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

This conversation come up today between me and a few blokes, and i have never used one but from what I can gather they are not worth the money. I have heard that apart from quicker start up's they offer very little, and for what they do offer they are not worth the price you pay for them.

I only ever shut my laptop down when I need to install updates, so I don't think I would benefit from the quicker start up times. I have also heard that your programs start up quicker but once they are up and running they don't perform any different, unless you are playing a game. I have also heard that they can only be re-written a certain amount of times before they pack up.



Like I said I have never used one, and my opinion is only based on snippets of information I have gathered from here and there, what's your opinion.

I think they can be worth it. They boot up and shut down faster, they virus scan faster, they remove the need for having to defrag your computer. Everything your OS does is faster, including the installation of all of those updates.

It does launch applications faster, but once they are open, they are in RAM and the speed of the hard drive doesn't make much difference. Games load quicker too, as they are often very large, but game performance while in game aren't any different. Most times you load up the game fast on the SSD, and then wait online for your non-SSD friends to get loaded so that you can play.

I've had an SSD on my main machine at home and I bought it when an 80GB was around $290. I haven't regretted that purchase.

We recently evaulated the 3 year old laptops we use at work and rather than get all new laptops, we simply bought an SSD drive, and transferred end users from Vista on their spinner, to Windows 7 on their SSD and it's like a brand new machine for them...because everything is faster. It's also quieter and gives off less heat. And it does consume less power, but I cannot say that I have really noticed any difference from a battery life perspective.

All of my performance oriented friends at work and using SSD's in their desktops. There are 5 of us, none of us regret going to SSD.

Is it worth it? To me nope, my computer is fast enough. I load up everything quickly and my system doesnt feel slow.
I have a friend however who is has a Duo Core/6GB RAM/2HDD avg speed. His PC feels slow, his startup takes about 3x or 4x times as other computers with weaker specs.

His motherboard is a bit outdated so upgrading him with a new processor comes out quite expensive. Which they dont even sell anymore. A new GPU would not help besides his gaming. We have already defrag and uninstalled many startup programs it help very little. The most efficient upgrade and cost effective would be a new SDD for him.

For me a new SDD would not do much.

SDD is probably the best upgrade best bang for your back. Especially on systems with older motherboards.

I think you will have to look hard to find people who have one that regret the purchase. And there are probably a few, but very few. One of the most common phrases we hear here from people who just installed their first SSD is, why did I wait so long. They are the most noticeable upgrade you can do to a computer.

Thanks guys for the opinions keep them coming.

From what I can gather, is they are good for an upgrade to you system providing your system isn't so old or slow that it wont make any difference to performance. If you already have a very fast system with say an i7, then the performance increase wont make as much of a difference than if you have a slower cpu, or it wont be as noticeable. The issues that I mentioned about reliability are not a problem as they are just as reliable as HDD's.

The only complaint I have read of a SSD user is; I wish I would have gotten a bigger one.

Yes, without a doubt. Honestly, I think anyone who says it doesn't really make a difference has never had one. I used to think the same until I got one myself.
Theres a big difference you will notice immediately.

And its more than just startup and shutdowns. larger programs, Such as Photoshop, Nero etc start up almost instantly, rather than a few seconds load time.

Although, I will admit that for many games theres not that big of a difference, other than the initial load time. But for the OS and apps, absolutely!

An SSD can improve load times for a slow machine. I stuck one in my old Presario CQ-105NR (1.90 GHz AMD Athlon X2 QL-60 Dual-Core Processor) and it made a quite noticeable difference. For some purposes the low latency of an SSD is significant, even if its continuous transfer rates aren't a lot higher than for a spinner.

An SSD can make a bigger impact on an older slower system, but I know plenty of people who have built brand new Core i7 boxes and used SSD's. In fact, friend at work did an Alienware laptop, with dual SSD's in RAID 0, and dual video cards in crossfire. He loves his little beast.

Definitely worth it if money is not an object to you.

There's an old saying when it comes to computers, "Your PC is only as fast as its slowest component".

The gulf of memory speeds between CPUs, RAM and HDDs haven't been greater as they have right now... CPUs have to wait for what is essentially an eternity for data to be fed to them to work on it, so they spend most of their lives idling, even more so now with the 4 - 6 multi core monstrosities that beg to be continuously fed with data and to be utilized.... CPUs engorge data at many many maginitudes greater than conventional HDDs can feed them...

So yes, grab a SSD, get the biggest one for your system and watch your CPU stretch its proverbial legs!