What factors are in play when considering an SSD?

[graphicsman]

I have been getting computer issues within the past week and recently decided to push up a system upgrade that I had scheduled for the fall. One part in particular is going from a raptor hdd to finally an SSD. However, in the past I purchased an SSD around 60gb and realized with my design software (Adobe) and 3D modeling (3DS max) it was too small and moved back to a regular hard drive. Now I am looking at a new Samsung 840 128b hdd but I wanted to know what factors and size calculations are best to consider when getting smaller drives. Currently my drive is reading 74.8gb of space used.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

128gb is a sweet zone in my opinion but if budget will allow then many SSD of 256gb just perform faster and of course you have more room for software, updates and even a lot of games. For all laptops I tell people to start saving for at least 256gb SSD's and personally I can't wait to upgrade when prices fall to a 500 to 750 SSD in the lappy. I think there are a lot of choices for quality drives but I prefer Samsung, Crucial, Intel & Corsair at the moment but many are saying great things about Kingston and even OCZ is making a comeback !

 

[kbrady1979]

When you are using an SSD, it is best to move the "User" data to a bulk storage drive. It will eat up less of the space on the SSD, and that data doesn't benefit from the extra performance. You can also resize the page file, turn off hibernation(if you don't need it), and make system restore use a much more reasonable chunk of space. All that needs to be installed on the SSD is the OS and programs/applications. You can install games on there if you have the space, but the only advantage when doing that are faster load times........no in-game benefits. 128GB is more than enough for most people, but 256GB will give you plenty of room.

 

[Layback Bear]

My methods is simple. Nothing less than 120 gb.
If you have the desire and money go bigger. Bigger can't hurt anything but your pocket book. Going bigger than you need has one advantage in my mind. You don't have to tinker, trick, adjust or move things around. You just use it and take full advantage of it's speed whether you need it or not (now).

 

[alphanumeric]

I went for a 128 GB SSD for Windows and a 256 GB SSD for my DATA. This is on my laptop which has dual drive bays. If I had been limited to just one drive it would have been a 256 or 500 GB drive. At some point I plan on putting an SSD in my desktop PC. It will likely be a 128 GB drive and I'll use the spinner that's in it now for Data. I keep my documents, pictures, music etc on my Data drive/partition.