SSDs. Fast, but not THAT fast. :(

[VirtualLarry]

So I installed Win7 last night on a new machine.

Phenom II X3 720 unlocked to four cores, and overclocked to 3.2Ghz.
Gskill Phoenix Pro 120GB Sandforce SF-1222 SSD
Galaxy GeForce 9800GT

It WAS faster installing Win7, and web browsing is pretty snappy, but other than saving a little bit of time installing apps (of which you are mostly waiting on a slow DVD/CD drive anyways), but I'm not certain it's worth the cost.

After all, how often do you spend installing programs?

I haven't done a Malwarebytes scan yet on the machine, I'll have to try that and see how much faster it runs, since that is generally limited by the speed of the HD.

The primary reason that I'm installing a 120GB SSD in this machine is not for speed, it's going to be shipped, and I don't want the HD getting jostled and broken on me. So SSD is perfect for that.

WEI score is 6.8, of which the slowest is the video card. CPU and RAM are both 7.3, and the SSD is 7.7.

 

[frostedflakes]

It's kind of weird, I don't remember noticing a huge difference when I switched from HDD to SSD. But then later when I had an issue with my SSD and had to run my OS from an HDD, it felt painfully slow in comparison. I'd agree that the cost/benefit ratio might not be quite there yet, but they're getting close. $1/GB will be the sweet spot I think and next gen 25nm SSDs coming soon should hopefully push prices down in that area.

 

[jacc1234]

Same issue here. I picked up the same drive and put it in my laptop. Its nice but not as fast as I thought. For example clicking on firefox still takes a few seconds to bring it up. One thing that is affecting it for me is that my control is only doing SATAI, im not sure how much quicker it would be with SATAII.

 

[taltamir]

It's kind of weird, I don't remember noticing a huge difference when I switched from HDD to SSD. But then later when I had an issue with my SSD and had to run my OS from an HDD, it felt painfully slow in comparison.

same here... its kinda like how I felt scared to go over 40 MPH the first time I drove, now it feels slow.
Your perception alters... it feels "fast, but not all that"... until you try going back and then everything feels extremely slow.

 

[flamenko]

IMHO, the first time one sees the transition, most are pleasantly surprised. I have assisted 80-90 in thier transition off the web and pretty much all brag to their friends about the diff, increased battery life etc...

 

[Zap]

Your perception alters... it feels "fast, but not all that"... until you try going back and then everything feels extremely slow.

This.

Besides, people pay more all the time for "upgrades" of dubious performance value such as faster CPUs when what they had was already fast enough, or more RAM when they already had a lot of RAM.

 

[corkyg]

Agree wholly with Taltamir and Zap. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. How fast is fast enough? As long as my system is faster than I can type, or otherwise do I/O, that's good enough for me.

 

[tweakboy]

Great post I agree, the cost per GB is just no good,,,, and why have it only has a boot up drive,,, let your boot up take 2 minutes then everything is in RAM anyways.

If you reboot 20 times a day then by all means get a SSD other then that,, not worth it

what 600 dollars for 300GB come on now!!!

When SSD is as fast as RAM then I will pull the trigger, until then Im fine with my primary drive. F4 320GB 16MB pownz, fastest mechanical hard drive not counting 10k and 15k rpm drives.

 

[taltamir]

Great post I agree, the cost per GB is just no good,,,, and why have it only has a boot up drive,,, let your boot up take 2 minutes then everything is in RAM anyways.

If you reboot 20 times a day then by all means get a SSD other then that,, not worth it

what 600 dollars for 300GB come on now!!!

When SSD is as fast as RAM then I will pull the trigger, until then Im fine with my primary drive. F4 320GB 16MB pownz, fastest mechanical hard drive not counting 10k and 15k rpm drives.

... i recognize this post, this is a copy paste of the same post you make in every thread that even MENTIONS SSDs... down to the same four commas in a row and then 3 commas in the first line.
This really has absolutely nothing to do with our discussion, the "great post I agree" makes no sense since you contradict the 4 posts prior to yourself, and while we are at it, every statement you made is false.

An F4 drive is not even remotely comparable to an SSD, nobody said you need to buy a 300GB SSD, sub 100GB SSDs are quite affordable, boot time is the LEAST important benefit of an SSD, and demanding SSD be as fast as ram is patently ridiculous.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Great post I agree, the cost per GB is just no good,,,,

Depends on your goal. Some people spend $300 on a new video card when their current one already runs all of their games at 30-60+ FPS on their monitor's native resolution with all the eye candy turned on. Where's the justification in THAT cost?

and why have it only has a boot up drive,,, let your boot up take 2 minutes then everything is in RAM anyways.

Really? When you find a way to have Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Office (or at least Word + Excel), Photoshop, and Notepad++ all loaded into RAM instantly when I start my computer up, so that there is absolutely NO wait when I want to open a program for the first time, I'll consider forgoing a SSD and just buying a ton of RAM. No, Superfetch doesn't work perfectly as advertised.

If you reboot 20 times a day then by all means get a SSD other then that,, not worth it

What if you reboot once per day and open 20 different programs, all of which take between 5 and 20 seconds to load? What if you work with a notebook that is constantly being put into hibernate and woken back up? What if you're concerned about bumps, drops, and vibrations to your machine in your work environment? Battery life? Heat? Noise?

Boot times are not the only benefit of SSDs.

what 600 dollars for 300GB come on now!!!

For mass storage, get a mechanical HDD. For speed, get a SSD. Everyone knows this.

When SSD is as fast as RAM then I will pull the trigger, until then Im fine with my primary drive. F4 320GB 16MB pownz, fastest mechanical hard drive not counting 10k and 15k rpm drives.

And even those 10k and 15k RPM drives are slow as crap compared to a good SSD. It's like saying, "my Ford Focus is fast enough around the track, I'm not going to upgrade until the Mustang is as fast as a rocket ship!" Meanwhile everyone is blowing by you.

To each their own...

 

[FishAk]

...and while we are at it, every statement you made is false.

This includes your personal plans:

When SSD is as fast as RAM then I will pull the trigger

By definition an SSD is RAM, but you haven't yet pulled the trigger.

 

[dawza]

Pretty much what most of the other posters have mentioned...after the initial wow factor, it can be hard to fully appreciate the snappiness of an SSD until you go back to a (similarly spec'd) spindle-based system. For simple application launching, my X-25V based C2D 2.0Ghz Thinkpad beats out my 3GHz+ C2D VR-based workstation. However, it was not until I was using the two systems side-by-side that I truly noticed the difference.

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm a SSD bigot, but because I've tried so many drives (and wasted a lot of money doing it). Your problem is you didnt go with an Intel SSD. You probably saved a few bucks, and were sold on some benchmarks showing Sandforce being OK.. but Intel G2 is the only way to go.

 

[capeconsultant]

The silence and reliability alone would do it for me. But I sure do love the sped boost, oh yes!

 

[taltamir]

The silence and reliability alone would do it for me. But I sure do love the sped boost, oh yes!

i love the silence... its really annoying whenever i have to access my bulk storage spindle drive and it starts making all that noise.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Anytime I go home, I can tell the difference, at work I have a mechanical drive still..a newer one too, but it's just not as good as SSD, at ALL. It's obviously faster.

 

[AlgaeEater]

I got the Intel G2 a while back to replace my Velociraptor.

Earth shattering difference? Nope, even though a lot of people said it was. All the level minded people talking about day to day tasks not being hugely affected were right. People who noticed the most difference knew exactly what the SSD was bringing to the table for them, hence they got a large increase in speed. Deal with a lot of small files day in and day out, and the SSD was sent from Heaven. (Or Space / Tom Cruise - whatever you believe)

I regret the PRICE I PAID for the upgrade, but I don't regret the UPGRADE. Hope that kinda makes sense.

 

[Binky]

If an SSD doesn't seem significantly faster than a mechanical HD, you just think too slowly.

 

[Obsoleet]

I own the 160GB G2 and a 40GB G2. When the G3s are here, I will be willing to spend $600 on a 150 - 300GB model. Without hesitation. I will be diverting funds that formerly devoted to keeping up with the latest GPUs, to keeping up with the latest SSDs.

Though if people are waiting for the "sweet spot" to buy a SSD, performance wise, a G2 is the way to go. The whole "waiting till the tech has matured" has been here for a long time. Prior to the G2 (all drives I personally owned), were not worth buying.

 

[IntelUser2000]

One thing that is affecting it for me is that my control is only doing SATAI, im not sure how much quicker it would be with SATAII.

Transfer rate won't really be noticed in loading relatively simple apps like Firefox. The bottleneck there is latency and possibly even the code.

same here... its kinda like how I felt scared to go over 40 MPH the first time I drove, now it feels slow.
Your perception alters... it feels "fast, but not all that"... until you try going back and then everything feels extremely slow.

True.

An SSD makes you spoilt because rather than the current system feeling fast, all others not using an SSD feels slow. There's other benefits though. They don't slow over time(yea they do but not much as a HDD before defrag), and chances of random failures are really low. Also they are silent and cool. I bought the G1 at its peak price but its totally worth it.

 

[Zap]

I regret the PRICE I PAID for the upgrade, but I don't regret the UPGRADE. Hope that kinda makes sense.

That's a good way to think of it... probably what everyone who buys an Intel Extreme Edition CPU thinks.

 

[airdata]

I was all excited... I bought a 120gb Corsair F120 SSD.

Just got it booted up here a few minutes ago. I shrunk the partition on my 150gb raptor X and then copied the drive to the SSD.

I just ran crystaldiskmark and my scores are pretty far from what I was expecting....

The 150gb raptor X posted 75MBps/75MBps

The 120gb F120 is scoring 143MBps/85Mbps....

Any idea why it's not running at the posted 250/250?

 

[taltamir]

1. do you have SATA1 or SATA2?
2. is this on the 790GX machine in your sig? IIRC AMD southbridge is crap.
3. is AHCI on?
4. did the program you use to clone the drive know how to properly align a partition for an SSD drive? (all drives are aligned, SSDs and advanced format drives merely need to be aligned differently than older spindle drives, which results from misalignment when partitioned by a tool that is not aware of it and aligns them as if they are old spindle drives)
5. Those drives are supposed to get 250/250? I know a lot of SSDs don't get that in sequantial write/read... their biggest power is in random writes and read, where they are can be hundreds of times faster then spindle drives, which makes a big difference in a variety of tasks.

 

[Makaveli]

I was all excited... I bought a 120gb Corsair F120 SSD.

Just got it booted up here a few minutes ago. I shrunk the partition on my 150gb raptor X and then copied the drive to the SSD.

I just ran crystaldiskmark and my scores are pretty far from what I was expecting....

The 150gb raptor X posted 75MBps/75MBps

The 120gb F120 is scoring 143MBps/85Mbps....

Any idea why it's not running at the posted 250/250?

Is this Vista or Windows 7?

I believe the reason your scores are so low is because your current install is optimized for your spindle based drives and not the SSD.

I would do a full backup and fresh install for best performance if it was me.

Someone else may post another solution.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah, fresh install is probably a good idea. If running XP make sure that the partition is properly aligned. In Vista (I think) and Win 7 you shouldn't have to worry about this if you create the partition during the installation process, it will automatically handle alignment. And as taltamir mentioned make sure AHCI is enabled in the BIOS, this is very very important, with it disabled performance will be much lower.

Also keep in mind that the SandForce controllers use compression to achieve their high transfer rates. So performance will depend on the compressibility of the data, and different benchmarks can give you different results because of this. For example ATTO must use highly compressible data, because I get close to max sequential transfer, 270MB/s read and 250MB/s write. But AS SSD benchmark must use less compressible data, because I only get about 200MB/s read and 130MB/s write on its sequential benchmark. But even factoring this in your scores should be higher.