Clevo X8100/ Kobalt G890. How much would this speed up start up times ?

Ive just placed an order for a Kobalt G890 which is built on the chassis of the Clevo X8100, ive selected my hard drives as 2 x 320GB 7,200 RPM Sata II 16MB Cache in Raid 0 striped.

I was wondering how much would a SSD speed up the start up time, i was thinking of changing to either an 80GB Intel Gen 2 SSD or a 60GB OCZ Vertex SSD as hard drive one and having a 500GB 7,200 RPM Sata II 16MB Cache as hard drive 2.

First question, which is the better SSD out of the Intel 80GB one or the 60GB OCZ Vertex one, also as my second drive would a 500GB 7,200 RPM drive be as quick as a 320GB 7,200RPM drive ?

Would windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit operate ok on a 60GB or 80GB SSD ?

Whats my best option, if its worth changing i may consider this before its in the latter stages of being built.

 

Hey Stig,

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In short the SSD will blow you away with fast starup and shut down times, along with incredible fast acces speeds to your OS files.
When I spec up my next machine the SSD will be the first thing selected.

As for which is the best I dont know you can always give Andy on the Kobalt forums a poke he seems to be all knowledgable about SSD's

 

Thanks for that.

 

i would get either the 80/120gb hdd's the 60gb will get filled real quick and i personally believe the SSD's are still expensive

 

Pman, thanks for that.

I`m not as clued up as a lot of people in this area, lets say i put an 80GB Solid State drive as drive one and had a 500GB 7,200 RPM as drive 2. Would drive 1 with the SSD be mainly used just for the operating system with most of my saved stuff going onto the larger 500GB drive or does it fill up drive 1 before it moves onto drive 2 ?

With me ordering a new laptop i wouldn`t mind getting it right from the start if i can, if its worth the little bit extra for a configuration of Hard Drive 1 as an 80GB solid state drive and hard drive 2 as a 500GB 7,200 RPM Sata II drive over 2 x 320GB 7,200 ROM Sata II drives then i`ll probably go for that if its not too late to change the config slightly.

 

Everbody like to set there PC up as it suits them.
In your situation I would definately be going for the 80gb SSD and the 500gb 7200rpm HDD.

Install your operating system and all of you regular use programs on the SSD and use the HDD for all of your Storage (Movies, Music, Pictures etc)

I personally have my steam installed on my storage partiton also because the steam directory can get pretty once you get a few games in it.

I see you post on the Kobalt forums quite a lot aswell so if you not sure how to set it up when the laptop arrives give me a nudge and I will go through it with you

 

I think ive only posted a couple of times on the Kobalt forum in the past as previously i had a Dell/Hell M1730 so didn`t need to ask any Clevo/Kobalt related questions, with having a new Kobalt system i`ll use it a little bit more as they seem a decent crowd and very knowledgeable people.

I`ll probably go for the SSD option if i can get it changed, it makes sense. I`ll have a word with andy on monday.

 

SSD and Win7 is a very nice combination, from general feedback expect somewhere between 5-10 seconds off bootup, in comparison to a HDD setup. Pman is right though, they're still very expensive so despite the benefits consider your usage well before choosing what to do.

SSD boot drive, combined with RAID1/0 or individual HDDs as data drives is actually a very versatile setup, RAID0 is especially good when it comes to sequential reading, so its great for dealing with large individual file work projects, videos, etc, but dependant on stripe size, a lot of the benefit can be lost on smaller files (which is one of the reasons I use a 32KB stripe as it catches more system files than the more typical 64/128KB setup). RAID also tends to have a minimal affect on CPU usage because of the software implementation and the additional calculation involved, whereas an SSD with minimal latency and high read speeds is perfect as an OS drive and shouldnt cause any CPU related hit.

SSDs have a limited shelf life, but in general use, they're likely to last a good few years, and a normal HDD has just much a chance of failing of it's own acccord. The SSD is shock proof as well, so if you think you might knock your laptop a bit (although as you're getting a G890 I wouldnt expect so!).

Enjoy either way, the G890 should be a good machine.

 

Thanks Alex

I changed the spec of my hard drives to an 80GB SSD with my operating system on and my 2nd drive as a 500GB 7,200RPM. It should give me a good balance of speed and storage.

 

Yes it does....

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