SSD, is it worth it?

Is it worth it to use a 128GB SSD or just stick with the 500GB 7200RPM and save 300$...i'm debating over the lack of actual built in storage. I can use the 500gb as an external.

 

I vote for the 500GB 7200RPM drive (are we talking about the 7k500).

 

I have about 6 HDD's ranging from a 100 and 320gb Hitachi 7200 rpm drive, a Seagate 500 GB 7200 RPM drive, and an intel 80 gb SSD drive and I can tell you hands down that the 80 gb intel drive was the best purchase I've ever made for my laptop. Basically I would buy this drive before I did a Processor upgrade. Mainly because it's the first notable difference you'll see even before a ram update. Do you realize the amount of benefits you get with an SSD? It's not just a faster drive it's a more efficient drive as well. You'll lose less power, thus your battery life will be up a few percent, your heat will be alot lower as compared to a 7200 rpm drive, and don't kid yourself. The 7200 rpm drives get REAL HOT and they consume alot of power.

I like my intel drive so much, I'll be buying a 160 gb Intel drive within the month for my m15x coming in soon. Don't ask the people who don't have the drive, I mean they haven't seen both how can you honestly value their opinion? You need to talk to people who have had both.

 

I bought my XPS 1645 with the 500Gb 7200rpm but removed it and put that in an external ESATA enclosure.

I have an OCZ Vertex 120Gb SSD and it is much faster.

I recommend you use a ramdisk for TEMP and adjust IE and firefox to use it as well. (don't hammer the SSD with millions of unnecessary little writes)

I don't know what drives they are shipping with the XPS if you order SSD, but I really like the OCZ drive.. has TRIM support as well...

Performance in the windows 7 user experience chart went from 5.8 for the 500Gb 7200rpm to 7.3 with the OCZ SSD.

 

Unless you really need the space, SSD >>> HDD with regard to performance. Got my first one more than a year ago, and I never looked back. None of my machines have booted from conventional drives for months now...

 

Any proof?

Compare somthing like a 7200 RPM WD3200BEKT (5400 RPM-equivalent power consumption).

The HDD will spin down, the SSD will not.

I don't know how good the latest SSDs are, but the old ones did not use less power.

 

i vote for the HDD. extra game and boot times aren't too important to me.


btw, nice lappy, moral hazard

 

As said if you can afford it and you can live with the smaller capacity then an SSD is an excellent idea and I'm very happy with mine.

The Dell ones tend to be Samsung PB22-J models and while they're not the best available they are pretty good compared to normal drives.

 

SSD everytime. It can't be overstated enough how beneficial having an SSD especially in a notebook is. The samsung SSD in the current dells is a gen 2 drive and suffers none of the problems of the past with Trim support. Sure it isn't the fastest (look to Intel X25-E/M for that) but it absolutely is much faster than a 10,000RPM WD Velo. And the price is reasonable.

Get the SSD, you won't regret it.

 

Prefer the Intel drives vs the 128 you are looking at but SSD is very useful.

 

Ok, so I have the Patriot Warp 128GB SSD V2, it seems to support trim according the cmd prompt check. Its definitely fast!, my only concern is with all my necessary programs and 2 games (mass effect 2 and Left 4 dead 2) i have 55GB of drive space left. I just hope thats enough. I'm so used to having all that extra space on my drive.

I have the dell Seagate Momentus 7200RPM drive 500GB in an external USB enclosure so it will definately improve my storage ability so long as i don't mind lugging it around. .

 

My windows experience score went from 5.9 to 6.6 for Primary Hard disk, is that a good enough increase? seems sorta lower than I expected.

 

i'm also thinkng of exchanging this for the G Skill Falcon II 128GB, (for sure supports trim and is overall higher rated) (30$ more)

 

TRIM is a per-filesystem thing, right? As in a disk with two or more partitions will have TRIM-support in, say, Windows 7 and no support in Linux and it'll still work fine in either OS?

 

Look I've had a first gen intel SSD drive, and I broke it when I made the move to windows 7 because windows 7 was utilizing trim when I didn't have it. So intel RMA'ed me a new drive, and even after going through all that BS... I still wanted to stick with my Intel SSD as soon as I got it in. Window Shutdown times are improved as well you just hit shutdown and it's down and off in like 3 seconds, no joke.

 

Ok, opted to exchange for the G Skill Falcon II 128SSD

 

It's the same drive as the Torqx...

 

is that a good thing?

 

HDD. I'll keep the money in my pocket. Hard to justify the exhorbitant costs especially if you need the space.

 

For a laptop SSD handsdown. And for the extra small amount it costs over a 128GB drive I'd opt for a 256GB version.

 

It's double the cost... Not exactly a small amount.

 

When I bought my xps 1645, the 128GB SSD option was only $50 more than the 500GB drive. So for me it was a slam dunk.

But I don't think I'd be willing to pay that premium for (what I assume is still) the samsung drive dell uses for their SSD. For that kind of price premium you should get a newer Intel drive. The samsungs are great compared to old-school hard disks, but not by any means on the high end compared to other SSDs.

 

ok, so i just slapped my new G Skill drive into my 1645 and Wow what a difference.

The Write speed from my old 500GB is averaging 80-100mb/s through an Esata connection. (new enclosure) definitely an upgrade.

 

Interestingly enough the HDD rating in windows 7 for the G Skill SSD is 7.4 vs Patriots 6.6

 

No, they cost an order of magnitude more per GB. I would never get one new with a laptop. You want an Intel or OCZ brand drive, preferably after waiting for prices to drop and better capacities to be available.

 

I'd say if price isn't an issue, SSD definitely. The speed increase is welcome in all areas.

 

Our first M1330 had a 7400rpm drive. Got the second with SSD (and have now put 500MB HDD in the first).

SSD is much faster to boot - makes the fingerprint scanner work better as it tends not to get a good scan while the HDD is thrashing around. If you can live with the smaller space then I think it is worth it.

I think it must use a lot less power because it doesn't make a noise or get very hot.

 

Yeah i've opted to stick with my SSD (one in sig) So far its great. I managed to pick up a 2.5" drive enclosure that supports eSata, which is amazing. So I have my 128gb for all purpose and my 500gb which holds all my extra files and large game installs. Everything runs nice and smooth.

My bootup time has gone down to 34 seconds from hitting power to being able to work in windows.

 

I just pulled the trigger on a Intel SSD 160GB G2 and getting it tomorrow. I'm EXTREMELY excited for this upgrade.

 

Do we know for fact if the SSD's provided by DELL ( samsung) are Gen2 ie support TRIM?

 

Well, I know my new G Skill supports trim.

Can someone answer this:

When performing a new install on a new SSD when you enter into windows 7 does it list the device as disk drive or SSD?

My device did not get automatically detected as a SSD and none of the performance modifications were applied. (defrag off, superfetch, indexing etc...)

Has anyone else had this problem.

(after talking to G Skill support aparently the drive is working as intended and an update is comming but it still seems rather odd).

 

My 1647 came with Samsung PM800 (firmware VBM24D1Q), which supports TRIM.

 

Is it difficult to add an SSD later? And are the money savings significant?

 

Savings are going to depend on how well u can shop around. Installation is a breeze 4 screws to remove the drive 4 screws to remove the bracket replace bracket on ssd and reinstall. (all after removing the bottom panel which is simple).