The Truth About SSDs

[tw33k]

The following are my views based on my own research. Sensible comments and discussion are welcomed.

The truth about SSDs
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Pros
•Increased start up speed
•Increased application/game launching
•File fragmentation is negligible
•Consistent read rates
•Silent
•Lower power consumption and heat
•Increased reliability
•Small size and weight
•Less prone to failures (due to lack of moving parts)

Cons
•Expensive dollar per gigabyte
•Lower storage capacity (for now at least)

Random Read Rates:
SSDs outperform HDDs in this area by a wide margin (up to 100x faster than a typical HDD)

Sequential Read Rates:
SSDs can read sequentially at an average of around 200MB/s (almost twice as fast as most HDDs)

Random Writes & Flushes:
These rates, although generally much slower than read rates, are hardly noticeable in real world performance. (I recommend this article for more info)

Performance Degradation:
In Windows 7, if an SSD reports it supports TRIM, the file system can erase the relevant blocks without having to mix data that are subsequently written to that block which, in turn, reduces wear. Trim is also integrated with partition- and volume-level commands, truncating and compression, and with System Restore.

FAQs

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“Which SSD should I buy?”
This really depends on your budget. You should get the SSD with the largest capacity you can afford. Manufacturers like to advertise the SSDs sequential read speed as this will produce the best case scenario (like when copying a file from one drive to another). The most important factor however, is the random 4k read speeds (booting the OS, program and game loading etc)

“I have a new SSD. What tweaks should I run to get the best performance?”
Contrary to the myriad of guides available on the internet, there is little to gain by any of these so called tweaks. There are however a few steps you should follow:

1. Make sure you have the latest firmware. Because firmware updates wipe out all data on the drive, you must do this operation as the first step; make sure to back up all existing data first. You’ll need to check with the drive manufacturer or the OEM, depending on whether you purchased the drive as a retail upgrade or as part of an OEM PC. Follow the instructions to complete the firmware update; this typically requires booting from removable media such as a USB flash drive.

2. Set the disk controller to AHCI mode. In the system BIOS, set the SATA controller for Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) operation before installing Windows. This step is crucial. Using the legacy IDE or ATA mode prevents you from installing the proper disk controller driver later and will result in reduced performance.

3. For a used drive, you should consider performing a secure erase to restore the SSD to its original condition. HDDErase tool also works with many drives; see this tutorial for download links and instructions.

4. Unplug all other drives including external drives.

5. Boot from the Windows media and begin the clean install. Use the Windows Setup utility to create the partition. If you have a partition created using any other tool, delete it and use the Windows 7 disk tools to create a new one. This ensures that the partition is properly aligned.

6. Install the latest storage driver. If your system includes an Intel SATA controller, you should use the most recent version of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver, which is located here. AMD users will find the driver here.

7. After completing setup, check the Windows Experience Index. Click Start, click Computer, then click System Properties. On the System page, click Windows Experience Index, which takes you to the Performance Information and Tools page. The Primary hard disk score for a properly configured SSD should be over 7.0. If necessary, click Re-run the Assessment to refresh the numbers. To verify that all the features of the SSD are working properly, install the free CrystalDiskInfo utility.

When Windows 7 detects that you have a properly configured, fast SSD drive, it disables several unnecessary features, including Superfetch, Prefetch, and ReadyBoot. It also disables scheduled defragmentation operations for the SSD, which isn’t necessary, and can reduce the usable life of the drive. To check performance, download and run AS SSD

“If I use my SSD too much won’t it wear out?”
Most people will upgrade their SSD long before it reaches the end of its life cycle. Today SSDs have a life span of over 5 years or roughly 20GB of data written per day. How often will you fill it to capacity, erase it and start over again? Probably never. Oh! And the page file should be left on the SSD. Either leave it alone or shrink it but leave it on the SSD. There is no benefit what-so-ever for disabling it but there are consequences for not having one (eg: some programs/games won’t run without it and you will not get memory dumps if you don’t have a page file)

 

[whs]

Nice summary. I would add "less heat" to the pros. That is one reason I will put an SSD into one of my laptops that runs very hot. And here is an extract to support your last point (since this is always subject of lengthy debates):

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.

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

 

[Lomai]

Thanks for the info tw33k

 

[tw33k]

Thanks WHS. I thought I put heat in there..(it is now)

Thanks Lomai and welcome to SevenForums

 

[Taliseian]

I wonder if system memory makes a difference concerning SSDs and PageFiles.

I've been thinking about an SSD drive for my system (prices keep scaring me away for now) but I'm concerned about usage. I'll admit, I tend to format alot from an image, so between that and PF usage I'm concerned I'd wear out a drive long before it's time.

Any advice or suggestions (besides not formatting as often as I do - guess I'm kinda OCD in that way =) )


T

 

[whs]

I would not worry too much about wear and tear. I am sure it will last 3 years and then you want something new anyhow. And the page file you should leave on the SSD (delete the hibernation file though which is usually about the same size as the page file).
As for prices, I would recommend this $99 beauty. And 30GBs is ample for Win7 (mine has never exceeded 17.5GBs in 6 months). Just move your data files to a HDD partition.

 

[JimLewandowski]

Who cares about write performance IF you have "enable write-caching" enabled for said device? Dump data down channel into controller cache, channel-end/device-end and you're back to the application. No disc device delay whatsoever...

 

[Wishmaster]

Nice.

I would add, Some can get TRIM support for RAID arrays w/the new Intel drivers.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Things like Photoshop Scratch Files should also be placed on the SSD -- speeds things up HUGELY -- I'm a big user of photoshop CS4 -- the only reason I got an SSD was for Photoshop.

If you can afford it --SSD's MAGIC.

Next generation will be even cheaper, have more capacity and be faster.

To Jim L. about write performance.

For Photoshop files - especially if you are a professional photographer shooting in RAW- Professional DSLR's files can be HUGE -- many gigabytes for A3 and larger sizes - and don't forget you often have several LAYERS as well so WRITE performance IS IMPORTANT. You can't keep all this stuff in RAM.


Cheers
jimbo

 

[JimLewandowski]

Hi there
Things like Photoshop Scratch Files should also be placed on the SSD -- speeds things up HUGELY -- I'm a big user of photoshop CS4 -- the only reason I got an SSD was for Photoshop.

If you can afford it --SSD's MAGIC.

Next generation will be even cheaper, have more capacity and be faster.

To Jim L. about write performance.

For Photoshop files - especially if you are a professional photographer shooting in RAW- Professional DSLR's files can be HUGE -- many gigabytes for A3 and larger sizes - and don't forget you often have several LAYERS as well so WRITE performance IS IMPORTANT. You can't keep all this stuff in RAM.


Cheers
jimbo

Very good point about massive output files (write/seq). I don't do anything like that so I wasn't thinking along the lines of photo edit/video edit.

 

[tw33k]

I do quite a bit of video editing/converting and the speed increase is very welcomed. Also..check out this

 

[whs]

I do quite a bit of video editing/converting and the speed increase is very welcomed. Also..check out this

With your 945 you should not have any video editing performance problems anyhow. I already notice a big difference between my duo cores and my Q6600 (which is a lot slower than the 945 - but one day I am going to OC it).

 

[tw33k]

I brought this up again looking for suggestions to update the post

 

[GeneO]

Hey tweak,

Tis a good write-up. A few comments

What do you mean by higher data density? You can get higher density in a 2.5" HDD than a 2.5" SSD. You have a con that says lower capacity - they seem to contradict.

Increased application launching - do you mean decreased time to launch an application?

I don't know, HDD are pretty reliable. Do you still think SSD have increased reliability? It is only this month that a SSD manufacturer has given a 5 year warranty on their product. Tha has been the norm for while with HDD.

Cheers

 

[Maxxwire]

I don't know, HDD are pretty reliable.

The one and only reason that I now have a 120 GB Intel SSD 320 Series in my HP desktop computer is because the 1 TB Hitachi HDD that it came with failed after only 8 months of normal use.

~Maxx~

 

[tw33k]

updated

 

[essenbe]

As far as durability goes, xtremesystems did a test with several brands of SSds to see howm many writes they could do before death. I was quite surprised. The first one to die had 525TB written to it. It's a long thread but very intresting. This is one of the charts they had long before the end.


Conversion base : 1 TB = 0.90949470177293 TiB
Conversion base : 1 TiB = 1.099511627776 TB

 

[tw33k]

I'm still amazed that people are still scared to use their SSD for fear they'll wear it out.

 

[badger906]

im not scared! i shoved a corsair force 3 120gb in my gaming pc as my primary boot drive, and had BF3, red orchestra 2 and Skyrim installed on it.

I have about 60gb remaining, but am considering getting a second. As my only other drive in my pc is an aging sata 2 250gb (i say aging.. its never been used, its just old spec'd)

I think the only time ill use a mechanical drive again is for my home server, where obviously large sized drives are needed.

 

[Hopalong X]

im not scared! i shoved a corsair force 3 120gb in my gaming pc as my primary boot drive, and had BF3, red orchestra 2 and Skyrim installed on it.

I have about 60gb remaining, but am considering getting a second. As my only other drive in my pc is an aging sata 2 250gb (i say aging.. its never been used, its just old spec'd)

I think the only time ill use a mechanical drive again is for my home server, where obviously large sized drives are needed.

One spinner for Macrium or Paragon images is a good idea. (Which ever image software you use)
Even an old IDE in good working order will work for images.
You won't need it often but when you do????

So your 250GB spinner is a good idea for that purpose.
Mike