Windows 7: Are SSDs the new RAM for boosting system performance?

These horror stories are just that, "stories". Many people on here have SSD's and I have not heard of one that has a problem. In my opinion, they are every bit as reliable as a HDD. == You ask about "seek time". If you put your OS and programs on your SSD, you will be amazed how fast they are. From the time you click your mouse on an icon until the program opens is one second. That is speed.

A SSD has no "seek time" since there is no moving parts. A 7200RPM HDD has an average latency of 417ms, micro seconds. The time it takes bit of data to pass through the read/write heads until the next bit from the file arrives.
A SSD's access time, similar to seek time, is less than .1ms.

No need to defrag because the access time stays the same no matter where a file's bit are located.

I would call that the standard installation scenario today for a desktop - 60GB SSD plus user files on the HDD. For laptops 128 or 256GB SSDs are more advisable.

I still don't understand why people install big SSDs on desktops - a waste of money. My desktop 60GB SSDs are always half empty. I even have enough space to run at least 1 virtual partition on them.

Some people prefer to have lots of free space available on the system partition, I believe Windows also simply performs better when it has lots of free space to work with.

I don't use an SSD since I don't see nor have a need for one, but I still partitioned 200GB of a 1TB HDD for my Windows partition; it currently has ~99GB free right now and I'm glad I partitioned a large portion for Windows to "om nom nom" on.

Sorry to chime in here, but, I had a OCZ Vertex 3 120GB. It lasted 8 months. It had my OS and programs on it. All user data is on a spinner. It was used on my server, so it was not heavily used. Basically it ran WSUS, IIS and little else.

The SSD is being replaced under warranty. At the time I purchased it the cost was $278.00. Now a 128GB vertex 4 is under $100.

In my case, the SSD was either not detected at boot up, or if it was detected it could not boot.

I run Windows 7, Win8 and Ubuntu on a 60GB SSD and have 10GB freespace. But that is tight. I still would recommend a 120GB SSD. They are cheap these days.

I'm thinking most people that buy a Windows 7 computer don't know and don't care to know about MSI installers, moving users around, changing page filing ect. They also don't know what a Linux or Ubuntu is and don't want to know. Windows 7 was made for millions and millions of users that just want a few ticks or keys to use it or install it. To give Windows options that a few tweakers want is not going to happen. Where would Microsoft stop. They could never put all the little tweaks in a operating system that tweakers could come with. Besides it would just raise the cost of the operating system to the millions and millions that wouldn't use them or even know what tweaks are included in the operating system. Does anybody know of a company that has 90 % of the market share of operating systems or any other product sold to the masses that does a better job than Microsoft?

In all fairness, a lot of installers for consumer applications provide for either a "Standard" or "Quick" one-click install solution and an "Advanced" option where you can change things like installation directory and installed components. It's not as extreme an idea as you suggest it is.

Well it is a chip.