Finally deciding to get a SSD hard drive

[Nemix]

So I've finally decided to jump in the SSD bandwagon and panning on getting a Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB hard drive 64GB for my OS and applications. Games and storage data will be on my 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12's in RAID 0.

From reviews, the SSDNow V100 reads an average of 250mb/s and writes at 120mb/s with a 0.5ms access time. I'm expecting a big performance boost from my current 7200.12's in RAID 0 that only does 170mb/s read and 170mb/s write with a 14ms access time.

All thought welcome,

 

[Beginning]

Yes... I to have taken the next step and ordered an SSD. Newegg.ca - Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) There are so many to choose from I guess it just gets down to trial and error.. I hope mine won't be an error. I'm so looking forward to a fast boot up, fast program loading, and a nice WEI.

 

[Nemix]

The Crucial RealSSD C300 is my second choice. It has an amazing read speed average of 350mb/s paired with a SATA-600 controller and the same reads speeds as the Kingston SSDNow V100 @ 250mb/s paired with a SATA-300 controller.

The only thing that I do not like about the Crucial is it's write speed of 80mb/s which is spot on from reviews regardless if you use a SATA-300 or SATA-600 controller. For an OS drive I think the write speeds are just as important as the read speeds.

I don't have SATA-600 onboard my motherboard so that would cost me extra plus the Crucial is a bit more expensive than the Kingston here in Canada. Thus, I'm leaning more towards Kingston but Crucial is a great choice.

However, I think the Crucial drive is more reliable than Kingston drive reading from reviews and Crucial has great support with frequent firmware updates for the C300.

 

[whs]

You want to focus on access time. Good SSDs have 0.1ms. The Kingston at 0.5ms would not be my first choice. Read/write speeds are of lesser importance because the system does not read or write big chunks of data - except maybe when you install a big program.

My first choice is the OCZ Vertex or the Crucial C300. And I have bought all mine from NewEgg who always treated me well.

PS: this is a good deal at $110 after MIR and sufficient for the OS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...27528&cm_re=ocz_vertex-_-20-227-528-_-Product

 

[Nemix]

My bad,

The Kingston has an access time of 0.3ms but truth be told any access time under 7ms is already noticeably better on performing daily task plus multitasking when compared to normal desktop drives.

I remember when I got my first 10,000rpm 74GB Raptop, I paid $300 for 74GB back then but man was it worth it. Correct me if I'm wrong, the 74GB Raptop had an access time of 7ms and when compared to my old Hitachi Deskstar at the time the difference was like night and 2x day.

Thanks for input, I'll look into the OCZ. Looks like the OCZ may cost more than the Kingston and Crucial here in Canada.

 

[Beginning]

Well time will tell I guess, It's been ordered so I can't change my mind. Live and learn.

 

[Nemix]

@ Beginning

Hopefully the Crucial drive arrive undamaged for you, regardless of the read/write speeds you''ll still see and feel a big performance boost from you current drive assuming that is not an SSD hard drive you have currently.

@ whs

The OCZ Vertex 2 50GB costs almost double the price of a Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB here in Canada: $100 vs $170. I think I'm better off grabbing one Kingston for now and when I need or want a bit more performance and disk space I'll grab a second Kingston and put them in RAID 0 for basically the same amount of money if I were to grab one OCZ Vertex 2 50GB right now.

Choices and options right now:

Kingston / Kingston (RAID 0) / OCZ / Crucial
$100 / $200 / $170 / $140 (SATA-600 Controller $20)
64GB / 128GB / 50GB / 64GB
250mb/s / 400mb/s / 250mb/s / 250mb/s (350mb/s) read
120mb/s / 200mb/s / 250mb/s / 80mb/s write
0.3ms / 0.2ms / 0.1ms / 0.1ms access time

Current setup:

Seagate 2 x 7200.12 500GB RAID 0 (1TB), 170mb/s read/write, 14ms access time

 

[spinifex]

I have taken the leap into ssd also. When i get home, i'll be setting up 2 x OCZ vertex in raid 0.
Interesting to read about the sata 600 controller. Need to check it out before the handbrake puts the OS onto it.
Do mobo's have them or are they an after market item??
Got an Asus Rampage III Extreme.

 

[jimbo45]

The Crucial RealSSD C300 is my second choice. It has an amazing read speed average of 350mb/s paired with a SATA-600 controller and the same reads speeds as the Kingston SSDNow V100 @ 250mb/s paired with a SATA-300 controller.

The only thing that I do not like about the Crucial is it's write speed of 80mb/s which is spot on from reviews regardless if you use a SATA-300 or SATA-600 controller. For an OS drive I think the write speeds are just as important as the read speeds.

I don't have SATA-600 onboard my motherboard so that would cost me extra plus the Crucial is a bit more expensive than the Kingston here in Canada. Thus, I'm leaning more towards Kingston but Crucial is a great choice.

However, I think the Crucial drive is more reliable than Kingston drive reading from reviews and Crucial has great support with frequent firmware updates for the C300.

Hi there
provided you have enough RAM in your system the OS actually doesn't need to do a huge nuber of WRITES -- paging data is probably the most important and significant in OS Writes -- insufficient RAM or running too many applications at once will significantly increase the load on this data set.

Applications are another matter of course such as Photoshop. It would also be a good idea to allocate at least one Photoshop Scratch data to the SSD as well if you have Photoshop.

Things like Office / Word / EXCEL don't really need SSD performance but you will certainly notice a huge improvement in application start up time and when you save a document.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Nemix]

@ spinifex

The Asus Rampage III motherboard you have has onboard SATA-600 and USB 3.0. I don't know if the OCZ Vertex 2 would benefit from SATA-600 as it is a native SATA-300 SSD hard drive unlike the Crucial C300 which is native SATA-600 but backards compatible with SATA-300/150. My motherboard does not have have either SATA-600 or USB 3.0, I should have waited a two weeks when I bought my motherboard cause the newer revision of my exact motherboard has SATA-600 and USB 3.0 for the same price.

@ jimbo45

I couldn't agree more that write speed is not that important for an OS drive for most users since the drive usually reads data for loading application and programs already installed on the OS. But I think personally I'll greatly benefit from the extra 40mb/s write speed that Kingston has over Crucial cause I tend to work between two hard drives (in my case right now partitions). Thus moving files from my 1TB and creating new files eg. WinRAR, Photoshop, ripping DVD and browser cache would greatly benefit from higher write speeds.

My Setup: I plan on making a dedicated partition on my 1TB RAID 0 configuration just for the pagefile. Regardless of what others say, I always keep the pagefile no matter how much ram is installed. It's going to look like this:

- 64GB (60GB Real) SSD
60GB all used for Windows 7 and applications (no games, no pagefile), should have 40GB free for temporary files and temporary workspace.

- 1TB (930GB Real) RAID 0
10GB dedicated partition for pagefile (moved from OS drive) - *going to hide this partition*
270GB partition for games
650GB partition for storage and additional workspace

- 320GB (300GB Real) 2.5" External
300GB all used to media files, temporary file transfer and backup of important files

 

[whs]

The OCZ Vertex 2 50GB costs almost double the price of a Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB here in Canada: $100 vs $170

I did not want to misguide you. But I am obviously not aware of the Canadien prices. I only know the US and the German prices - the German prices being outrageously high too.

When i get home, i'll be setting up 2 x OCZ vertex in raid 0

.
This will give you nice numbers from the measurement tools. But for real life it will make little difference as compared to a single SSD because the access time does not change - Raid or no Raid.

 

[Beginning]

@ Nemix77 " ...cause I tend to work between two hard drives... " Dadgumit! I hope that won't come back and bite me in the end. I too work usually between more then one drive.............

 

[Nemix]

It's final, I've decided on getting a Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB and a 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12. I'm going to give away one of my 500GB 7200.12 to little my brother cause he only has 320GB right now. I can only fit 2 x 3.5" + 1 x 2.5" in my case drive bays with a 80mm fan blowing direct through the hard drive (InWin Dragon Slayer) and one more 2.5" or 3.5" in the floppy bay but that's directly under a vibrating and warm running DVD burner with no direct fan blowing through so that's not an option for me.

My final setup:

64GB SSDNow - Main OS + Temporary Workspace
500GB 7200.12 - Pagefile + Games + Workspace
1TB 7200.12 - Storage + Media Files + Backups (I would go 2TB but I like having less platters)

*Canceled the external option. Only needed it cause of my drive bay problem anyway.*

Thanks, for all the input guys.

I'll make an updated thread and post my results for the Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB when it arrives and I get Windows 7 reinstalled, may take longer than planned.

@ whs

I'd still like to see your results of 2 x OCZ Vertex 2's in RAID 0, do post your results in HDTune if possible.

 

[whs]

@ whs

I'd still like to see your results of 2 x OCZ Vertex 2's in RAID 0, do post your results in HDTune if possible.

It is Spinifex who sets up the Raid0 - not me. I only commented on it. But you can find a lot of that data here: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/18229-show-us-your-ssd-performance.html

 

[Lebon14]

My final setup:

64GB SSDNow - Main OS + Temporary Workspace
500GB 7200.12 - Pagefile + Games + Workspace
1TB 7200.12 - Storage + Media Files + Backups (I would go 2TB but I like having less platters)

I would still put the page file on the SSD. I have 6GB of RAM and I did put it on the SSD. I have a OCZ Vertex 2 90GB. At least you are going to put a lot of heavy software (needs lot of space), I wouldn't change its location.

 

[Nemix]

@ Lebon14

From what I've read putting the pagefile on different physical disk minimizes read/writes on the main drive. For SSD's that really a good thing since more reads and writes decreases the life span of an SSD hard drive. I don't think putting the pagefile to a slower physcial disk in my case would help with performance but it's would not decrease performance either and could possibly increase life on the SSD and provide more free space (pagefile = 1.5x ram = 6GB in my case). Besides the pagefile is hardly used on system with 4GB of ram or more anyways, you may want to re-consider moving your pagefile to a different physical disk (6GB = Call of Duty: Black Ops and less hard drive thrashing).

 

[whs]

With e.g. 6GBs of RAM it is neither here nor there. There will be hardly any pagefaults anyhow and the speed of the paging device will have a minimal impact on overall performance.

I keep mine on the SSD because I have plenty of space and I am too lazy to move it. With 6GBs (I have 3 and 4GB) I would probably reduce it to half. And deleting the hiberfile will also gain you a chunk.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Beginning,
Don't worry my friend your are going to absolutely love the Crucial SSD. It scores 7.7 WEI in my system and I can't think of any component that has been so transformational to my computing enjoyment than this SSD. Yes I can't wait for larger less expensive Sata III SSD's coming down the pike. But for the moment and for my OS and Apps. this 64 gb drive has rocked my world as I'm sure it will your's.

 

[Beginning]

Thanks linnemeyerhere, for the peptalk. I'm sure I'll be impressed with the drive.. We all tend to get all up in the air about things we don't really understand.

Cheers!!

Now I'll go back to waiting, waiting, waiting, ..................... Sigh!

 

[Dave76]

The highly advertised sequential read/write speeds have little impact on actual day to day useage.

Much more important is the access time and the random read/writes. The access time is what makes it so fast, random reads/writes is what the OS does the large percentage of the time.

Going from .3ms to less than .1ms is actually a big difference, it is noticeable.

You can check side by side benchmarks for two SSDs on the AnandTech SSD Bench site.

I hope you're getting the Kingston V+ series, the Kingston V series doesn't have very good reviews/benchmarks.

Whatever SSDyou get I'm sure you will be happy with the performance improvement.

Just remember a lot of recommended tweaks that you will come across are for Gen1 SSDs, Gen2 SSDs don't need very many. Win7 will do most of them if you install it to a bare, unformatted SSD.

You can check on the many SSD sites, for Gen2 SSDs they recommend leaving the page file on the SSD.
MS also recommends this:

Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives​

Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?​

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.
In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

• Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
• Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
• Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD.

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Let us know how everything goes when you get it.