is SSD that much faster than 7200 RPM?

Is it really worth the upgrade price? The 5400 RPM in my laptops serves fine...the 7200 RPM versions must be faster...is SSD really THAT much faster?

 

Yes, they are really that much faster, especially in regards to latency. However, if you want to buy one is another question all together. For a more detailed results, use Anandtech's Bench. As you can see the 10K RPM hard drives still pale in comparison.

 

Depends on what you quality as faster:

Faster boot up time?

Lower latency?

Faster read/write speeds?

 

Guess its worth it...dell wants 225 for a 128gb and falcon wants 350 for theirs....seems like a lot of cash for an HD.

 

If you think 5400 works fine, then there's not need to go any faster. If that is the case, then don't get an SSD unless you really need it. Otherwise, they're just a novelty.

 

7200 is where im going for my new laptop....if i get the XPS M15X or the Falcon TLX cant i switch to an SSD later myself?

 

A 7200 HD is the current sweet spot in applications and can handle virtually anything you throw at it. Only the specialty areas (HD video etc.) need go faster.

You can switch at any time.

As a matter of fact, I plan to go SSD for the new year, and switch my current two HD to an external in RAID array.

 

I don't think any SSD drive is worth it, the cost per GB is simply too high unless you don't need much storage space. You should take a look at the hybrid drives, you can get some of the benefit without spending a fortune and still have enough space.

 

From a cost/performance increase benefit, I agree with LaptopNut:

The Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid is the only drive worth considering - especially over a 5400 RPM model and with a usage that heavily favours a few programs that are used daily, every day.

If the limited capacity of an SSD is not a purchase obstacle, then know that the most dramatic differences will be on the most underpowered systems.

If you're using a netbook with a slow HD (especially if it is a 1.8" sized one) then an SSD will feel like you bought a new system.

However, if your system is maxed out with a capable CPU, an abundant amount of RAM (over 4 GB) and you're already starting out with a 7200 RPM HD, then the performance increase you will see with an SSD is more on the snappiness side of the equation than any actual application boosting performance increases. (Besides simply faster launch times).

As long as you know this going in and can really understand its implications... then depending on your system, you'll know what to expect.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here:
on tasks where Reading data off the storage unit is the SSD's primary goal, (think booting, A/V scanning, game level loading, etc.) the SSD will handily beat almost all current HD's.

But the time saved is in the seconds/minutes - at most.

(A/V scanning is improved the most in my experience (about twice as fast), but I don't count that as a major win for SSD's because it is something that can be done in the background anyway, while I'm completing other tasks).

The worst negative that can be said about todays SSD offerings is the 'babying' that they need to perform at the level that they are promised to operate at.

Or, in my case - the simply incompatible (high write) usage scenario that I push my HD's at (and mistakenly thought that one of today's top SSD's - a Patriot Inferno - fails miserably at - thanks to DuraClass/DuraWrite limitations).

Where SSD's have no peer is in the durability/ruggedness side of the equation - along with minimal heat output and no vibrations or noise (to most people - some can hear the SSD 'whine/squeal') compared to mechanical HD's.

If you value (highly) the above paragraphs aspects of SSD's, then they are worth it - if you are simply seeking the next step up in performance, then you need to try one for an extended period in your own system with your apps, data and workload to know for a fact what performance benefits they possibly offer for you.

Except for a few specific scenarios those benefits were hard to collect from the members at NBR when I asked the same question here:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...4-examples-productivity-increase-ssd-use.html

 

Depends on the person:

You can get a 64 GB Onyx OCZ SSD for like 100. Read/write aren't amazing but you still get .1 latency. And external hard drives are dirt cheap. Now spending 100 bucks on a 299 laptop doesn't make sense, but on a more expensive laptop it may make more sense. Really depends on the person, how much money they want to spend, and if they can deal with smaller sizes of SSDs.

 

Get the stock drive from Dell. Do the upgrade yourself, later.

Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (~$110) offers the best price/performance/capacity in my opinion. The downsides are higher noise and power consumption than SSDs.

To see how HDDs compare with SSDs and the XT, real life in a notebook, see the review in my signature.