Upgrading from HDD to SSD? worth it?

[itafak]

Trying to upgrade my whole system and thinking about switching from HDD to SSD, but was wondering would I get any real noticable difference which should be worth spending money on?

currently have this system:
6970 radeon videocard
i5 3350p
some 7200rpm regular poverty 250gb hdd
4gb ram

I had once ssd before 3years. but the speeds were like 170mb/s read and only 35mb/s write , it kinda did increase speed by very small margin , but it was only 40gb ssd and 25of it took up operating system and had only like 10gb left which was just stupid as fuk.

Now can get 120gb SSD for £53 from:
http://www.dabs.com/products/kingston-120gb-ssdnow-v300-sata-6gb-s-2-5--7mm-solid-state-drive-8F75.html?q=120gb%20ssd&src=16


120gb seems like enough space for me, but wanted to know what kind of overall performance increase I can expect from such HDD to SSD upgrade?
Don't really care about windows boot-up times.

 

[lehtv]

It's a huge difference in overall responsiveness and snappiness, things just happen faster. This is especially true considering you have some old 250GB disk. You should notice a huge improvement, I did when I moved to my current SSD from having the OS installed on a 5400RPM disk. Definitely recommended

That same drive is even less at Aria, though not sure of their shipping costs
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...ter+(9.5mm)+?productId=55527&source=skinflint

I'd also consider the Crucial M500 240GB from Scan for £89. If I were buying a new SSD now, it'd be at least 240GB since a 120GB drive will fill up fast from games

 

[tidy]

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[itafak]

It's a huge difference in overall responsiveness and snappiness, things just happen faster. This is especially true considering you have some old 250GB disk. You should notice a huge improvement, I did when I moved to my current SSD from having the OS installed on a 5400RPM disk. Definitely recommended

That same drive is even less at Aria, though not sure of their shipping costs
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...ter+(9.5mm)+?productId=55527&source=skinflint

I'd also consider the Crucial M500 240GB from Scan for £89. If I were buying a new SSD now, it'd be at least 240GB since a 120GB drive will fill up fast from games

thanks for link,saw it also but their shipping costs kills that price.
wondering about the same 120gb vs 240gb also, but kinda don't want to drop 100 on a harddrive since Spent only 200 total building that system.

 

[lehtv]

Just noticed this recent article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

I'd stay away from Kingston SSD's for the moment... this isn't good news. Grab a Samsung 840 EVO

 

[itafak]

Just noticed this recent article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

I'd stay away from Kingston SSD's for the moment... this isn't good news. Grab a Samsung 840 EVO

thanks! will stay away from it, all I have ever bought from kingston before were 2 flash drives- both were utter shit, seems like their other products arent better.

 

[lehtv]

I wouldn't call their SSD's shit overall, they are average. Just that after the above change, the V300 is no longer worth buying unless you get it for dirt cheap.

Kingston is also a superb RAM module brand, they usually top the charts in reliability.

 

[Tweakin]

I've been consistently underwhelmed by SSDs, but maybe it's because my HDD systems used aggressively short stroked RAID 0 arrays which are always defragmented with a smart defragmenter. The thing I love most about SSDs is the lack of noise/vibration.

+1

I've been running Raptors in RAID up until last year when I went SSD...no big deal in real world use to me. Benchmark is uber fast. I wouldn't buy another platter drive, but don't expect your hair to blow back.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Yeah...that Ananadtech piece about the quality of the Kingston NAND was pretty disheartening.

but wanted to know what kind of overall performance increase I can expect from such HDD to SSD upgrade?

Applications will launch nearly instantaneously, even really big ones like Lightroom. Boot and shut down times are faster. Everything just feels more responsive and qualitatively "faster". If your games are on an SSD, expect super snappy loading screens, launch times etc.

 

[steve wilson]

I noticed a difference when I went from a spindle to an SSD. It was worth it for me.

I would try to get a 250GB one if you can stretch to it. It's pretty much the sweet spot for top performance and you are unlikely to run out of room on it if you play lots of different games at once.

 

[poohbear]

HDD to SSD is one of the biggest improvements you can make for the desktop. CPUs have plateaued, and even 4gb to 8gb isn't a big difference in general system performance (let alone 16gb). but an ssd is a huge leap in general performance! i recommend Samsung's Evo line, reliable and very snappy!

 

[tweakboy]

The bupgrade you can make for your Rig is get a SSD.

access time 0.0 ,,,,,,,,,,, hard drive 14 access I had a Q6600 with 460, when I put the SSD in, I was blown away and told myself this is the biggest upgrade you can make, including a new CPU and what not.

Boot time 20 seconds. Everything I clicked on OPENED INSTANTLY...

games started instantly as well. Also you can run a couple virus and other app and another all go faster,, cuz theres multitasking. gl

 

[bonehead123]

The biggest disappointment I have notice from others is when they expect a high performance increase by installing a modern SATA III drive into an older system that has only the antique SATA I interfaces.....yea the drive is bookoo faster but all of that speed is bottlenecked & lost on the old connections.....

The best bet in this case is to also install an SATA III pci controller card to connect the new drive(s) to.... you'll still lose some speed but not that much overall

OTOH, when I upgraded my laptop from the stock 5400rpm HDD to an SSD, it was like I got a new machine right away.......scary fast

 

[Emulex]

The oldest sata-1 laptops can breathe new life into them with a fresh copy of windows 8.1 and any SSD!

you'd be surprised how crappy a PC can be with an SSD and get things done!