SSD vs. SATA

I know this is bad to have to ask, but what will the effect of having a SSD over a SATA 7200rpm(most likely with 2-3x the GB)? I know the OS will bot and run faster but will it perform all tasks faster? At least when running programs that are saved to the SSD (if using a cheaper SATA External Drive for more room)?

 

Yes. An SSD is faster in two respects. Faster transfer speeds and more importantly significantly faster seek times. All disk operations benefit from an SSD which gives an overall system boost in performance on the order of magnitude of about 100%.

 

So you're saing that it is twice as fast as using a SATA HDD @ 7200rpm? And is this purely running OS systems or for applications (ie Internet and Games) as well?

 

SSD has much faster write and read speeds than a normal hard drive. this means that whenever a task reads or writes to files on the computer, the speed of that task will significantly improve. so all applications will boot up fast. game/map/level loading times should also improve. however processes that need computing like rendering or processes that load from an outside source (e.g. internet browsing) will not be affected. however it's impossible not make accurate generalizations about speed improvements because each application will be programmed differently even though on the outside they're the same genre. for some things, an SSD will be more than twice as fast.

you also have to take in account of series of tasks. if you have a series of operations that load, there will be significant improvements (little time improvements will add up). however if somewhere in the series of operations there's an intensive computation operation, the overall time of the series will not be that different.

 

You will be blow away if you get a good SSD. I use an OCZ vertex 120gb, it's insane compared to a 7200rpm. It's not even a comparison. It boots a lot faster, in and out of standby much quicker, and every application feels like it's almost in memory all the time. It's probably the single best upgrade for pure performance I've every done.

 

The other posters covered this aptly. So I'll just add that if capacity over speed is your biggest concern, a 7200RPM HDD is the way to go.

Cost per GB for an SSD is many times more than a HDD.

But consider that there is no better boost in overall system performance than an SSD. Transfer speeds will be 3-5 times faster than a HDD. Seek times are several hundred times faster than a HDD.

It's one of those upgrades that in spite the cost, has a very low incidence of buyer's remorse.

 

Well i'm looking at 160GB SSD and I think that should handle a lot of my programs/files. However would it be wise to store Pics/Vids/Music on an external hardrive as to not use up all the expensive SSD Memory?

 

Well, the enemy of SSDs is frequent large writes. If you are mostly reading media off the SSD rather than creating and constantly writing, you're good to go.

SSDs (MLC type, most common) have a very decent write life. You can write several GBs per day, everyday, and it would still outlast the useful life of the computer you are using it on.

 

Thanks a ton for the info! You're Awesome... so you wanna lend me $350 to upgrade to the SSD?

 

I'm thinking of buying SSD for an ENVY 17 or DV7. Will the connections be same as SATA internal drive?

 

What do you guys think of the Momentus XT? Are they worth it?

Also, If i did want to buy a SSD or Momentus XT for my future envy14, how hard would it be to install? Does it fit into the laptop like a regular SATA drive would? What about installing windows, does HP come with windows discs that I can just pop in and install?

 

All 2.5" 9.5mm drives install in the same manner. The design of the laptop determines how difficult the drive install will be, but the drive itself will not change anything.

Once we get get more info on the Envy 14, we will find out specific details like where the 2.5" drive bays are located and their ease of accessibility. As of right now, I don't know how difficult the install is, but I am guessing that HP has some sort of quick access bay for it.

 

You should also take a look at the Momentus XT hybrid hard drive.
It's nearly as fast as a ssd for apps you will use every day and booting (those will end up in the cache after a few launches), but it still got the 500go of storage of a 7200 rpm normal hard drive. It also costs only around 130$ for 4gig of ssd cache + 500 gig of 7200rpm storage room.