General SSD question

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boneill

Member
I'm pretty new here and I've been browsing through both the options for builds (all very, very yummy) and the forums and have come up a little confused. So here is my question:

Why do most users not throw a SSD into their machine?

What I have read about the SSD in general it seems to be the best new piece of technology available providing the greatest increase in speed of your machine. It confuses me to see people throwing together machines that have 6gb of ram, a 2gb graphics card, i7 proc and then a 7200rpm HDD. Won't the HDD cause a massive choke on the whole PC? Wouldn't it be worth your while toning down the proc/ram/graphic a little (saving 100 quid) and buying a SSD instead?
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
Well the reason I didn't was because it would've cost a fortune to get an SSD big enough for my OS and most used games (my most used game with all its log files, test server version and such takes up nigh on 40gb of space), I figured it was better to get a normal drive (though I now wish I'd got one with a bigger cache) and possibly just upgrade that later.
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
boneill said:
I'm pretty new here and I've been browsing through both the options for builds (all very, very yummy) and the forums and have come up a little confused. So here is my question:

Why do most users not throw a SSD into their machine?

What I have read about the SSD in general it seems to be the best new piece of technology available providing the greatest increase in speed of your machine. It confuses me to see people throwing together machines that have 6gb of ram, a 2gb graphics card, i7 proc and then a 7200rpm HDD. Won't the HDD cause a massive choke on the whole PC? Wouldn't it be worth your while toning down the proc/ram/graphic a little (saving 100 quid) and buying a SSD instead?
Click to expand...

You're right to some extent - I think the limiting factors at the moment are the capacities and cost of the SSD's. Many customers don't realise the benefit of SSD's at the moment and they traditionally think the CPU determines the speed, which it does. Once the prices fall and customers realise that SSD's help programs and the OS load ultra fast, then SSD's will replace SATA HDD's overnight.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Yes, SSD's are good but a bit immature tech wise. Depending on operation they are still beaten in some respects by Raptors and the main thing for a lot of people is the £ per Gb, which at the moment is a bit prohibitive.
 
B

boneill

Member
You're right to some extent - I think the limiting factors at the moment are the capacities and cost of the SSD's. Many customers don't realise the benefit of SSD's at the moment and they traditionally think the CPU determines the speed, which it does. Once the prices fall and customers realise that SSD's help programs and the OS load ultra fast, then SSD's will replace SATA HDD's overnight.
Click to expand...

Gorman, I didn't fully realise that the CPU determined so much of the speed and believed it was more of a balance between it and RAM + HDD. I think they are cheap enough now, especially given £ for performance, but give it a year and your prophecy will come through and mass upgrading will happen.

Most users already have an external HDD, so the small size of the SSD should suit users as it will be big enough to hold all apps and huge OS (thanks Windows).

So
£ per Gb
Click to expand...
is all that matters.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
I have been waiting for this sudden revolution to happen for some time now. I think its unlikely to be anytime soon, its slow progress indeed. The most promising part of it all is the hybrid SSD drives such as the Seagate model, which offers a good trade off between price, performance and capacity.

Any computer is as fast as its slowest component, but old style mechanical hard drives are only recently beginning to be maxed out.
 
D

Darko

Well-known member
Well, in my case SSD is an alternative option if you get bored your current HDD. Buying WD 6gb 7200rpm will get good performance for your needs. SSD is too small you get 1TB wd instead of 30GB ssd. :( thats very sad. hope the price to be at lower price on Christmas.
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
Gorman said:
The most promising part of it all is the hybrid SSD drives such as the Seagate model, which offers a good trade off between price, performance and capacity.
Click to expand...

This is what I think I'll be waiting for, the SSD's are just way to expensive.
 
Pontington-Smythe

Pontington-Smythe

Active member
Gorman said:
Yes, SSD's are good but a bit immature tech wise. Depending on operation they are still beaten in some respects by Raptors and the main thing for a lot of people is the £ per Gb, which at the moment is a bit prohibitive.
Click to expand...

I edged my bets then, and went for both should arrive tomorrow have taken day off for Grand Opening ;)
 
R

rocknroll

Bronze Level Poster
i have a ssd as my primary drive. this houses my os and a couple of other different things.
then i have a 1Tb hdd as my main storage drive and a 1Tb external back up drive.
i've never seen windows open so fast
 
C

Craig

Silver Level Poster
agreed - I never have seen Windows load so fast in my life, from starting to load windows to fully opened windows it takes about 5-6 seconds on my comp, around 20 seconds for a full boot up (it seems to take a while loading bios up before anything else )
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
Craig said:
agreed - I never have seen Windows load so fast in my life, from starting to load windows to fully opened windows it takes about 5-6 seconds on my comp, around 20 seconds for a full boot up (it seems to take a while loading bios up before anything else )
Click to expand...

Yeah you can't reduce the time it take BIOS to do it's thing, just have to wait until 2011 when BIOS is going to be replaced.
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
Craig said:
agreed - I never have seen Windows load so fast in my life, from starting to load windows to fully opened windows it takes about 5-6 seconds on my comp, around 20 seconds for a full boot up (it seems to take a while loading bios up before anything else )
Click to expand...

and the new UEFI system should cut down on bios loading from 20 seconds to "a few" according to the project leader.
 
X

xrchz

Bronze Level Poster
UEFI is already here on some boards (especially Intel ones); not sure how easy it is to set things up so it's actually used, though.
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
Yeah, ASUS are using it in the P5Q apparently, and intel has it in many of their boards. Doesnt look like x58 boards have it :S
 
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