Are SSDs the new RAM for boosting system performance?

[Brink]

RAM was once the king of the system performance boost. Now, there's a new kid in town that's usurping the throne: SSDs.

SSDs are the new performance panacea. But, when SSDs first hit the scene a few years ago, we hated them. They were small--too small to be useful and too slow for anything but Netbooks. Technology took hold and now SSDs are our new heroes. They are the new RAM. Still a little pricey for widespread consumer use; servers, high-end laptops and ultrabooks come equipped with them. And, they're fast. They're cool. Sure, they're cool in the vernacular sense of the word but they're also cool in the Fahrenheit/Celsius sense too. No moving parts means cooler temps and cooler laps under them. My favorite thing to say about SSDs is that, "They toil not and neither do they spin."

Read more at source:
Are SSDs the new RAM for boosting system performance? | ZDNet

 

[paulpicks21]

I remember paying at least £80 for 2GB of Ram many years ago, you can get a nice 128gb SSD for that now.

I certainly always recommend SSD's to people as a source of speeding their PC's up.

 

[x BlueRobot]

SSD's are the better option for increasing performance, although when you want a cheap and easy performance boost, then adding RAM could still be the option which consumers choose.

 

[logicearth]

Unless you have less then 4GBs of RAM adding more won't really help. Thus you have to look at other places to increase performance. SSDs are the next logical step. My new computer is going to come with 16 GB of Quad-channel memory, while enough for my intended purpose gaming, adding more will not improve performance for most of my application except running VMs. Thus, I'm throwing a small 256 GB SSD into this computer...or I haven't fully decided yet but I have been offered 512 GB SSD + 1 TB storage drive for an extra $400 (plus the cost of the 256 SSD, single 512 SSD is an extra $300). But we will see.

 

[eburnettscd]

How reliable are SSD drives? Horror stories of corrupted files lost - or is that just a USB device thing? On my part I've also been able to recover lost and raw partoons from my flash drive but not without some damaged goods. Imagination, heavy disk use maybe?

I have also wondered what is seek time like on SSD. I know USB is not the swiftest tool in the shed but what time cost savings could you expect from say - a comparable 7200 rpm?

And I hear you say no need to defrag - ahh what's this? I would like one to get rid of all the heat excess - when will a decent size (80+ GB works for me) at a decent price be on market?

 

[eburnettscd]

Ps I'm very cheap

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
in theory if the SSD is fast enough then you wouldn't need RAM at all -- apart from a small amount of RAM in the BIOS to bootstrap the OS and initialize the SSD driver to load the OS on to and prepare the user logon screen.

The MOBOS would have to be changed but gone would be the days of buying extra RAM -- a fast 256 GB SSD should be plenty for the next generation of PC's.

It probably will be a race between memory chip makers and SSD designers who can make the cheapest, fastest devices.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[King Arthur]

Besides access speeds, of which RAM still holds a clear advantage over other data storage mediums, RAM also holds the advantage of having unlimited write cycles which is essential in "scratch paper"-esque data storage mediums like RAM where data is constantly being written and rewritten. While we've always used swap files/virtual memory on our HDDs (which also have unlimited write cycles) to complement RAM, I'm not sure if swap files/virtual memory would be healthy for SSDs; at the very least they would be relatively short-lived.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I think the balance of power between the two is the key, but it sounds like the balance has swung to the SSD and with capacities upping with street prices falling it's a great and natural upgrade. The SSD is in my opinion the greatest singular upgrade one can make to their modern system currently. I started with a Crucial 64gb and (5) SSD's later I'm over the moon with the latest 256gb Samsung 830 in my rig.

 

[mikiep]

Microsoft needs to rethink the disk/file/path structure. Perhaps move the MyDocuments/MyPicture/MyMusic/Downloads etc to D drive along with optional maybe for program installs to manually choose C drive installs or not. Make the system a fast boot at least... Then most standard users can get by with a small say 64 or maybe 32gb ssd c: drive and a larger d: spinning drive with ample room to have a system image for when that ssd craps out.

 

[bigmck]

How reliable are SSD drives? Horror stories of corrupted files lost - or is that just a USB device thing? On my part I've also been able to recover lost and raw partoons from my flash drive but not without some damaged goods. Imagination, heavy disk use maybe?

I have also wondered what is seek time like on SSD. I know USB is not the swiftest tool in the shed but what time cost savings could you expect from say - a comparable 7200 rpm?

And I hear you say no need to defrag - ahh what's this? I would like one to get rid of all the heat excess - when will a decent size (80+ GB works for me) at a decent price be on market?

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.

 

[Britton30]

How reliable are SSD drives? Horror stories of corrupted files lost - or is that just a USB device thing? On my part I've also been able to recover lost and raw partoons from my flash drive but not without some damaged goods. Imagination, heavy disk use maybe?

I have also wondered what is seek time like on SSD. I know USB is not the swiftest tool in the shed but what time cost savings could you expect from say - a comparable 7200 rpm?

And I hear you say no need to defrag - ahh what's this? I would like one to get rid of all the heat excess - when will a decent size (80+ GB works for me) at a decent price be on market?

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.

 

[whs]

Microsoft needs to rethink the disk/file/path structure. Perhaps move the MyDocuments/MyPicture/MyMusic/Downloads etc to D drive along with optional maybe for program installs to manually choose C drive installs or not. Make the system a fast boot at least... Then most standard users can get by with a small say 64 or maybe 32gb ssd c: drive and a larger d: spinning drive with ample room to have a system image for when that ssd craps out.

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.

 

[King Arthur]

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.

 

[TanyaC]

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.

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.

 

[whs]

I have 3 operating systems, so 60 GB probably wouldn't be big enough.

I run Win7, 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.

 

[Layback Bear]

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?

 

[King Arthur]

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.

 

[gregrocker]

Well it is a chip.