80gb SSD or 120gb SSD? gameing specific

I will only be putting my OS (Windows 7 64bit), World of Warcraft, vent, anti-virus, ccleaner, and possibly a couple other programs. Im wondering if i can get away with getting a 80gb SSD instead of the 120gb. I figure WoW and the OS will come out to about 40gb maybe a little more and the other programs wont be more than 10gb, but that only leaves me about 30gb for the future....hahaha im trying to save money, but getting the 120gb SSD might be a better idea just to be safe....some input would be nice.

 

The 80GB is more like 74GB actual.

You know you'll use ~50GB+ right now - you're down to ~20GB left free.

Though 20GB free out of 74 is, percentage-wise (27%), 'enough' free space to ensure good performance, it will still be slower than if it was 20% - 50% filled.

Take into consideration a new game, an O/S Service Pack (due soon...) or your other computing needs changing over the short term life of this drive, and I'd say you have 'wasted' your money, not saved any (if you wanted the best performance possible from your SSD), in a few short months.

The 120GB drive is in a similar situation as above.

I don't consider any drive less than about 300GB as 'usable' in 2011. SSD's are worse because with over 50% filled they slow down considerably.

Save your money for the Intel G3's 300GB/600GB and really enjoy a fast, reliable and consistent SSD experience.

 

So with that said should I just settle for a 320gb 7200 hard drive for now and look into an SSD down the road? I would be saving myself money and its not like WoW will benefit from an SSD that much except for loading screens right?

 

Exactly.

But for the price difference of 320GB HDD's to 500GB models, you may as well cough up the $5 extra and get the bigger one.

Even better, with a bigger HDD (and assuming you don't need all the room on it) consider shrinking the partition space to leave just 20GB free or so - the HDD will respond much faster (especially if you use PerfectDisk on it) and if you do need room down the road, you can simply 'extend' the partition again to be as big as you want (as long as you didn't create another partition with the unallocated free space in the meantime).

Good luck.

 

Don't forget that both Windows and WoW will almost certainly grow in size with service packs and expansions; WoW started at 10-12 GB... and it's now at 20-25 GB... I quite enjoy my SSD (although mine's a 240GB one, and I'm using about 70-odd GB presently... helped by the fact that I have a 640 GB 7200 RPM spinner that I've offloaded a bunch of files to) and I think it was worth the upgrade from the Scorpio Black that came with the notebook, but it will all depend on your usages. Right now, I'd still class a SSD as a "fun" upgrade; you'll enjoy the feel of it, but it's definitely a frill and not a necessity. It's like going for the roadster instead of the family car. :wink:

 

Thanks for the helpful advice guys. Much appreciated

 

Remember, you have had one person reply to this thread so far (tillerofearth). And while tillerofearth raises several excellent and well-presented arguments, it is still just one opinion. Here is an alternative opinion.

If all you care about is WoW (or gaming in general), then be aware that an SSD will only affect loading times. It will not affect framerates, or any other part of how well a game runs. Again, if ALL you care about is gaming, then SSD's are not worth the money.

If you want a comparison of what this looks like in WoW, check out this video. Some guy did a comparison of SSD vs HDD in WoW loading times, and measured when the system loads the game to a *usable* state (when you load in-game, and all of the character models are loaded as well). The SSD loads this in about 18 seconds, the HDD loads this in about 55 seconds.
YouTube - SSD vs HDD World of Warcraft load times

If you care about anything else besides just gaming, then SSD's are worth every penny. They give your computer a snappy-poppy feel where everything just runs smoother and responds instantly. It makes the computer generally more "fun" to use.

When you look at an SSD, the important number to look at is Random 4KB read speeds and I/O's per second. Almost everything your computer does uses random read patterns, so Random 4KB speed is *the* most important number when evaluating a drive. I/O's per second (IOPS) measures how well your computer multitasks, so it is the 2nd most important number to look at.

In these areas, an SSD is 100x faster than a mechanical HDD. Random read speeds of HDD vs SSD is 0.6Mbps --> 50+Mbps. IOPS goes from 500IOPS --> 40,000 IOPS. It is literally like going from a 56K dial-up modem to a 5.6Mbps broadband connection.


Have you ever experienced a case where a mechanical HDD is thrashing around loading something, and the system overall slows down? You never get that with an SSD, because of the fact that it has untouchably high random read speeds and IOPS. Here's another video, this one I made. I boot Windows 7 + load 27 applications in about 1 minute. How long do you think a mechanical HDD would take to do this, before the machine became usable?
YouTube - Why I love my SSD - Windows 7 boot + loading 27 applications in about 1 minute.

If this speed and performance is appealing to you, then you will only find it with an SSD. If you're going to buy one, then the model(s) to get are going to be the OCZ Vertex 2 120GB or the Intel X25-M 120GB, both of which you can find for around $200 (NewEgg had a sale yesterday for $170).

I have 120GB SSD's in every one of my systems. The key to managing space is to put only files on your SSD that actually benefit from the fast read speeds. The files which do not benefit (music, videos, photos, , etc) should go on a separate external USB drive. On my main gaming desktop, I keep Windows 7 + Micrsoft Office + ~20 miscellaneous desktop apps (WinRar, antivirus, etc) + 8 games, and I have about 50GB remaining. On my gaming laptop, I have about 4 games + 40GB in video, and still have 25GB remaining. As long as you manage your space in a smart way, 120GB of space is not an issue for gaming setups.

 

I'm not a person now?

Just kidding. I mostly agree with you, which is why I said that a SSD is a "fun" upgrade, but still counts more as a frill than a necessity.