External SSD for gaming.

Hey all, I was wondering if you could make me some suggestions to an external ssd for gaming. Mostly for loading BF2 maps faster. I have an e-SATA port, and would probably run the drive off of USB power. Budget limit is about 200$. Don't really care much, but best bang for the buck would do. Dont need a really big drive, 4gb-64 is probably the max I would need. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks guys!

 

get a 16GB memory stick they are about... 60?

I would recomment more ram over an 'external' SSD. In fact how does a second or two faster load warrenty a 200 dollar purchase?

 

An external SSD (or a faster HDD/SSD) won't help much in gaming, except -> quicker level-loading....

 

Also, USB power won't be sufficient for some external HD caddies.

 

Now this is an interesting proposal....install games on a memory stick...but wouldn't the transfer rate be lower than that of the HDD?? internal or otherwise..

 

I don't think it's a bad idea. You could install a OCZ Core SSD on an eSATA port. They sometimes have problems with random writes but you won't be needing that. Their load times are very quick. Here you can have an idea of how much faster SSDsl load levels than HDD's: http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/6

 

Yes, my reasoning behind this is just fast load times for maps. I've seen some ssd's get about 11 seconds, where I get 1-2mins with my drive.

 

Phil I liked the link but must point out Doom 3 load time slower SG 7200 than SG 5400? Kind of makes me question why? And does call much into question. That said a7x2thedeath not seeing the kind of improvement you seem to be expecting? 11/s vs 1-2/m? Not even close, so don't be disappointed when your idea does not produce the results. Also don't know too much about eSATA, are you going to get the same bandwidth? No penalty being external?

a7x2thedeath look at Phil's link and consider likely real world benefit?

 

Yeah it did. Looking at the date of the review I think Techreport got their hands on one of the earliest Seagate 7200.3 drives around. It was even slower than WD 5400rpm in many benchmarks. But it seem that later versions of the Seagate 7200.3 are much better. As PC Mark, Vantage and HDTune benchmarks have shown. (Although I'd still like to see this confirmed I a professional review.)

Well you're right for the common laptop SSDs, his expectations are way too optimistic.

But the MTRON 3.5" drives do achieve incredible performance gains in gaming: http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_2=355&devID_3=359&devID_4=356&devCnt=5. Don't know if it will work out as good as a7x2thedeath believes but who knows.

But like you said, I don't know if eSATA would offer the same performance gains.

 

If you must use an external drive, consider Firewire800 as it provides enough bus power to run even the most demanding SSD's. You can run multiple 7200 rpm drives, all bus-powered, off a FW800 port. Works beautifully on my Powerbook and don't have to worry about power cords, USB power, or other nonsense like that.

Alternatively, the next generation e-sata due out in a year is supposed to provide bus-power as well.

 

Is there a 4 pin Firewire cable that converts to power?
To rephrase, a cable that will plug into the Firewire port
just for power to feed an esata device.

 

Just to add on here, USB will not be helpful here. The maximium transfer rate will be about 80MB/s at best which is only as fast as a 320GB/5400RPM harddrive, not even the fastest harddrive you can buy. If thats good enough for you then juts buy a nice case for it ($20) and your done for $130. To really use an external SSD you must have eSATA. No other method will be able to take advantage of the 170MB/s read time.

 

@ Phil: I am only looking into an external drive because I do not want to have to go through the trouble of moving all my data to a new drive, even though I was considering the 7k320 or the Scorpio black.
@ Aurora, I have eSATA, as first stated....

If it wont give me that much of a boost, I will just consider the 7k320 and enjoy moving all my data over, maybe get an external sata enclosure to do all that. Then I can still upgrade to ssd in the futute since I will have the enclosure.

 

Firewire 4-pin port cannot supply power in any way. SSD for gaming sounds a bit expensive and preposterous, but you shouldn't have any problem running the SSD on USB power (Use a Y-cable)....

 

I suspected as much, the 4 pin is data only ---correct?
The 6 pin has power--- correct?

Can 2 USB ports be used to jack up the juice? If so, is there a cable for that.

 

Yes (There could be work-arounds, but I am sure the 4-pin socket cannot provide power)
Yes

Yes, they can. If power from a single USB port is insufficient, the device can get more power (as much desired) from a 2nd USB port. Most enclosures come with such a cable. (Unaware of the effect on battery life)

 

Did you not notice he said firewire 800? I did and thought what notebooks have? So I Googled firewire 800 express card. I could not find if it has a power pin, but he further said an eSATA should be coming out with power so accepted it is possible and dropped at that point.

You brought up USB (other than as a power source) and you are correct. No one disagrees with you.

Andy see earlier comment. And yes I find the entire SSD to be of questionable benefit. But I never try to stop someone from separating themselves from their money.

 

I guess the OP would be better off, if he trades his current HDDs, for a 128GB SSD. (+$200)

 

I was waiting for the firewire issue to jump in here....usb would be a waste...

There are tests with great results somewhere on the internet with use of an internal ssd, these were done a ways back. It has nothing to do with the second or two start time but rather, the incredibly fast time in retrieving information when moving from scene to scene. This, I feel, would then require the purchase of a slc with high read/writes vice the mlc.

There is new talk of incredibly fast mlc's on the horizon but, I am still a bit hesitant as there seems to be many issues with the mlc ssds.

 

I think you would be better off spending that money on getting a velociptoraptor in an esata case.

 

WD

It is a nice drive....but I think I'd prefer SSD

 

Sorry everyone, apperently I can't read today.

Also, I never saw it mentioned if you wanted something portable, does it need to be?

Also do you need SSD speed? On my old computer I had a 80GB/7200RPM harddrive and loading maps really don't took about 40-50 seconds. Are you sure an SSD won't be wasting money (AKA Can your other hardware keep up?

 

It doesnt really matter if its portable, I do move my computer from dads to moms house every week, but during the down time when I'm using the computer its normally on my lap with something to set the drive on. I was looking into buying a 2gb stick of ram for 3gb total, which would boost performance, not loading times, but I will probably just get an internal drive.

 

I think your RAM is probably one of the biggest factors right now. At 1GB you don't have enough room the store the entire game so it is probably avoiding loading maps not in use or storing them on the swap portion. Getting to 2+GB would help this issue.

Also, I never saw you talk about your current drive. What do you have? How full is it? One of the best ways to get good perforemence on a drive is to have a low % of the drive being used. That will put it in the fastest section of the drive, the more in it is the slower it is. The inside of the drive are often around 25% of the speed at the outside.

 

Wow? All I wanna say? Loading levels? No more comment?

 

80 MB/s from USB2? Is that some kind of a joke? Or are you just confused about your interfaces? The USB2 interface is only capable of 60 MB/s *raw* (480 Mbits / 8 = 60 MB/s) but since USB is terribly inefficient at bulk data transfer, you're lucky if you see 40 MB/s. 35 MB/s is more realistic as a maximum real-world number when copying files.

Yep, 4 pin is data only (IMO it's idiotic for the laptop makers to use this one, since bus-powered devices are most useful when you're on the go)

You have to be careful with the USB Y-cables. Some laptops implement a single USB power plane for each USB port - and some laptops implement a single USB power plane for multiple ports. And it isn't fused. So if you exceed the current draw capability of the port(s) you could fry something. Usually though it's the cheaper lower-end models that share the power plane amongst multiple ports. This actually happened to a co-worker of mine with a cheapo $499 hp laptop. Tried to use a USB drive with Y cable for power and fried his USB controller (apparently) as none of the USB ports work now.

My 3 year old Powerbook has both 6-pin and 9-pin firewire ports. The new Macbook Pro's do too. I've seen them on a few very high end Windows laptops, but sadly, most Windows laptops I've seen only have the almost-useless 4-pin un-powered port.

Yes, the Firewire express cards will provide power. If it has a 6-pin (firewire 400) or a 9-pin (firewire 800) port, it MUST provide power to be standards compliant.

Finding a 6 pin or 9 pin firewire port that does not provide power would be like finding a USB port that does not provide power - highly unusual, and unlikely.

FYI- the 9-pin port (as used by Firewire 800) will remain the same for the next generation Firewire 3200 that's due out next year. Should give eSATA2 a good run for it's money!