SSD Questions.

Hello I like to ask a few SSD Questions.
I know there is SSD section but it seems better to ask here.

First I been think about getting an SSD over my Seagate Momentus XT .
When I got my first SSD a OCZ agilty. It didn't seem any faster.
Also back then you had to were about trim and writes.
Is that the same for today's SSD's?
I install and uninstall a lot to test program's. (Can SSD handle that? With write's and all?)
Also How much faster would it load the Sims 3 with all expansion pack's.? (For my wife's computer).
Would it be better to make RAID 0 of a pair of Momentus XT?

I don't move alot big file's around only once a month do I backup of my steam games.(Fear that one day steam will disappear.)

I guess the best question can it be use just like a standard drive with no worries?
Also How do you maitain an SSD (I know it's not defrag.)

 

Hybrid HDD/SSDs work by learning your "behavior" on your computer ("which programs/files do you open the most?"), figures that out, and boost performance of those things to near-SSD levels. Besides Windows, you're mostly talking about an internet browser, some office suite, and a few games. If you're not running all your programs at once or some other crazy thing like that, hybrid drives feel a lot like SSDs, aside from read/write times for programs/files not often used. However, I think you still have to deal with the random access times of a hard drive, which is very slow compared to a SSD.

If you filled up your SSD to nearly 100%, performance will drop dramatically, nearly to HDD levels. You need to leave ~20% of the SSD as free space in order to keep the performance edge over HDDs, though some newer drives have enough extra space (that's not reported to the user) that allow you to nearly fill the drive 100% without issue (though these sorts of drives are just coming out now).

SSDs are great for the random access times, seq read/writes (though only if you are transferring from SSD to SSD), and especially for shock resistance (since there's no moving parts, the "S" in SSD). Subjectively, I don't feel the difference between SATAII SSDs and SATAIII SSDs (Intel 320 and 330, respectively), though I definitely feel the difference between any SSD and and HDD (either 5400RPM or 7200RPM). Benchmarks like CDM can easily show this SSD vs HDD difference.

What I do with my SSDs are: turn off defrag (though Win7 does this automatically), turn off hibernation (I just shut down / power up anyway), don't run CCleaner (I did for my HDDs), turn off indexing (though I'm doubtful if that helps much), and make sure the correct software settings are applied (as in, ACHI and not IDE, latest stable drivers, firmware, etc.).

 

Thanks For info.
I knew how the Hybrid worked.
My Idea is to have An XT as a windows drive and SSD as game drive.
But I don't know that will affect load times with the games. Or does windows have to be on the same drive?

 

Maybe you do vice versa? SSD for OS and some games while XT for other games.

 

Probably not even that. If I had only one SSD, I'd use the SSD as the OS/Programs drive and a regular HDD as data storage. Hybrid drives fit in in situations where a user wants SSD-like speed but can't go full SSD; they don't make much sense for just a data drive.

 

I just don't seeing need the fast load in windows? Games Yes.
What is advantage using your suggested method?

 

Well, the games themselves will be installed on the SSD, whereas only the save data will be on the slower HDD. So you get just as good (or better) performance for loading games, and SSD + HDD is cheaper than SSD + Hybrid HDD.

 

I think you missed a point that he already has hybrid drive, or am I wrong?

 

I personally feel like hybrid drives are only a good option for people who need some speed and a lot of storage on a machine that only holds one drive. The 8GB cache just isn't enough to speed up a significant portion of your usage, and it only speeds it up once it's loaded it a couple times, meaning it shouldn't help for playing through games, only repetitive multiplayer gaming where you keep playing the same maps.

An SSD as the system drive could hold your OS and the games that you're currently playing, while a regular HDD provides storage, including backups for your games if you want to have them backed up on an internal drive, while being cheaper than a hybrid. Unless you juggle several games at a time, you should be able to balance that kind of usage on a 128GB SSD while using a 750GB or 1TB drive for storage.

If you plan on keeping a lot of games installed at once, you could get a 250GB Samsung 840 or a 256GB Crucial M4 for under $200 - you could fit an OS and eight 20GB game installations on that without passing the 80% threshhold kuroi-tsubara mentioned. You could obviously have those games and more installed on a hybrid drive, but you'd be lucky to get even two of them to load at faster-than-HDD speeds on the hybrid, much less SSD speeds, and your trial programs wouldn't cache unless you used them significantly over two or three boot cycles, and then they would have to bump something else off the cache.

 

200$ is my limit on spending per drive.

 

Per drive or per system? If you're doing all of this on one system with two drive bays for $200, I would recommend a 128GB SSD as your system + games drive and a 750GB or 1TB HDD as your storage drive.

If you're doing one system with two drive bays for a maximum of $200 per drive, I would recommend a 256GB M4 or 250GB 840 as your system + games drive and a 7200/750GB or 5400/1TB HDD as the storage drive. That should set you back about $250 total.

The price difference between a 7200RPM 750GB Seagate Momentus (no cache) and the equivalent Momentus XT is an extra 50%. You don't really need the cache on a storage drive in this setup unless 200GB (80% of a 250-256GB SSD) isn't going to suffice for your program needs, so there's no reason to spend an extra $45 for the cache of the Momentus XT.

 

It's 200$ per drive with 3 bay or 4 bay if I use the DVD caddy as HDD Bay.
2 Back to back
1 under battery
1 if i use dvd caddy to use an HDD.

So total 4 x 200$. 800$.

Really looking at just using the 2 back to back.

 

How much fast capacity do you need (for OS, games, other programs), and how much storage do you need? There are plenty of ways to spend $800 and fill up all four bays there, but you'd be better off getting recommendations for what you need rather than recommendations on how to spend that much money. Also, what kind of drive bays are we talking about - mSATA? 12.5mm or 9.5mm height, etc? Is this one or two notebooks? There aren't many notebooks with two drive bays, mSATA, and Ultrabay, much less three drive bays and Ultrabay - so if it's two notebooks that's important information.

edit - just saw your edit. Still need to know what you need before useful recommendations can be offered. SSD for your system drive is virtually mandatory if you're spending this much to improve storage performance; with your budget there are many options beyond that, including many that would sacrifice excess in favor of affordability.

 

An arbitrary limit of $200 per drive is not helpful. I read your posts as you having an $800 budget and wanting 2 drives max...

What I would be doing is buying 2x Crucial M4 512GB SSD's and be done.

Right now you can even save $100...

See:
Crucial M4 2.5in SATA III Solid State Drive, 512GB at Memory Express


These SSD's are the fastest at this capacity that I know of (all SandForce based SSD's larger than 240GB's are slower than the 240GB versions... even Intel's 520 Series drives).


Yes: SSD's are much faster than HDD's (even Hybrids) when installing programs - to minimize the wear and tear to a minimum:

Leave at least 30% 'unallocated' capacity from first install - this means that your usable space is around 300GB from the 512GB 'nominal' capacity advertised. This would be for your C:\ or O/S drive.

For your Data drive (and where I would be directing the steam games to install to...) I would still leave at least 20% 'unallocated' from first install (~380GB actual capacity).

By 'from first install' I mean to partition the drives as indicated from the moment you install them into your system - simply leaving the equivalent free space is not the same thing to the SSD's controller.

With the above: you will have the fastest possible setup and the ability to keep that speed indefinitely. Not to mention the lowest WA (write amplification) factor and highest performing TRIM and GC too.

If you really do have $800 to spend on Storage - the above is currently state of the art.


Why you want to 'over-provision' as I recommend above:

See:
AnandTech - Exploring the Relationship Between Spare Area and Performance Consistency in Modern SSDs

 

If tilleroftheearth is piping in with advice when we don't really know what you need in terms of fast capacity and storage capacity, I'll give my personal suggestion in the same spirit:

Get a 250-512GB SSD (250GB should really be enough; I've never felt cramped on my 128GB or 160GB SSD's) - Crucial M4 or Samsung 840 if you want the best price, Samsung 830 or 840 Pro if you want top quality. Use that as a system drive for your OS and programs + games. Partition it to ~75% utilized if you wish, otherwise just be sure not to overfill it. Then get one or two 750GB-1TB drives for storage, depending on how much you need. You could do all this for under $300 if you're using a ~250GB SSD and one HDD, or under $550 with 512GB and two. You save money while setting up a storage system on your laptop that works well for all purposes.

 

I didn't mean to upset anyone. Sorry if my last post were vague on information of what I want.
I will only spend 200$ on any drive after that I better get more than 1TB of storage.

To be honest I don't know how much speed I need. Capacity I currently have 500GB always make sure I have 50% free space
I know my wife need something much better to load the sims 3 better. (She has a standard HDD)

Size I thinking 250GB than have a hybaid to back up,

 

Hey! I'm not upset.

You're still getting your options/values wrong though. I'm not saying to spend more than what you want - but an arbitrary limit is not helping YOU most of all.

I have already given you the best possible setup for your indicated usage - now, if you want to spend that money it is up to you.

Putting a budget on your overall spending is one thing (I can understand budgets no matter how big or how small...).

Putting a budget on a specific component is something else though. Especially when it doesn't line up with the reality outside your door.

I have bought dozens of $400 drives, $600 drives and even $800 drives over the years - the only driving factor in the 'is it worth it' question is how much does two smaller capacity drives cost and can I fit them in a single case. In each case - the higher cost, bigger capacity drive was the best choice given the real limitations of all the other factors combined.

In a notebook - you can't ever have enough capacity - not even with 4x 1.5TB HDD's (I think that is the limit at this point - in certain notebook models with 4 drive bays...). But getting that capacity will cost you (a lot) in performance (these drives will be dog-slow!).

The opposite end of that is performance - with 240/256GB SSD's being top of the field currently. That costs you in capacity (even with two drive bays given the very real need to over-provision).

The best tradeoff is 2x 512GB M4's with slightly more speed than their 256GB version model (but still slower than an Intel 520 240GB SSD). With two of these; you get the best of both: highest speed and (enough) capacity.

We don't have a choice of how much speed we need in our storage subsystems - we need 100x more than the best we can hope to buy (even with price being no object).

What we do have a choice is how much capacity we spend for - $700 for ~700GB of total actual storage capacity is as good as it gets right now.

Now, how did you get '$200 for at least a TB' again?

(I'm guessing by just arbitrarily comparing the old tech 'HDDs' to the future 'SSDs', right)?

 

In this case, my recommendation is as above: 250-256GB SSD (Amazon's having a sale on the Crucial M4 right now - best deal out there at the moment), and an HDD for storage. You can get 7200/750GB or 5400/1TB for roughly the same price. Add another HDD in the future if you find you need more storage space. That should set you back about $240 total. Alternately, you could also just use the current 500GB drive for storage until you need more space, bringing the price tag down to $160 for the upgrade. By storage, I mean videos, music, pictures, game backups, etc. Likewise, the system drive is the OS, games you're playing, and other programs.

I will reiterate: buying a hybrid drive for backup storage is silly. As much as I respect tilleroftheearth's understanding of computer hardware, buying $700 worth of storage when you only need $160-$240 worth is even sillier. I agree with him that an arbitrary per-drive budget doesn't make sense compared to a total project budget, but in your case I see no need to exceed either.

 

What is GC?

 

Garbage Collection - basically keeps your SSD clean so it can run optimally.

 

Fat Dragon; if a budget is $800 ($200x4 ...) then spending less than that without maximizing performance and capacity is silly.

Installing programs (fast) needs an SSD - loading games (fast) needs an SSD. Storing lots of games needs as much capacity as possible

If/when you have the money (and how the OP is talking; the money is available): Spend less and get less is not smart thinking - having money in your pocket does you no good - when you have the option to use it fully and within your means.

Money is meant to be spent - you pay and you play.

Buying the most current technology possible (even if that is a Hybrid drive for backup purposes) is the only way to maximize your dollars in the long run (components are worth what they are only when they're current).

Having to spend just one extra second on/with old technology (that mere $$$ can 'fix') is not worth it - not when you have the $$$ to give at least.


Remember: the OP didn't ask for the cheapest setup with the most capacity - read the thread to see how unsure he/she is of what they really want (vs. what they think they need - and asked for).

 

Say I budget $2000 to build a desktop to play a certain game. I can max out the settings on the game and get good load times via SSD on an $800 setup. If I spend $800 instead of my budgeted $2000 I have $1200 to spend on other things - maybe I'm saving to put a down payment on a house. Maybe I just want to live a little more comfortably for a few months by stretching my everyday budget with that extre money. If I need more power on that desktop in two years, I can then spend another $400 to upgrade it to be better and faster than that original $2000 build would have been, so with a total investment of $1200 I get a system that is perfectly sufficient for my needs at all times and more powerful down the road than the initial investment of $2000.

If I'm paying out of pocket and set a $20 paper budget for my classroom and I need to print 200 total worksheets for my students this year, should I spend $20 on 5000 sheets of regular paper, $20 on 500 sheets of resume paper, or $2 on a ream of 500 sheets and hold onto the other $18?

In other words, just because the OP said he has $800 to spend doesn't mean he wouldn't be just as well-served functionally if he spent $160. Sure, money is meant to be spent, but the only time I would advise spending more than you have to just because you have it is if you don't get to keep the excess. Have an up-to-$5000 student grant to buy a laptop? Buy the absolute best (or most expensive) laptop available to you. Heck, buy something that scrapes that $5000 budget, sell it on eBay for $4000, and buy the $1200 laptop that fulfills your needs. But if you have $5000 of spare cash and you need a $1200 laptop, buy a $1200 laptop.

Finally, to get into one specific gripe: the sentence I highlighted in red. If storage capacity is key in this case and the files are simply going to gather dust 99.95% of the time, why get a $350 drive formatted to 380GB instead of an $80 drive formatted to 900+GB? Do you honestly believe it's worth sacrificing $270 and over 500GB of capacity to save a few minutes of transfer time every month or two? It's not like he can't play other games or use the laptop for other uses while transferring games from one drive to the other, after all.

 

Ah, see what you did there? You adjusted your budget to fit a 'reality'.

I have no argument from your post above (though we could discuss the specifics at length too some other time...).

The OP seems to have the budget, but is ignoring the reality of the current storage subsystem market - relative to what he/she thinks he wants.

 

I have read all the posts and to be frank this thread is going a stray.

Sorry that my posts have been less than useful. I got hernia's, Med haven't been able to get out what I'm thinking.

With My laptop I can have up to four drive's. But I feel that I don't need to use all bay's.
Also You can get 1TB of storage for 99$
Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus STBD1000100 1TB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

I can't justify spending over 200$ on drive. Because If I can get 1TB for 99$ than I should get more then enough speed at 200$.
I don't remember stating my budget.
I stated that the max I would spend is 200$ on a drive with my laptop of 4 bays. So the absolute max I spend is 800$ with 4 drive's.
After 200$ for drive I want some proof that I really going to see speed difference between an SSD under 200$ vs one over 200$

I monitor my HDD space like a hawk. I remember someone stated 20GB X 10 games about 200GB.
Sounds Good I don't think I keep up with more than 10 games installed. Currently I have 12 games. But most I don't play daily or even weekly.

What I have collect from this tread is that I should have One SSD OS/Current active playing Games and One Standard Drive for all data purpose i.e music/video/backup.

And have both drive be reasonable price.

As for the SSD. How much speed am I going to need to see a difference vs what I have now?
I'm looking at this like this Hybraid HDD Loads Fallout new vegas to game in under 45 seconds.
Is it going to do it in 20?
Is it going to fast loads between fast travel?
Is it going to make dayz load faster?

If someone can get me some video's that would be great. Benchmarks of I/O or random's access reads don't tell me anything.
Found one but seems out of date
SSD & HDD Gaming Performance - Load time Comparison 1080p - YouTube

Edit***
Fallout 3 Performance on SSD - YouTube
Found a great example. How can I achive that speed in that video?



Finally sorry if this post doesn't clear the Air.
But thank you for sticky with me. It means alot.

 

A hybrid might load one or two games at a relatively fast speed (after the SSD's caching system has established that they're worthy of caching), but an SSD will load all of your installed games at a fast speed - probably faster than 45 seconds for New Vegas, but that depends on other factors as well (especially startup videos like the GPU and publisher videos that load every time you run a lot of games). My general opinion is that the OS and programs you will use regularly should go on an SSD for speed, while storage goes on an HDD at a much lower cost per gigabyte, since stored items typically don't need to be accessed at SSD speeds. I'm down on hybrids because you spend a lot more for a small amount of SSD cache; if it's the only drive in the system and you need the storage capacity of a hard drive, it's probably worth using, but if you've got an SSD system drive that can hold your programs and games, a hybrid HDD is a waste.

 

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA III

Good, OK?, BAD?
10Char!

Decided that I going to order 2 of the same SSD and use our current HDD's as backup.
Would still like to only use 200$ for each SSD. Would like them both to be the same model.

 

The Samsung 840 is a new drive on the market and as such unproven. It comes from a pedigree of industry leading drives (830, 840 Pro), but it's a budget drive. My theory would be that it should be extremely reliable, like its brothers, but not as fast as them, but there's no saying until it's been out longer. The Crucial M4 would be the other suggestion at that price point, and it has the advantage of being proven by being on the market longer. I believe it is also faster than the 840, but I'm not certain.

I would think that you would be very well-served with either 840's or M4's. Between them, 840 has the pedigree and M4 has the track record.

 

The 840 comes from no 'pedigree' it is the first consumer SSD to utilize 3-bit-per-cell MLC NAND (aka TLC).

In other words: it may as well be an OCZ introduced SSD as far as what any previous Samsung models would indicate of it's performance and/or reliability.

See:
AnandTech - Samsung SSD 840 (250GB) Review



Simply not worth saving a couple of dollars over - not to mention the reduced performance and increased power consumption.

 

Thanks for the review. I going to benchmark my current harddrive and figure out what I want from there.

 

No need to benchmark your current HDD - any SSD will be faster (at least initially - if kept less than ~50% full).

Buy the most (SSD) capacity you can afford and leave some 'unallocated' to keep that performance up over time. 256GB M4 is an 'easy' choice.

 

I guess everyone forgot about the SSD forum section?