47 replies to this topic

[HybridTheory]

Ok so I see many many many people going gaga over the SSD drives that are coming out these days. Will it net that much of a benefit to have one solely for installing/running games? (Not just MW:O I mean games in general here). I'm curious because as I've posted before I have a Raptor drive in my system but its the only drive. It's 250GB and it's enough space for the OS and all the games I play regularly and I have a generally good system... but may be looking for more storage so wondering if going the SSD route to install games on would be a good idea... also... would it be best to place the OS on it as well or leave Windows 7 on the HDD and strickly install games on the SSD? Opinions?

[Bloodshed Romance]

well SSDs have a set amount of times that it can be WRITTEN to.. but it can be READ from for however long it needs...
Windows is about all that NEEDS to be on a SSD, games can be put on the Raptor...
IMO..
I haven't owned either but thats the best way I can think of..
i'm staying away from SSDs just because of the set amount of times they can be written to before they fail...

edit: I own a 7200 RPM drive from WD... I want a Raptor because you can get more space on 1 hard drive compared to SSD..
1T Raptor (10000 RPM) (299.99)
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822236243
512GB SSD (398.99)
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820148444

Edited by Bloodshed Romance, 08 July 2012 - 10:35 AM.

[HybridTheory]

Bloodshed Romance, on 08 July 2012 - 10:32 AM, said:

i'm staying away from SSDs just because of the set amount of times they can be written to before they fail...

I was thinking the same as well. But never having owned one, nor know anyone that has one yet I haven't gotten any opinions on it other than what can be read online or in a magazine. Would like to see what some peoples actual experiences are... SSDs have come along way from when they first came out, or so they say.

Edited by HybridTheory, 08 July 2012 - 10:35 AM.

[DeathsWelcome]

Do what I did... use an SSD to put your OS on, use a second SSD for a permanent game/long term application, and then a raptor for everything else. I think that's the best way to go right now.

[Tiger 6]

i've had a pair of raid striped raptors in constant service for 6 years now - keep em cool and they are a very reliable drive.

I keep looking at SSD's but my understanding is that they aren't so great for use as swap space due to to the limited read/write issue?
I do a lot of video editing for my RC club, so they don't seem to be an upgrade over the Raptors.

Interested to hear from anyone who has long term experience with SSD's?

[Der BruzZzler von Wiesndoof]

I don't have any HDD in my System. Only a 512GB Crucial M4. There is no comparison.
No more HDD!

[Bloodshed Romance]

i've still "heard" bad things about newer SSDs but I also have never owned one personally.. just because I don't have the money for those priced hard drives right now.. my 7200 has held up for 2-4 years now without errors.. i've thought its had errors..but turns out it was my motherboard with the issues..

SSDs are also good for applications compared to storage because as people will tell you... load times are cut massively..

but opinions on drives are always good before you jump to a conclusion..

other than that everything I know about them has either been "he said she said" or what i've read online (which sometimes is still, he said she said)

edit: I download and watch a lot of TV shows (anime junkie) and I need storage>speed so i'll be the one to go with a Raptor rather than a SSD because i'm cheap sometimes... but i've seen even an earlier post here..

Tiger 6, on 08 July 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

i've had a pair of raid striped raptors in constant service for 6 years now - keep em cool and they are a very reliable drive.

Raptors will last....

Edited by Bloodshed Romance, 08 July 2012 - 10:44 AM.

[HybridTheory]

I'm thinking about short term gain at little cost. Want to try to avoid heavy overclocking as I only have stock coolers in my system, so wondering if the difference between the Raptor and a SSD drive really boosts performance with read/write speed difference or if I'll even notice a difference.
Also considering going dual Video Cards but would it even be worth the money to add a second GTX 560 or just wait a year and get a single more powerful GPU?

The only drive I've ever had fail was a 1TB Seagate HDD. All the others I've owned have been good as gold and never had errors. All have been 7200 and either Western Digital or Seagate drives. The Raptor I have now has also been smooth and never had a problem (knock on wood)

[Bloodshed Romance]

not to sure about hard drive expierences being to different.. you can do a search on youtube and look at comparisons.. I think Newegg has done a comparison like that but i'm not too sure.. i know theres people that take identical systems and boot the computers and it will show you the difference between a raptor and SSD at the same time..

as for video cards I would say stay with that and get one big one later

I have 2 6770s (1gb a piece) crossfired (amds SLI) and can run MWLL on max settings.. so hoping i'll get similar results with MWO..
my 2 cards are about 100-120 a piece so they equal one of the bigger cards.. or pretty close to one..

edit: typo..

Edited by Bloodshed Romance, 08 July 2012 - 10:50 AM.

[rooster]

I got a 120gb ocz SSD for my operating system and games I filled it up to 110gb used space the week i got it. I know someone who has the exact same SSD he has just games installed. his computer is slower to start up but he does have MUCH more room for games on the SSD. he doesnt have to change the directory for allot of his games when he is installing them since he has a large HDD as his C: drive. Lesson learned from our builds is get a large SSD, 250gb+ If your going to load your operating system on it.



one thing that never really gets mentioned when talking about SSDs is they are silent. my HDD (1.5 tb samsung HDD that i salvaged from a home media server) is probably the loudest thing on the computer.

[BFalcon]

Had 2 SSDs for over 2 years now, running Windows 7 and installed programs on one and my games, including Arma 2, which is very disc intensive, on the other.

I think you'll find that the write limits are considered the same as the MTBF for the raptors.

For documents and downloads, I just use a basic 1Tb green hard drive

[Bloodshed Romance]

I never hear my 7200 spin.. the loudest thing in my system is my video card fan _-_ but thats because its shoved against another video card... I even put 2 120mm fans on the side of the case.. and its still super loud.. one down side of running multiple GPUs

[Comguard]

SSD's are very reliable and the problem with the write-cycles overhyped - with my current usage my SSD will fail some time in the early 2020s. Guess the average SSD will be replaced by a bigger successor before she ever gets close to reaching her cycle counts.

There is only one controller that's notorious for making problems: Sandforce. That's why you should avoid SSDs from OCZ at all cost.

Crucial M4 is reliable and long enough on the market that one can say the drive is a matured and reliable device, Samsung 830 is also good but with less long-time experience.

Edited by Comguard, 08 July 2012 - 11:01 AM.

[Tiger 6]

Bloodshed Romance, on 08 July 2012 - 10:41 AM, said:

edit: I download and watch a lot of TV shows (anime junkie) and I need storage>speed so i'll be the one to go with a Raptor rather than a SSD because i'm cheap sometimes...

I honestly found that extra ram and CPU made more of a difference than disks for this task - it cut my video processing time from minutes to seconds
(upgraded from a 32bit Barton core with 2GB of ram and striped 74GB raptors, to a FX62 Athlon with 4GB and striped 150 GB Raptors)

Quote

Raptors will last....

Yes, yes they will

[ebichu]

I have a 240GB Vertex 2 and it's worth it.
Your OS is snappy, you can use programs the same second you see your desktop, everything loads faster.
The time you really notice it is when you find yourself using a PC with a regular hdd, everything just takes ages.

When it comes to games RPGs benefit the most with their constant loading of different areas.
I dont think MWO will benefit any, your match will load faster but you're still gonna have to wait for others, so no real benefit here.

But overall it's totally worth it.
You don't even need the latest models, ANY SSD from the last 2-3 years will absolutely murder ANY HDD.

[Bloodshed Romance]

if I were to go with a SSD, then windows would be about the only thing I shoved onto it.. start-up times are always a pain.. everything else I use loads just fine....

can we change the subject a little bit..?

does anyone here have experience with a HDD/SSD hybrid??
recommendations???

[Albinonewt]

I bought one small SSD drive a while back for SWTOR and LOTRO. Its literally not big enough to make it worth throwing windows on it. I basically use it for games that access the harddrive a lot and that i know I'll likely want installed for years to come.

[Comguard]

Crucial M4 or Samsung 830.

[Alleus Ford]

Raptors are nice have used them since they first came out 10+ years ago. SSDs are by far faster than the raptor drives SSDs run in nano seconds where th raptors are running in milliseconds. To put it in basic terms it is like the difference between minutes to hours for us. There is a chart you can do the math and figure out how many writes an SSD can do before it dies but you have to remember that is writing to the exact same spot over and over which doesn't happen. The SSDs are designed to write to the sectors that have been written to the least. I put in a link to a website for those that want some more details.

Hope it helps

http://maxschireson....mance-concerns/

Edited by Alleus Ford, 08 July 2012 - 11:14 AM.

[Catamount]

Comguard, on 08 July 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

SSD's are very reliable and the problem with the write-cycles overhyped - with my current usage my SSD will fail some time in the early 2020s. Guess the average SSD will be replaced by a bigger successor before she ever gets close to reaching her cycle counts.

There is only one controller that's notorious for making problems: Sandforce. That's why you should avoid SSDs from OCZ at all cost.

Crucial M4 is reliable and long enough on the market that one can say the drive is a matured and reliable device, Samsung 830 is also good but with less long-time experience.

Not all Sandforce drives are necessarily going to be bad, at least not bad enough to make a difference (who cares if your SSD lasts 10 years or 25, realistically?).

OCZ drives, on the other hand, do have bad reliability, if I recall, but it's an issue that seems to be as much company-specific as due to the controller. I'll see if I can pull up the site I was reviewing for failure rates later, but most companies' drives were pretty good.


As for the above comments mentioning HDDs vs SSDs in terms of longevity, you guys should remember that HDDs are just as limited in lifespan as SSDs. The only difference is that whereas SSDs are only worn out by writes, the mechanical components in an HDD will wear from reading and writing. We still don't have a long enough track record on SSDs, afaik, to judge comparative reliability, but even after having suffered an early SSD failure (OCZ Vertex IIE; I didn't know about the failure rates two years ago, if that information even existed), one so unlucky that it took a month-long project with it, and forced me to redo the whole thing over three semi all-nighters (my fault; should have backed up), I have no qualms about getting another once I pay off the credit card and more money rolls in.

Edited by Catamount, 08 July 2012 - 11:35 AM.