Question on SSDs

I have been thinking about upgrading to one, but I have a few Qs.

Is it true if you use up half+ of the drive, it slows down immensely?

Would you recommend one for the average user?

 

It's not really true any more with recent firmwares, and I'd recommend an SSD only if you prefer speed over storage. The cost/GB of an SSD is much higher than it is with a spinning drive, so the trade-off is either lots of storage, or blazing speed. Depends entirely on what you do with your computer. No such thing as an "average" user

 

On some older SSDs filling much of the drive may have resulted in a performance penalty, but I'm pretty sure all of the current "mainstream" SSDs have sorted this problem out.

I'd recommend an SSD to just about anyone, especially if you're planning to upgrade already. You'll generally get a much more noticeable boost in performance from an SSD than from a bit more memory or a faster processor, no matter what you're doing.

 

I wouldn't say it slows down immensely, but if you're buying it for strictly performance reasons, then you are definitely not getting your money's worth if you need all or most of the space of any particular SSD.

When I tested a Torqx 64GB SSD, with TRIM enabled firmware, btw, I definitely saw it get slower from a clean install as it got filled to just under 80%. What was a show stopper was that trying to extract an 180KB file took over a minute on that drive - this is 'immense' but I didn't wait to find out if it would respond like this with other files too - I simply returned it.

Note that I was comparing the Torqx to a Scorpio Blue 5400 RPM HD with eBoostr beta v4 - although the Torqx was faster in some things, the 10x more cost (vs. eBoostr) was not in line with my expectations of what an SSD should perform like.

Would I recommend one for an average user? Not unless they have money to burn, at the moment.

But the one I will recommend is the 160GB G2 Intel SSD, of all reports so far I have read (and relying on davepermen's direct observations a lot) this is the SSD to buy now and in the foreseeable future.

If you want to experiment and have 'spare' cash to do it with; there is no better way to gain experience with one.

The benefits are slightly better power usage (depending highly on the SSD vs. the mech HD you have already), much more ruggedness vs. mech HD's and the promise of a faster/smoother system.

The only way you'll know if that promise will be delivered for you and your computing style is by taking the plunge and testing for yourself.

But make sure you have a no restocking fee money back return policy from where ever you buy it.

Good luck.

 

the word immensely got put in by news reporters that needed hype to make sure people read it.

they slow down the more they're filled (like you slow down at ordering a more full and full library for example). and most ssds have some form of breakpoint, where they slow down quite a bit.

but not immensely. and not at 50% exactly. starting there, you might notice benchmarkable performance losses. at around 80%, it starts to show up.

 

You should have no problems with intel's reccent G2 SSD...or any other one as long as it is solid...