SSD or not?

[VectraMan]

I've said before I didn't think putting an SSD into my laptop made that big a difference. Some things are faster for sure (and it's lovely and silent), but unless you're one of those people that seem curiously obsessed with how fast Windows boots, having plenty of RAM probably makes more of a difference for most day to day tasks.

Having said that, if you can get 60GB boot drive for £30, then it's pretty much not worth the effort of not getting an SSD. I was going to upgrade my old desktop/server/build system/VM host with a less old bare bones system from ebay (mainly because the motherboard only supports 4GB RAM) and planned on sticking in an SSD just for the OS.

On the laptop, I took out the 750GB drive that came with it and put it in a USB caddy, so have the storage there if I need it. But TBH I don't think I've ever used it.

[Platypus]

Here's a 500GB one if you are feeling a bit flash:
Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO - SSD Only - Ebuyer

Sequential Read: Max. 540 MB/s
Sequential Write: Max. 520 MB/s

I'd go for the Samsung 1TB version personally. I currently have a Crucial 256GB for Windows and "My Documents" which is sufficient. All videos, pictures and music goes elsewhere. Currently I'm using 170GB of the 238GB available.

But when it's time to upgrade, I'd buy the Samsung and I'd get a larger drive. One's storage requirements rarely become smaller over time!

[sal]

I'd go for the Samsung 1TB version personally. I currently have a Crucial 256GB for Windows and "My Documents" which is sufficient. All videos, pictures and music goes elsewhere. Currently I'm using 170GB of the 238GB available.

But when it's time to upgrade, I'd buy the Samsung and I'd get a larger drive. One's storage requirements rarely become smaller over time!

But the SSD prices drop like stone. No point in going for 1TB now for say £300 if you are going to fill it up 2 years down the line, instead of going for 500GB for say £150 now and in 2 years when (if) your data grows buy 1TB for say £150

You said it yourself, OS + some apps + some docs are < 250GB, 500GB gives plenty of room on a laptop, if you want a place to store large collection of movies - go for an external drive, best bet is to get a USB case and stick the original HDD in it for minimal cost.

but unless you're one of those people that seem curiously obsessed with how fast Windows boots,

The main advantage is not in the boot time but hibernation / resume times, that are almost instant with SSD, while ranging from 15sec to over 1min with HDD depending on the amount of RAM, and like you said the more RAM the better

[VectraMan]

The main advantage is not in the boot time but hibernation / resume times, that are almost instant with SSD, while ranging from 15sec to over 1min with HDD depending on the amount of RAM, and like you said the more RAM the better

People use hibernate? On my laptop I close the lid and it goes to sleep; open the lid and it's there in half a second.

[Contreras]

Another option is a hybrid SSHD.

I've been using a Seagate ST1000LM014 for 6 months and happy with it so far. ST1000DX001 is the desktop version. Current retail around £60-£65 for 1TB disk with 8GB cache. The smaller sizes have smaller cache and aren't that much cheaper.

8GB doesn't sound much but typically you'd be using a fraction of the OS and program files regularly / at boot, and it's these that get cached.

[SteelyDan]

I went for the Samsung 840 EVO 1Tb SSD for my recent desktop rebuild, plus 16 gb RAM, and the machine flies! I used the older HDDs for additional storage.

Am now thinking of putting the same SSD in my laptop (courtesy of MyCo) to replace 1Tb HDD as it seems slow by comparison:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E3W16O...EJH7VTW8&psc=1

[sal]

People use hibernate? On my laptop I close the lid and it goes to sleep; open the lid and it's there in half a second.

If you put it in the bag sleeping not hibernating the battery keeps draining and you risk fire as there is still heat produced by the running components.

What I have configured is to sleep on lid close while power is connected but hibernate instead if running on battery, and since i'm not using my laptop as a desktop replacement so mostly on battery, hibernation is important for me, YMMV

We can keep arguing about 30sec saved here 1min faster there endlessly. The bottom line is that now days with sub £100 top of the line 250GB SSDs with 5+ years warranty, it's madness not to stick one in your Desktop/Laptop

[d000hg]

In boring related news, I've finally gotten round to buying an MX100 for my old Compaq Presario desktop since the random 30-60s stalls once or twice a day are getting on my tits. They're about to release the MX200 so prices seem even lower but I don't think an even faster drive is going to make any difference to a 5 year old PC (apparently I've got SATA II) . Only bothering because it has a quad-core CPU which is still really useful.

[d000hg]

Got my SSD, used the TrueImage thing to clone it in about 15min, reboot - holy ****!

Sadly the RAM is not working well, I spent all morning swapping my existing and new DIMMs into different slots as Windows kept hanging on startup. I got it to a configuration it would start - and BIOS tested the RAM as fine - but it still hung the moment I did anything My old and new DIMMs are the same spec (DDR2 PC2-6400 non-ECC unbuffered 240pin) so does this mean I have a faulty stick, or that the old and new ones are incompatible in some way? Should I return them or what?

[sal]

DIMMs can have the same markings as PC2-6400 etc. but different timings something like 11-6-5-7-8 which might result in issues. Quite complicated to explain in a forum post in details. Ideally you shouldn't mix different makes/models.

In theory the BIOS should take care to align all DIMMs to the slowest common denominator, but might have to do it manually.

You can check if you have faulty DIMM by installing them 1 by 1 and running memtest that can be found on bootable CD with tools (Hiren boot CD for example)