SSDs are fast, but do they last?

Runckle_SP1 said:

I find it hard to believe that a few grown men, can get so argumentative over the fact that a device that brings a small advance in computing, is so advantageous that it is worth forking out £85 Crucial CT064M4Solid State Drive2 64GB M4 Solid State Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories (25% of a new computer). When you already have a HDD drive doing the exact same function only milliseconds of difference which add up too not much over a week.
If your talking about boot time then ''why don't you go and make yourself a cup of tea whilst the computer boots up like most people do''! Or, just leave it on.
£85 not worth it. £30 I'll consider it but there are disadvantages that I have pointed out before.
I don't think I have anything more to say on the subject.

This has got to be the most off base comment to this point. Why do I enjoy an SSD when a spinner does the same job?
Hmm...Is that sorta like I guess we should all be using netbooks since they are doing the same thing as my Toughbook? If that was the case we would be living in one huge boring world. Heck, we might as well all be driving the same cars then.

Sit back, sip your Tea very slowly.......Now try to come up with a better defense.

Runckle_SP1 said:

I find it hard to believe that a few grown men, can get so argumentative ...

Who you calling "grown man"?

toughbook said:

Runckle_SP1 said:

I find it hard to believe that a few grown men, can get so argumentative over the fact that a device that brings a small advance in computing, is so advantageous that it is worth forking out £85 Crucial CT064M4Solid State Drive2 64GB M4 Solid State Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories (25% of a new computer). When you already have a HDD drive doing the exact same function only milliseconds of difference which add up too not much over a week.
If your talking about boot time then ''why don't you go and make yourself a cup of tea whilst the computer boots up like most people do''! Or, just leave it on.
£85 not worth it. £30 I'll consider it but there are disadvantages that I have pointed out before.
I don't think I have anything more to say on the subject.

This has got to be the most off base comment to this point. Why do I enjoy an SSD when a spinner does the same job?
Hmm...Is that sorta like I guess we should all be using netbooks since they are doing the same thing as my Toughbook? If that was the case we would be living in one huge boring world. Heck, we might as well all be driving the same cars then.

Sit back, sip your Tea very slowly.......Now try to come up with a better defense.

pparks1 said:

Runckle_SP1 said:

I find it hard to believe that a few grown men, can get so argumentative over the fact that a device that brings a small advance in computing, is so advantageous that it is worth forking out £85 Crucial CT064M4Solid State Drive2 64GB M4 Solid State Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories (25% of a new computer).

Well, that assumes that the advance itself is small. I guess whether it's worthwhile is in the eye of the person who purchased it. Many have upgraded a processor, memory, CPU cooling, from 32bit to 64bit only to find that it really didn't make a noticeable change. The SSD on the other hand, does make a change, it's quantifiable. You can measure things with a stopwatch and see without a doubt it's faster.

Runckle_SP1 said:

When you already have a HDD drive doing the exact same function only milliseconds of difference which add up too not much over a week.
If your talking about boot time then ''why don't you go and make yourself a cup of tea whilst the computer boots up like most people do''! Or, just leave it on.

It's not just about boot times. While these do improve, there are other beneficial areas as well.
#1). I don't bother hibernating my laptop anymore, I simply reboot it because it's fast
#2). A malwarebytes scan of my entire laptop takes 2:30 and scans 230,000 items
#3). My laptop is now silent, no more clicking and clacking from the hard drive
#4). A game that used to take 20 seconds to get to the menu and another 25 seconds to get into game now takes about 8 seconds total and I'm playing.
#5). My Windows XP Mode VM (where I test most things), boots and is at desktop in just 11 seconds.

Runckle_SP1 said:

£85 not worth it. £30 I'll consider it but there are disadvantages that I have pointed out before.
I don't think I have anything more to say on the subject.

Money is always the key. Whether it's worth it to you, only you can decide.

I used to poo-poo SSD's as well when they first came out and didn't feel like they were worth it. I finally decided to get one, simply to see what all of the fuss was about (I do computer work for a living, so some of the cost went towards educating myself)...and I'm glad that I bought it. No regrets. I now have one in my work laptop as well...was even willing to go from a 160GB mechanical to an 80GB SSD and simply have less on the computer for the speed advantages. No regrets on that choice either.

I'm not at a point where I consider the SSD a "must have" for any computer. But it's certainly a "want to have" on my powerhouse boxes that I consider high end performers.

Dave76 said:

Runckle_SP1 said:

I find it hard to believe that a few grown men, can get so argumentative over the fact that a device that brings a small advance in computing, is so advantageous that it is worth forking out £85 Crucial CT064M4Solid State Drive2 64GB M4 Solid State Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories (25% of a new computer). When you already have a HDD drive doing the exact same function only milliseconds of difference which add up too not much over a week.
If your talking about boot time then ''why don't you go and make yourself a cup of tea whilst the computer boots up like most people do''! Or, just leave it on.
£85 not worth it. £30 I'll consider it but there are disadvantages that I have pointed out before.
I don't think I have anything more to say on the subject.

Spoken like someone that has never used an SSD.

Once you finally do, you will say 'should have gotten one sooner'. Many others have already.

Let's just call it a draw and let every 'Grown Man' decide for themselves

As already mentioned by several, I will continue to use a SSD in my system and will recommend them to anyone.

It is not just a few milli-seconds of boot time. Everything runs much faster, the OS and every app you have.
I had to disable the swirling windows at the startup because it never had time to finish.
Word, excel, onenote, and all programs actually pop open, no waiting, none.
I enjoy my 18 second boot time

Well all I can say is well done lads for making your points for...I can't agree with you at this point but perhaps in the future when they are worth it!

pparks1 said:

Runckle_SP1 said:

Well all I can say is well done lads for making your points for...I can't agree with you at this point but perhaps in the future when they are worth it!

Like I said, whether it's "worth it", is a personal issue. Your finances are just that, your finances.

Perhaps a better approach would have been to say, "unfortunately at this point I cannot afford to upgrade to one", or "I have other priorities at the present time".

Edit: But I see posts earlier where you say that money isn't the issue and you could buy hundreds of them if you wanted to.
Do you actually have hands-on experiences with an SSD product? And what are the reasons why you are against them at this point?

The only thing I can see you saying at this point, is that "it's too expensive for such a small increase in performance". But what experience do you have with regards to the actual performance gain...and what's the issue with money...you said earlier you could buy a hundred of them.

Please clarify, it might help us.

I have the finances. I just don't think their worth it. Maybe in a year or so then the speed and value will be more attractive, but at the moment NO!

pparks1 said:

Do you actually have hands-on experiences with an SSD product? And what are the reasons why you are against them at this point?

The only thing I can see you saying at this point, is that "it's too expensive for such a small increase in performance". But what experience do you have with regards to the actual performance gain...and what's the issue with money...you said earlier you could buy a hundred of them.

Well I guess we got an answer from his post above.

legacy7955 said:

I'm also interested in hearing more about how the SSD will slow down to protect iself from excessive writing
is there a way for the user to monitor this scenario provided by the SSD manufacturers?

Also I never heard of "garbage collection" being required to maintain an SSD until reading here, I didn't think they needed that. How does this work compared to "defragmenting" of a HDD.

Again does anyone know of a PC OEM like HP offering an SSD on their desktops?

I'm surprised that the major OEMS don't because you can configure many different options and price points with them.

Anyone know WHY the big OEM PC markers haven't migrated to offering SSDs yet, aside from price?

Only certain brands of SSD, in particular Sandforce based, will throttle writes for endurance. Intel and Crucial don't.

Garbage collection or TRIM are needed to provide clean blocks to write to, otherwise all your writes would require an erase cycle and slow you down a lot.

For PC makers, bottom line price and their support wants to deal with a well known quantity like disk and not have to worry about write throttling and TRIM and all that.