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SSD vs SSHD

NOLA_tech

Junior Member
I am considering building a new system using some parts from my old system, 16gb ram, optical drive, PSU, case and buying a new motherboard (ASUS p8z77-v le plus), CPU (Intel Core i5-3570K), and hard drive. I currently have a WD 500gb green (primary, Win7) and a WD blue 320gb (secondary). I have researched what's listed above and am okay with these parts. I am unsettled on whether to go with

a 120gb SSD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147188
or
a 1tb SSHD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178340

Recommendations? I plan to install Win8 on the new drive. I am not a gamer, just use the pc for internet, email, etc.
 
I have a system with that 1TB SSHD as a boot drive. I also have multiple systems with SSDs as boot drives.

I'll say this - Win8 boots almost instantly on the SSHD, but with some tasks, I'm reminded that the small SSD cache is backed up by a very slow hard drive. For instance, installing new drivers, loading a game for the first time in a while, running a benchmark that loads a lot of textures. It just took about 2 minutes to restart after I updated my Nvidia drivers - I thought the system had crashed, but no, it's just really slow when you hit the hard drive.

For your purposes, none of that will come into play very much, because you're just using it for internet. But here's the big question - do you actually need more than 120GB of space for internet, email, etc.? Unless you have a huge MP3, photo, or video collection, I don't think you do. And therefore, at about the same price, I'd definitely take the SSD. That is especially true if you're going to be using either of your old hard drives.

If you said you were playing a lot of games, you didn't have any other hard drives, and you had only $100 to spend, then the SSHD would be the obvious choice, because 120GB would get filled immediately.
 
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Since you already have a couple of drives that can be used for data storage, I would go with the 120GB SSD. As Termie pointed out, the SSD cache in an SSHD is quite small, and you can easily run into situations where you're reading from the HDD.

IMHO, the performance consistency offered by an SSD is just as important as the speed. Nothing is more frustrating that (seemingly) random pauses when you're trying to get something done.
 
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