SSD questions

[Rifter]

I want to try an SSD, its driving me nuts not having one i want to see if all the hype is wort it or if its completly overrated, im leaning toward overrated so i dont want to spend a boatload of cash on it. I was going to buy one in the 64GB size to run my OS's on and nothing else but then got to thinking i care more about game performance than OS boot time so would it make more sense to keep my OS's on spindle and use the SSD for game installs? Also i know that the OCZ vertex and Gskill Falcon and the Intel are the only ones worth buying and was going to go with the Gskill cause its the cheapest. I currently have a 500GB drive and will be adding a 2TB soon for mass storage. What would you guys do, install OS on SSD and turn 500GB drive to games/apps drive? or leave the 500GB as it is now with OS and apps and install games on SSD? Remember im going for max game performance.

 

[jandlecack]

If you're going for max. gaming performance then you will want your games on your SSD. I could not manage that even with a 300GB SSD, personally, but to each his own. If you decided not to be limited in how many games you can have installed at a time I really doubt you wouldn't be satisfied with the performance you get from a regular good modern HDD. The most important thing to have on the SSD is the OS anyway, as it provides a more noticeable improvement if you're very sensitive to it. Game load times are getting pretty minuscule with modern CPU & RAM anyhow.

 

[sgrinavi]

I'm digging mine, best upgrade I have had in years. The entire system is snappy, everything is fast.

Having your OS on the SSD makes sense as it speeds up all those little reads.

I have had as many as 4 Vertex's in a RAID 0 configuration, 3 is actually faster than 4 and the difference between 2 and 3 is not worth the cash. The scaling from 1 vertex to 2 is almost 100% on the ICH10R.

Unless you are willing to RAID0 a pair you probably will conclude that it's not worth it. If I couldn't have 2, on a desktop, I would probably skip it. You might consider a pair of 60's.

 

[Rifter]

Yeah fitting all games on the SSD might be a problem, i usualy only have a couple installed at a time though and uninstall games i beat and do not play online immediatly though. Quick question, if i did buy 2 im assuming it would be better to RAID 0 them as opposed to running them as 2 seperate drives right?

 

[alcoholbob]

I would run them separately and have one drive for the games only. Benchmark your OS drive, now boot into a different OS drive, and re-benchmark the first drive. There will be a pretty significant difference in random access performance (and sequential reads as well).

 

[ochadd]

Originally posted by: Rifterut
Yeah fitting all games on the SSD might be a problem, i usualy only have a couple installed at a time though and uninstall games i beat and do not play online immediatly though. Quick question, if i did buy 2 im assuming it would be better to RAID 0 them as opposed to running them as 2 seperate drives right?

I'd go for seperate drives as well. Less complex, less data to lose if something fails, and likely a quicker boot time depending on the RAID initialization times of your setup.