Show us your SSD performance

[sygnus21]

Hate to bring this up, but you just missed a great deal for the OCZ 120GB Vertex2, $238.

Well that bites

Oh well.

 

[whs]

sygnus21, you apparently have a laptop since you say that you need at least 120GBs. I generally do not recommend SSDs for laptops because they are still too expensive for storing data. There are some recent laptops with 2 disk bays where it would make sense though.
Generally a 60GB or even a 30 to 40GB SSD is sufficient for the Win7 OS. But then you have to put your data on a spinner.
As for the preparation and maintenance - with Win7, you really do not have to do anything. As long as the BIOS can recognize the SSD, the Win7 installer can deal with it and will make all the required settings. Just make sure you disconnect all other disks that may contain a MBR - else you get into a double boot situation which may give you problems down the road. For booting, change the boot sequence in the BIOS.
If it is a Gen2 SSD, there is no maintenance down the road. The Win7 supported Trim will take care of it. I am not a fan of all those tweaks that float around the net. Just verify that the defrag is turned off (which the Win7 installer usually does), move the user data to a HDD and delete the hibernation file if you do not use hibernation. That's all.

 

[sygnus21]

sygnus21, you apparently have a laptop since you say that you need at least 120GBs.

Actually, I don't have a laptop.... yet. This is strictly for my desktop.

As for hard drive space, that's basically stated here... http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/18229-show-us-your-ssd-performance-61.html#post866002. And my idea situation would be two 120gig SSD drives, one for the OS, the other for games

This is why I'm debating on getting an SSD drive in the first place because I have to balance my wants with my finances; and for me, a 120 is the bare minimum.

As for SSD "tweaks" I don't plan on doing any, other than the most basic of basics, if there are any. I'm at a point where tweaks, and beta testing, have passed me by; I'm more of the set it and forget type now.

Thanks.

 

[whs]

I am not a gamer so I do not know the requirements for gaming. I only know that the games seem to need a large amount of space for the files and that can be expensive to cover with the SSDs. The other day they were presenting a 1TB SSD ( World's First 1 TB 2.5" SSD from PureSilicon Is the Dream Drive ) but it was rather expensive.

 

[sygnus21]

Well I've decided to hold off for now. Will rethink at a later time.

Thanks.

 

[thobel]

This is with 3x Intel X25M Raid 0 on a Rampage III

 

[whs]

Impressive performance (and an impressive system). But what I always ask myself: Does this kind of transfer rate really perform better (for the OS) than e.g. a single SSD with 200MB/sec. Since the system reads only relatively small bits of data, the data transfer rate should not play such a big role (versus the random acces time which I think is the key element).

 

[pparks1]

Impressive performance (and an impressive system). But what I always ask myself: Does this kind of transfer rate really perform better (for the OS) than e.g. a single SSD with 200MB/sec. Since the system reads only relatively small bits of data, the data transfer rate should not play such a big role (versus the random acces time which I think is the key element).

I feel the same way that you do WHS. For running an operating system where it's just random I/O and small reads and writes...i don't believe the performance is really much improved. It's the low access time....and random I/O times which improve things. The RAID config I'm sure increased that random I/O by a bit...so there would be some gain there.

If you were copying and moving around large video files...then it would really shine. But at 700+MB/s....it would take less than 10 minutes to fill 3 x 160GB drives in a RAID0.

 

[thobel]

Impressive performance (and an impressive system). But what I always ask myself: Does this kind of transfer rate really perform better (for the OS) than e.g. a single SSD with 200MB/sec. Since the system reads only relatively small bits of data, the data transfer rate should not play such a big role (versus the random acces time which I think is the key element).

Its a bit overkill for sure but I can say that Windows does "feel" faster with the additional drives in raid 0 now if its worth the price is up to the user/buyer

 

[Tweek]

Impressive performance (and an impressive system). But what I always ask myself: Does this kind of transfer rate really perform better (for the OS) than e.g. a single SSD with 200MB/sec. Since the system reads only relatively small bits of data, the data transfer rate should not play such a big role (versus the random acces time which I think is the key element).

Its a bit overkill for sure but I can say that Windows does "feel" faster with the additional drives in raid 0 now if its worth the price is up to the user/buyer

RAID0 is Always worth it, if you can afford it...

 

[pparks1]

Its a bit overkill for sure but I can say that Windows does "feel" faster with the additional drives in raid 0 now if its worth the price is up to the user/buyer

Ah, the original benchmark "it feels faster". Glad you are happy with the setup....but I'd love to see with a stopwatch what the real difference is.

RAID0 is Always worth it, if you can afford it...

I couldn't disagree more completely with this statement. RAID0 increases complexity, ability to recover in the event of a mobo or controller failure, loss of all data in the event hat 1 hard drive fails. RAID0 has it's place....but it's not in every machine for every case.

 

[whs]

Different subject: Did any of you have the feeling that the BIOS splash screen stays on longer since you installed a SSD? I have 3 SSDs on 3 different systems and in all of them I have the feeling that it lengthened the BIOS phase. On one system, the BIOS phase is longer than the boot time for Win7.

 

[pparks1]

Mine did not increase any. I had previously timed my settings with my SATA drive and timed again after SATA and that portion of the boot did not change at all. Going from IDE model to AHCI added approx 2 seconds.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I don't own a stop watch but I thought mine booted faster when I first add the SSD.

 

[whs]

I don't own a stop watch but I thought mine booted faster when I first add the SSD.

Yes, the boot of the OS is a lot faster. But the BIOS splash screen lingers longer. At least that is my impression. But I have not really measured it.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I don't own a stop watch but I thought mine booted faster when I first add the SSD.

Yes, the boot of the OS is a lot faster. But the BIOS splash screen lingers longer. At least that is my impression. But I have not really measured it.

Oh sorry, I did miss-read your statement, my splash screen has always gone by so fast I had to get the camera out so I could finally see/read all the options.

 

[whs]

You are lucky. I could read a full page text off it. But at least I learn what function keys to use for Boot sequence, etc. - LOL.

 

[SevenNerd]

Hey guys I think this is important since the OP dident mention this, remember to bump up the block size in HDtune to see your true max performance of your ssds.

 

[steve-pressman]

OK 4 months on and after several re-images put on it this is what I have.



Steve

 

[thobel]

Its a bit overkill for sure but I can say that Windows does "feel" faster with the additional drives in raid 0 now if its worth the price is up to the user/buyer

Ah, the original benchmark "it feels faster". Glad you are happy with the setup....but I'd love to see with a stopwatch what the real difference is.

RAID0 is Always worth it, if you can afford it...

I couldn't disagree more completely with this statement. RAID0 increases complexity, ability to recover in the event of a mobo or controller failure, loss of all data in the event hat 1 hard drive fails. RAID0 has it's place....but it's not in every machine for every case.

I use Windows home server for backups of my system. In addition my "data" folders are redirected to my server. I have no risk of data loss. Anyone with Tri Sli and raided SSD's should not be using his gaming pc for storing data and running office just my 2 cents