soon, I'm going to have to go back to an HDD for games.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, this is interesting. Both Amazon and B&H are selling the Sandisk Extreme Pro 480GB for $216 right now:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extre...8&qid=1429314396&sr=8-1&keywords=sandisk+480g

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._sdssdxps_480g_g25_480gb_extreme_pro_ssd.html

It's not an all-time low but it's a pretty good price for a top-tier drive. Hmmm.....

Here's today's "special" on 500GB BX100's at the Egg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-041815-index-_-InternalSSDs-_-20148946-S1A1C

There are enough reasons not to burn the bridges entirely on electro-mechanical storage devices. They'd been very inexpensive for years, although there was a Tsunami or typhoon that disrupted Asian production and caused prices to go up. I've already explained how your usage patterns including games might make the caching solution better than just a compromise. When I boot up one of my systems, I check the cache hit rate, and of course it's very low. I haven't read from the cache at that point. When I play a game which had been cached earlier, there's a 98% hit-rate showing up for the SSD cache.

In the long run, there's speed, size and price/gigabyte, power consumption, compact device size and weight, reliability within warranty and longevity. The "accelerated" HDD with SSD-caching is just another point on a multi-dimensional surface or map of trade-offs. You're doing in spades what "hybrid" drives say they do, and they don't do it nearly as well.

I'll leave off by saying that it's remarkable how stubborn someone can be in their opinions when they've watched something work for years and months without a hitch -- and in at least three different ways.

 

[AlienTech]

Don't have a SATA port to spare. Freeing one up could be done but it would be a pain. Plus, I like having applications and the OS on the same drive - there always seems to be a program that still expects and requires to be installed on the same drive as the OS. I'd rather just keep everything together instead of splitting OS and applications. Also it's more convenient for imaging and cloning purposes.

You could get a Syba 4 Port SATA III RAID HyperDuo PCI-e 2.0 x4 Card SD-PEX40054 by Syba for $35 from amazon which adds the SSD and a hardive to create a JBOD system.. Where the space at the beginning of the partition is the SSD and the hard drive is at the end. The program itself moves files around the drives depending on usage and you can manually set it to do it as well. So it shows up as a single drive and basically set and forget and works well for the majority of cases. You could tweak it in case you want some large files on the hard disk or the SSD. This is basically like the Raid thing but instead of getting twice the speed, it only writes to one of the disks at a time so no speed increase other than depending on if the data is on the SSD or the Hard drive. Windows dynamic volume also seems to work like this but there is no option for you to specify which drive the data ends up on like in hyperduo.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You could get a Syba 4 Port SATA III RAID HyperDuo PCI-e 2.0 x4 Card SD-PEX40054 by Syba for $35 from amazon which adds the SSD and a hardive to create a JBOD system.. Where the space at the beginning of the partition is the SSD and the hard drive is at the end. The program itself moves files around the drives depending on usage and you can manually set it to do it as well. So it shows up as a single drive and basically set and forget and works well for the majority of cases. You could tweak it in case you want some large files on the hard disk or the SSD. This is basically like the Raid thing but instead of getting twice the speed, it only writes to one of the disks at a time so no speed increase other than depending on if the data is on the SSD or the Hard drive. Windows dynamic volume also seems to work like this but there is no option for you to specify which drive the data ends up on like in hyperduo.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was pretty sure Hyper-Duo was an SSD-caching solution like ISRT or Primo-Cache's L2 option. But you'd still be able to implement "JBOD" on that Marvell-based card.

 

[Dave2150]

If OP didn't notice a huge performance boost when swapping from his HD to his Samsung SSD, then going back to a hard drive should not be an issue.

Though I have no idea how you didn't notice the performance difference, most likely you installed it incorrectly or have it limited to SATA 1 speeds somehow.

Better still, go back to loading your OS from a floppy disk

 

[StinkyPinky]

Hard drives are just terrible for a boot drive. I have an iMac at work and it runs like a total dog because of the HDD. My wife's budget PC feels way more responsive because it has a cheap SSD. I could never go back to using a HDD.