Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
And even if the Users area were on the SSD, most home users who only use a few office apps and such (i.e., not gamers) will not be close to filling a 64GB SSD.
Also, there is striped RAID-1 (technically it is RAID-10,f2 aka far, but it works with only 2 drives), which gives nearly double the read speed of a single drive for QD=1 sequential reads.
A system with an SSD feels more responsive than with an HDD. Even if it is just for Windows OS and a few applications.
I agree with the OP. For about $100, an SSD is a better choice than a faster CPU. The SSD will make more of a noticeable difference.
64GB is plenty for Windows 7 and a few office apps and itunes. If you disable the hibernation file and have a small (or no) page file, Windows will easily fit in 20GB. If you use another 20GB for applications and data, that still leaves more than a third of the SSD free if you want to increase...
I think your problem is most likely one of these:
1) power
2) cables
3) HBA
I doubt it is the HDDs themselves, linux, or mdadm. Possibly it could be a bug in the driver for your HBA, depending on what HBA you have.
It seems you have other problems with your systems.
I have been getting 80-100+ MB/s with linux Samba for a long time now, through various kernel versions and Samba versions. This is with Windows 7 clients (gigabit network, obviously). I did not do anything special to achieve those rates.
As you said, the solution is apparently to secure erase the SSD before doing the firmware update.
However, I have seen some reports that the Intel SSD toolbox will not recognize the drive when it is in the 8MB state.
Has anyone succeeded in secure-erasing an 8MB-bug Intel 320 with the...