Help me decide please, SSD+XT or 2xXT (Non Raid)

Help me decide here please. Is a primary SSD really needed or worth it? Is a secondary and primary Momentus XT way more than enough (already have one XT)? Reading below can someone point me to where it shows a marked increase in performance and workflow capabilities. Especially to were I'd want to wait to do other upgrades?

I just mimicked the workflow I will need for once I start taking up video and photography more seriously as a hobby. Using the drive monitor gadget The XT was just never taxed at all. With video conversion at most it got up to 6% activity. Batch photo conversions were even less taxing by a large margin.

This is just a single XT too on my U81a. I will have a better CPU on the P7805, a P9600 now but as shown below I want to get an x9100 for 3.45 GHz compared to the P8400 in the U81, but I don't think it is fast enough to justify output to stress a single XT, let alone dual. I really wanted a SSD but apparently do not think I NEED one.

I decided to look at this as some of the application benchmarks Ive seen showed there was not a huge improvement in the numbers. While yes programs open faster, boot is faster and synthetic benchmarks are by orders of magnitude faster, productivity did not improve much. If I were a gamer though SSD would make much more sence loading levels etc.

I am thinking for the P7805 of getting a second XT without Raid0 (I hated Raid0 when I tried it out). The primary drive then to house the OS, office apps and prodution output. The second drive to house the page file, original captured/work files, temporary storage, producton applications and some of the user files.

I would probably end up short stroking the primary drive too so the OS etc. would sit on the first 128 GB or so and then after that the work output could sit on the remaining partition.

So again I plead to those in the SSD know, please help me out here. Spending on a C300 isn't out of the question but of course a Momentus XT is alot cheaper and would not leave me broke till I refill the couphers. It isn't a money choice for the fact I don't have it but for the fact is it worth it for now and do the other upgrades later? I should note too Photoshop is in my near future as well.

My choices so far form the money I have right now;

670.00 C300 256GB

or

370.00 C300 128GB
300.00 x9100 ES
670.00 Total

or

130.00 Momentus XT
300.00 x9100 ES
250.00 8GB DDR3
680.00 Total

Thanks for your inputs in advance............

 

I think the second/third option would be best.

But being me I would go with the SSD. (second)

 

second or third option, if you're going to be doing video work an upgraded proc will be very very handy. If you're finding that ur often nearing or hitting your RAM cap then go with the 3rd option but if you think w/e you have can handle it go with the 2nd option

 

Once you use an ssd as your only drive you get spoiled and cant go back. Less power less heat more speed less risk to shock damage. All depends what you can afford.

 

How about 64GB for the primary? I think 64GB would be more than enough for OS + apps.

You can spend the rest of the money on HDD + memory.

PS. if your OS + apps is on an SSD, the WD5000bekt might be a better choice as your secondary SSD.

 

Looks like the P7805u has a 12.7mm optical drive. So to get most bang-per-buck could do a $130AR 60GB OCZ Vertex LE (Sandforce 1200) in the primary bay, put a fast 9.5mm 2.5"HDD (eg: WD5000BEVT) OR even a 1TB 12.5mm drive in a optical bay caddy. The optical drive can be converted to be housed in an external e-sata or USB enclosure for ~$15.

 

i would say intel SSD + XT...

 

for video and photo editing?
if your going to do hd video editing you should seriously consider a quad core. i dont know ithe cpu you mentioned is a quad, but a core2quad would be great for video editing.
even if you had the ssd, your editing, especially in programs like ppro cs5 will likely be not a fun experience without a fast processor. with that being said id make a fast drive the second most important thing since video apps tend to access disks a lot. cs5 for example reads hd vdideo sequences on the fly during previews. however i think that a momentus xt would be good enough.
if you are more into photo editing i think an ssd would be overkill really.
so imho your 3rd option would give you the best experience (if thats a quad) amongst all your options.

 

Thanks all for your replies.

I can't see doing 64GB on the primary as I'm afraid it would too limiting. The lowest I can consider here is 120GB to be safe. The price however would be nice...........

The P7805 is limited to C2D, I wish it could do a quad core. I know I can now do x9100 and get it up to 3.45 GHz, so that will have to do for now.

The one thing I love about the x25-m's is proven reliablity. Performance wise there is getting to be alot better out there. The SF2's and the C300's right now interest me for this reason. The XT though seems more than fast enough but to match the 100 plus sequential MB/s of the HDD for write to the SSD I'd have to go x25-m 160GB G2. Agreed though as the HDD gets full the 70 MB/s of the 80GB would suffice.

 

I have 2 desktops, 2 laptops and an ion netbook. I made the mistake of buying a 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD for my primary gaming desktop. It was a mistake because after using that computer my other systems seemed to crawl and I didn't like them any more. It was truly night and day. So I stuck 64gb Kingston V series SSD drives in the other systems where I could run a 2nd hard drive for games and data and 120gb Kingston drives in the netbook and smaller of the two laptops. (I chose Kingston because of cost and positive reviews, I'm very happy with them.) So there now resides an expensive SSD in every computer I own and I don't ever foresee myself owning a computer with an operating system installed to a platter drive. I am a huge, huge fanboy of solid state drives now.

Good luck with your choice, whatever it is.