Thank you all for this wealth of info, I wasn't expecting to get so much info!
AddRAM, my flah drives are all USB2 but I do have one USB3 flash drive and it rocks
Folks, what is Form factor? and why does it matter?
ICIT2LOL what is self cleaning? Isn't an SSD like a hard disk as in it will keep files as they where written to it?
No mate it is TRIM software see this Trim (computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) you can check to see if it is set by using the command prompt see this on how to see if it has been set.
Make Sure TRIM Is Enabled for Your Solid State Drive in Windows 7 for Better Performance
Form factor is a reference to size and how the SSD connects to the computer and to where it is mounted.
Look at the link below for a list of ALL SSDs available at Newegg. This includes ALL form factors. You can specify which form factor you are interested in in the left hand margin.
There are 2 general mount locations: in a drive bay like a standard hard drive or in a slot like a video card. There are subdivisions of each of those, so you have a dozen or more form factors.
By far the most common is 2.5 inch and those will fit in most PCs in a standard drive bay like a regular hard drive.
The "slot" type SSDs require a motherboard with a compatible slot into which the drive fits, like any other slot device such as a video card. This is newer technology, so there are fewer choices and many motherboards don't have the compatible slots.
The various form factors can differ in performance, but all are significantly faster than hard drives.
Computer Hardware, Hard Drives, SSDs, Internal SSDs, Newegg - Newegg.com
Layback Bear, if I understood you correctly; the slowest SSDs will be faster than a HD and I won't notice the difference in speed between a fast SSD and a slow SSD?
ICIT2LOL, Trim turned out to be an added complication because an SSD cannot be treated as a HD. Does Windows 7 automatically TRIM an SSD every now and then?
1. What do you mean by "slow SSD". If you refer to read/write times that you find in the specifications, then there are differences. But those times do not really matter because a) the OS uses mostly 4K blocks and not the large blocks to which the specifications refer and b) the OS performance stems from the very fast access time of 0.1ms on average - and that is 150 times faster than a HDD.
2. If you install Windows 7 or later on a SSD, Trim is automatic and defrag is disabled. Here is how you can check Trim:
TRIM Support for SSD - Check and Enable or Disable
This is exactly what I mean.
From my post #4
whs put it in a more exact fashion in his post #15.I know of no slow SSD; some are just faster than others but you won't be able to see the difference
Anything that is 150 times faster than what we use to use (hard drives) is a speed demon.b) the OS performance stems from the very fast access time of 0.1ms on average - and that is 150 times faster than a HDD.
No mate it isn't a complication it is a feature if it needs describing see what WHS and Layback Bear say and anyway it beats the hell out of defragging some slow old spinner. You just need to make sure the TRIM is "on" using that command prompt it will look after itself and does it during periods of idle.
I use Macrium Reflect a lot to image my HD and restore it. Sometimes I use it as an uninstaller ( I image before installing software and if I don't like the software I restore) to prevent unremoved files from piling up and slowing the PC down.
Will I be able to use Macriu on a SSD or will I use to many r/w cycles?
I've read that with SSDs there is a limit or R/W cycles? Does that mean that an SSD can fail suddenly without warning ?
Look anything can fail at any time and I think I am right in stating that even high R/W cycles would take a very long time to degrade the drive to being useless. Far more likely to have a mechanical drive fail because of the mechanisms (moving) inside the darn things, not to mention the electrical controller.
If you have ever opened up an old spinner you would know what I mean.
For my money they are only of any use to me for the rare earth magnets they contain - great for holding tools to benches or shelves and also magnetizing screwdrivers
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