What is the best money spent? More Ram or Hybrid HD??

[jjr]

Saying you had the choice of one or the other what would you feel is money better spent?

I have a Alienware Aurora w/ 6gb ram, Core i7 cpu 980 @ 3.33gz running win7 64 bit home premium. I plan to update my slave drives to Green 2tb.

I was reading on the new Hybrid drive by Seagate and I just do not know if it would be worth the money spent. My current master is a 1tb WD1001FAES00W7A0 Western Digital 1.0TB 64mb cache and am pretty happy with its speed.

TIA,
JJ

 

[paulpicks21]

If you ain't maxing out your ram then there is no need to add more.

It's very rare I use more than 6GB.

 

[Ztruker]

Forget the hybrid, go with a good sized SSD, you'll see a large performance improvement. 250GB or so would be plenty since you will have the 2TB drive also.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Any over-riding reason you are considering a hybrid drive rather than the customary SSD for Windows and apps and a spinning drive for all data?

You'll probably be happy with the Green 2 TB if you don't get a DOA. I recently bought a 3 TB Green and it is faster than my primary 7200 RPM Samsung 1 TB data drive---and the Samsung was an exceptionally fast drive when I bought it 3 years ago.

 

[jjr]

The greens would be for backups so speed I do not think it would be a issue. As far as a SSD I really would like a 1tb and the cost of those is still out of reach. Perhaps I would be better off just sticking what I have for my my master and just updating the 2 slave drives.

Any over-riding reason you are considering a hybrid drive rather than the customary SSD for Windows and apps and a spinning drive for all data?

You'll probably be happy with the Green 2 TB if you don't get a DOA. I recently bought a 3 TB Green and it is faster than my primary 7200 RPM Samsung 1 TB data drive---and the Samsung was an exceptionally fast drive when I bought it 3 years ago.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The greens would be for backups so speed I do not think it would be a issue. As far as a SSD I really would like a 1tb and the cost of those is still out of reach. Perhaps I would be better off just sticking what I have for my my master and just updating the 2 slave drives.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

My SSD is only 80 GB, 35 occupied. Growing at less than 2 GB per year. It contains only Windows and apps.

Larger SSDs are of no use to me until I can get a 2 TB data SSD for maybe $200. My data occupies around 600 GB and is growing by about 150 GB per year. 250 or 500 GB or even 1 TB SSDs aren't much help to me. So I'm sticking with spinners for data, probably for several more years. I hope to buy a 2 TB spinner for $100 or less when I have to--probably in 18 months or so.

 

[Layback Bear]

It's a simple decision to me. Keep your hard drive and install a SSD 120 gigs or more. That will give you the best bang for your bucks.
The SSD will give you the kind of speed improvement you can see and feel every day you use your computer.

 

[jjr]

But probably will wait till the prices come down a bit.

Also do those SSHD hold up pretty well compared to the HD ones?

It's a simple decision to me. Keep your hard drive and install a SSD 120 gigs or more. That will give you the best bang for your bucks.
The SSD will give you the kind of speed improvement you can see and feel every day you use your computer.

 

[gregrocker]

The SSD is the best upgrade you can have.

You don't need a huge one since file data doesn't benefit from the speed improvement, just OS, Programs, Paging File and Hibernate file. Your User folders can reside on the HD and be linked by moving the User folders there or linking them via Libraries.

So 240gb which came down to $79 today for PNY on Tiger Direct should be plenty big.

 

[jjr]

Problem is that I have more music then that so the hd would not be big enough. I found in the past if I played my music that was stored on a slave drive I would get a strange lag/ buzz noise if I was browsing and playing music at the same time.

The SSD is the best upgrade you can have.

You don't need a huge one since file data doesn't benefit from the speed improvement, just OS, Programs, Paging File and Hibernate file. Your User folders can reside on the HD and be linked by moving the User folders there or linking them via Libraries.

So 240gb which came down to $79 today for PNY on Tiger Direct should be plenty big.

 

[gregrocker]

Music is data which can always be stored on a HD instead of the SSD. Issues which arise when doing that are rare, but can be dealt with if necessary.

 

[jjr]

I have been dealing with that issue not only on this pc but my other one and I have yet to find a work-around for the issue.

That was one of the reasons I figured a quicker hd or more ram would correct the issue

Music is data which can always be stored on a HD instead of the SSD. Issues which arise when doing that are rare, but can be dealt with if necessary.

 

[matts6887]

Forget the hybrid, go with a good sized SSD, you'll see a large performance improvement. 250GB or so would be plenty since you will have the 2TB drive also.

I happen to agree with z here. You will probably get a lot more for the money so to speak doing it that way then to do the ssd route. Because ssd's are so new to the market still; Im not sure you will find the bigger ones size wise yet. And even if you do; they are probably ultra $$ still. And yea the other 2tb drive should be more than enough storage for just about anything that you may need it for.