Windows 7: SSD's are they worth the money?

One caveat however. They have a life span, generally considered to be 2-3 years.

Some spinners never die! Between myself and my half dozen customers, we have about 5 still going after 14-15 years. And another 10 or 11 that are 12 years old.

Tell us more.

I have heard of SDD having a "SET" known limit but last time i check it's not 2/3 years..in fact your most likely to buy a new system before it dies

I think most people see the performance boost in old systems. My friend for example is going to get one and it will help him. Me i am fine the way i am all of my programs are always open my computer is on almost always for certain reasons.

Hi there
second that ABSOLUTELY.

Even people who "Think" their computer is fast enough will be in for a nice surprise with a decent SSD. They probably won't believe it.

I have a small humble ACER aspire one netbook with 4GB RAM and a samsung 120 GB M3 SSD and it just FLIES. Sometimes I forget it's a small netbook with only a uniprocessor but for the typical stuff I'm doing on the netbook (excel / presentations, movie watching and even photoshop) the performance is BETTER than a much more powerful desktop with standard spinners in it.

Most people don't realize it -- but the major bottleneck in small non commercial environment computers is NOT processing power --probably even the older PENTIUM IV processors would be adequate enough for typical users applications-- but I/O throughput -- Slow Disks will KILL ANY SYSTEM STONE DEAD --guaranteed 100% fact --End of.

(The Pentium IV used too much power and got very hot which was why it was originally phased out BTW).

Of course you also must have adequate memory in your machine too -- 4GB is probably fine for most users -- you'll need more if you want to run things like Virtual machines etc decently of course --but if you've never tried using an SSD it's difficult to convey the improvement you get -- it really is THAT GOOD.

Cheers
jimbo

The only time I have ever heard of regret is from the unfortunates who get a dud unit.

And as mentioned, the other regret is wishing they went bigger.

lol, yeah - Overnight SSD convert-ism is very common

I was

I was never a naysayer, but I did regret not doing it sooner.


Yes, I like a good myth too

All components have a 'life span'. 2-3 years can be considered the same sort of expected lifespan for mechanical HDD's these days. There's plenty of people who've experience HDD failures in that time frame.

Realistically, SSD's simply haven't been around in mainstream usage long enough to widely prove/disprove exactly what sort of lifespan they have.

Plus they are improving/refining SSD tech/controllers etc with each new release.

It's a known fact that SSD's do 'slow down' over time/usgae, especially older generation models - but even in a slow state, they still wipe the floor with HDD's. Newer controllers are improving and further mitigating the extent of SSD 'slow down'.



Even running one on in old SATA I clunker would see an overall improvement to the machine. You'd still be hampered by the rest of the components, but the difference would still be noticeable.

There's an element of truth there - the overall performance perception isn't as 'night and day' with some tasks - however, there is still a very favourable and perceptible performance difference regardless.

"I recently upgraded some drives and put my slowest SDD (Crucial C300) into my slowest machine, a 775 socket Q9550+4GB running at stock speeds. This machine was running off a 7,200 rpm HDD. Not the latest tech, but still quite a quick machine.

In that machine, the difference was astounding. It almost feels as snappy as my Sig rig now.



***

Overall SSD's are still a 'luxury' purchase and are not an absolutely imperative purchase - However they are becoming an increasingly affordable luxury and are getting harder and harder to justify not buying one.

The bottom line is; add a SSD - enjoy improvement

I don't know where "2-3 years" comes from.

The flash memory in SSD supports a limited number of write cycles. The newer controllers support "wear leveling", which is supposed to even out the writes to maximize the lifetime of the drive. The claimed MTBF (mean time before failure) of one drive I'm using:

Newegg.com - Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

is spec'ed at 2 million hours, or more than 200 years. I can't comment on the truthfulness of that. (Some drives have failed in days, or hours.)

Spinners can last, although few users plan on 15 years. I killed a 750GB drive in an external enclosure a couple of years ago by dropping it about 2 feet (60 cm) while it was powered up. The first hard drive I used (external 45 MB SCSI drive, on a Mac, back in the 1980s) was good for about 3 years before it began making cricket noises.

I think the Op's buddy's under sold exactly how much faster EVERYTHING is when using an SSD, not just start up times but everything else as well.

The theory that because an expensive i7 system is already fast so you don't need an SSD really doesn't pan out.

Using a regular hard drive on a fast new machine is like building a race engine that has a governor on it restricting the amount of power that you can have. Using a regular harddrive bogs the entire system down which is like throwing your money out the window. Why pay for the fastest 8 core CPU, Ultimate motherboard and 16GB of fast memory if your going to bog it all down using a regular HDD?

In my opinion building a fast modern system should always include using a SSD and yes I consider it to be an "absolutely imperative purchase". Spinners are for storage these days.

Installing Windows 8 RP in 7 minutes flat,...priceless.

Watch how easily I answer this question guys.


Yes.

Was that so hard?

Good answer -- I agree not 100% but 1000%.

(However some people do like a few explanations).

Cheers
jimbo

yeah sorry, I'm in a bit of a bad mood because it looks like a ton of work just came my way for the weekend...