SSD or HDD as my new primary system drive?

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Biges

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 28, 2008
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Hi!

I plan on getting a new hardware and installing W7 instead of XP. Should I get SSD or stay with HDD? I specifically ask because of reliability issues of SSD.

Thanks

p.s.: Please recommend a model/brand.
 
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I do not have ssd. But I go with ssd for new primary system and make proper backup of ssd.
 
The reliability of SSD's is much better than it used to be and platter drives don't have the best track record either. I would get an SSD for boot/programs drive and a platter drive for storage, if you're really worried about it do regular backups of the SSD(of course anything important should be backed up someplace else).
 
There are no reliability issues with SSDs compared to HDDs, and haven't been for a very long time. As always, if you're worried about your data, you should be making backups regardless of whether you're storing it on spinning platters or solid state flash.

Use an SSD. Between moving to that and W7, your computer will feel like a totally different beast.
 
I want to see one of those 25 TB drives they are talking WD was talking about making =)
that would solve lots of problems with multiple drives and small SSDs.
 
Go SSD. You'll never look back. However it would nice if we knew if this was going into a laptop or desktop. Also if you store large amounts of data on your PC or not (like movies, etc)
 
McTurkey said:
There are no reliability issues with SSDs compared to HDDs, and haven't been for a very long time. As always, if you're worried about your data, you should be making backups regardless of whether you're storing it on spinning platters or solid state flash.

Use an SSD. Between moving to that and W7, your computer will feel like a totally different beast.
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Unless your SSD is small (32GB or less), *always* go with an SSD for your boot drive and a platter drive for everything else - this applies to any non-server OS. Fortunately, SSD pricing has become sane, especially with the current round of sales - SSD pricing has fallen below $1.0USD/GB, even for the 120GB and larger drives.
 
Thanks for your answers :)

Let me add that it is for desktop and I'll keep my HDDs for data storage and backup.

p.s.: Please recommend a model/brand.
 
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I recommend Samsung 840 Pro series. 256 GB will give you the best bang for your buck right now.
 
Samsung 840 Pro and Crucial M500 are the two brands and model series I recommend.
 
brncao said:
Samsung 840 Pro and Crucial M500 are the two brands and model series I recommend.
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What he said. Even the Samsung 840 Evo is fine.

I can't believe someone would consider building a new machine these days without an SSD.
 
I love my Samsung 840 Pro 256. Have had it almost a year no problems. Just make sure you read about making sure TRIM is set up on it. Make sure ACHI is set in the BIOS for the SSD to ensure smooth performance. It's a really good improvement over mechanical drives for your boot/software.

And from XP to W7 is a MASSIVE improvement. You'll have fun with it. If I were you I'd go with 8.1 though.
 
The Samsung 840 pro is an awesome SSD, but if your on a budget and dont need super amazing ssd speeds many other brands are fine as well. I recommend atleast a 256GB (you'll be ok with a 120gb though). Sandisk, Intel, Corsair, Kingston, Curcial, Samsung, Plextor and a few other make good SSD. I have a Kingston 3k 120gb and a Toshiba Q Pro 256gb. However, if your coming from a HDD to an SSD, any kind of SSD with have a noticeable speed difference..
 
I recommend ssd as primary drive. and the drive the Samsung 840 "pro" 256gb!
 
%99 of people wont notice the speed diff from the samsung Pro vs Evo series, period, save money, get an Evo.
 
Biges said:
Why 8.1? I prefer the look and controls of W7.
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I have W7. The justification I can go on is if you want to take advantage of Ultra Fast Boot (requires GPT (not MBR), Windows 8 and above, and a GPU that supports UEFI GOP) for faster boot times. Windows 8.2 is said to be bringing back the start menu. We'll have to wait and see if they do follow through with it.
 
MrGuvernment said:
%99 of people wont notice the speed diff from the samsung Pro vs Evo series, period, save money, get an Evo.
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MrGuvernment, don't the evo uses ram memory to be faster? you got to have extra memory for it to use? (I was wondering about the evo too).
 
Biges said:
Why 8.1? I prefer the look and controls of W7.
Click to expand...

Windows 8 has all the same controls Windows 7 does except the start menu uses a full screen, just click the desktop tile after you start up and it is almost exactly the same as W7, just faster and cleaner. You don't have to use any of the metro stuff at all, I never do. I use it just like I used Windows 7.

Windows 8 boots up significantly faster and is just all around faster and cleaner. I have 8.0 on an SSD and my computer fully boots in 10 seconds. I press the power button and by the time I turn my 7 monitors on it is fully booted and I don't even see the loading screen.

I'm using a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro.
 
brncao said:
I have W7. The justification I can go on is if you want to take advantage of Ultra Fast Boot (requires GPT (not MBR), Windows 8 and above, and a GPU that supports UEFI GOP) for faster boot times. Windows 8.2 is said to be bringing back the start menu. We'll have to wait and see if they do follow through with it.
Click to expand...

Thing is, the preference for 7 is entirely due to aesthetics - not performance. I've been running 8 and 8.1 in dual-boot, primary OS, and (even for a while) as only OS, and, despite niggling upgrades, I'm still on Vista/7-era hardware. The Start menu is all about the pointing device - the mouse/trackpad/etc; it commits the unconscionable (at least to me) crime of even somewhat roadblocking the keyboard, leaving the problem of what do you do if/when your pointing device goes toes-up on you (even temporarily). With the Start menu gone, I can concentrate on my software without the Start menu grabbing my nearly undivided attention. (Surprise tip/secret - you can tab your way through all the tiles on the StartScreen, then using the Enter key to launch the active/highlighted tile; therefore, so much for it being touch-centric.)

Lastly, while Windows 8 and 8.1 take better advantage of UEFI than 7 does, it doesn't require it, as the hardware requirements are unchanged from those of Windows 7 (as far as desktops and traditional portable formfactors go). Windows 8 and 8.1 may take better advantage of newer hardware than 7; though even if you have older hardware, 8.1 deserves serious consideration - even if you have exactly zero interest in ModernUI as an app ecosystem.
 
Back on topic...

I've gone the path of small/fast boot device and large data/program storage twice before, and both times it sucked. I was constantly having to re-install programs and hack at the registry to get poorly behaved programs to install on the data drive. I went "cheap" 2 years ago and put an 80GB SSD in my laptop for a boot drive, and it's been a fight ever since to keep it below 60GB used since it doesn't TRIM properly when less than 20-25% is free. It's been one hassle after another, spending more time fiddling with data storage paths than I saved with faster access times.

So... If you go with a SSD boot drive, I've come to the conclusion that unless you WANT to fiddle around constantly with where files are stored, people ought to to over-buy capacity for a boot SSD. For me, that would be a minimum of 240-256GB class SSD for a boot drive, I can't imagine trying to fit my desktop boot drive into even 256GB without it wasting a lot of my time, so I'm holding out for a large enough SSD that I simply won't worry about it. I figure 500GB SSD for my laptop and 750GB or 1TB SSD for my desktop ought to do it. Right now both samsung 840 EVO and Crucial M500 have drives in those capacities, and the $/GB decreases as the drive size increases. So I'd suggest waiting till you can afford a 500GB (480GB) Samsung 840 EVO or Crucial M500 and go big right away so you don't have to waste time fiddling with it down the road.

Yea many others have good success with smaller boot drives, but their usage patterns are pretty different from mine. I like to minimize setup time and would ideally go years between OS re-installs, so any hardware configuration that requires fiddling with is a non-starter for me. And that means I won't be using a small boot SSD ever again, based on how much fiddling I've had to do with my laptop to keep from filling the boot drive.
 
AndreRio said:
MrGuvernment, don't the evo uses ram memory to be faster? you got to have extra memory for it to use? (I was wondering about the evo too).
Click to expand...

Not that i know of, it is like any other SSD drive....
[EDIT]
i see, this feature
http://techreport.com/review/25282/a-closer-look-at-rapid-dram-caching-on-the-samsung-840-evo-ssd

Before diving into our results, let's spend a moment to, ahem, refresh our memory about what RAPID mode is all about. RAPID stands for Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data, so we should probably honor the all caps. You can enable the feature via Samsung's SSD Magician utility, and you'll need to be running Windows 7 or 8 for it to work. When enabled, RAPID mode takes up to a gigabyte of system memory. DRAM is even faster than the flash memory used in SSDs, so there's some wisdom in using it as a high-speed cache for solid-state drives.

Samsung says RAPID mode is used primarily to accelerate read performance. Data is speculatively loaded into the cache based on user access patterns. The caching intelligence considers several factors, including how frequently and recently the data has been accessed. It also discriminates against large media files to avoid polluting the cache with data that may not benefit from quicker access times.

If this all of sounds familiar, you may be thinking of Windows' SuperFetch routine, which does something similar. However, Samsung says SuperFetch only considers application data. RAPID mode looks at each and every read request, and it's capable of caching both application and user data.
Click to expand...
 
SSD saves power, gives off less heat, way lighter in weight, faster data processing, faster boot-up time especially with old hardware, less vulnerability to break . even though it is more expensive and less bang for your buck memory wise its still can save you allot of heartache.
 
Dion said:
Completely false.

But yes.. SSD for Primary Drive no questions asked.
Click to expand...

Completely false? Going to back that up with something? There is no statistically relevent difference in reliability between SSDs and HDDs, and unless you are privy to some magical study that says otherwise, my statement is true.
 
McTurkey said:
There are no reliability issues with SSDs compared to HDDs, and haven't been for a very long time. As always, if you're worried about your data, you should be making backups regardless of whether you're storing it on spinning platters or solid state flash.

Use an SSD. Between moving to that and W7, your computer will feel like a totally different beast.
Click to expand...
Actually, you're not supposed to defragment an SSD - it simply runs down the memory cells and provides no benefit. Defragmenting utilities don't care and will still "defragment" it - lessening the effective disk life.

I know the OP said he was installing Windows 7... I would recommend disabling the automatic disk defrag schedule on the SSD.

Also, as a side note, the defragmenter in Windows 8 was replaced with the "Windows Optimizer" and this utility DOES recognize a disk as an SSD and will issue a TRIM command to the SSD instead of defragmenting it. I wish Windows 7 had that!

If you buy a single SSD it may come with a program to issue TRIM commands. I believe Samsung Magician does this. Magician is also capable of managing SSD and Windows settings to create a software environment more friendly towards SSD disk life.

Edit: Additional Side Note! I have 4 Samsung SSDs in my computer, but because they're in a RAID array Samsung Magician cannot access them. At first, I had the Windows 7 disk defragmenter set to ignore my SSD array on its automatic schedule. Much to my horror, I noted in my service logs that it was still defragmenting my array once per week!! What gives!?

.... It was Norton Internet Security. It has a built in system performance tuning thing it does... and that service was triggering Windows to defragment all disks once per week. I had to end up disabling that service and my Windows defragmenter service to guarantee it wasn't happening. I now use AusLogics to manually defragment my conventional HDDs.
 
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OK, I'll consider W8, but I don't like its environment, so I'd probably fine-tune it with some additional applications :)

And regarding automatic defragmentation - I hate all these automatic processes (defragementation, cleaning, anti-virus check...), so I'm used to disable the most I can :)
 
Last month I built a PC for a friend. I used Windows 8 and I saw a bunch of neat things, and I hated less.

Today, I upgraded my main computer to Windows 8 and I like it.

There's an awesome new menu you get with all my favorite things (by default) when you right click the start menu:
pjpFMmu.jpg


The Windows Explorer copy dialog is also much improved. If you have more than 1 copy operation it adds to this with another graph for each operation:
G80a9oD.jpg


I've found ways using desktop shortcuts, libraries, and more to basically avoid the main start menu. I also added my Windows 7 gadgets back :)

I think it looks pretty good :
http://imgur.com/biceaPG (2560x1600)

Edit:
I wanted to show you the Win8 optimizer issuing a TRIM command but I can't do that because my SSDs are in an array. I know it will do it for single disks because I did that on the PC I built for my friend last month.
 
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If I built a new PC today I'd probably still go with the Samsung 840 PRO 512GB.
 
This guy is right^

Probably the only faster than the Samsung pro 256gb ssd is the Samsung pro 512gb! I forgot that one.
 
May I ask why you mostly recommend Samsung 840 Pro series? Is it that reliable?

And why 256 GB, is 120 not enough?

Should I use the drive only for Windows and "permanent" applications while moving all "user data" and "documents" directories and drives to a secondary HDD? Or could I also consider installing like games on the drive? Where should I my swap file put? Or are nowadays SSDs as reliable that they can be used normally as HDDs?
 
Biges said:
May I ask why you mostly recommend Samsung 840 Pro series? Is it that reliable?

And why 256 GB, is 120 not enough?

Should I use the drive only for Windows and "permanent" applications while moving all "user data" and "documents" directories and drives to a secondary HDD? Or could I also consider installing like games on the drive? Where should I my swap file put? Or are nowadays SSDs as reliable that they can be used normally as HDDs?
Click to expand...

The Samsung 840 Pro series is highly regarded as the best performing SSD on the consumer market. Personally I have had a lot of SSDs, and now pretty much use the Samsung 840 Pro exclusively. I have the 512GB. I chose that size rather than continuing atm with my Striped array of SSDs. Although I may buy another 512GB and stripe it with the current one. I use mine for my OS and all my games/applications. I use external storage for my data and backups. I find that my system performs better overall on the SSDs. That being said, gameplay is relatively the same, other than load and install times, it generally performs the same in games as an HDD. But I like having my games/apps install/load faster as well as the faster boot times.

Also about reliability issues. My SSDs have all been more reliable than my HDDs. I am on SSD 20 I think(?) on my own system, and I have used countless more on project and enterprise systems. There are limits to their write capacity, but most newer SSDs should last the average consumer 10+ years of active use. Moving more of your write functions by keeping data on an external or secondary storage device will improve that.

Also, Win7 should automatically disable defrag, superfetch and prefetch when it detects the SSD. You can check manually to make sure it does it. Also, if you disable the automatic defrag, just remember, it won't automatically defrag your conventional drives then.

EDIT: Another note about the size comparisons. Performance for an SSD scales with the size of the SSD. It really should come down to value and price for you. If you just want to installed the OS and maybe 1 or 2 prominent programs/apps, then 128GB should be fine. But if you want to include games and other applications on it, you want to make sure you leave enough space to install all of those and still leave about 30% free space for optimum TRIM functions.
 
The Samsung 840 Pro is an excellent choice. So are the Intel 530 and the Crucial m500. These are the big three for reliable consumer SSDs and you can't go wrong with any of them. You can ignore performance differences between them, because they all feel the same to a human, though the smallest ones (128GB or smaller) do write large files quite a bit slower than the 240GB or larger ones.

Samsung is competing with Intel by leaning towards even faster performance, and Crucial is competing with Intel by adding some interesting enterprise features to the consumer line, like capacitors that prevent the small chance of data loss in a power outage, and Opal 2.0 full-disk encryption support which is a thing if you're into encrypted disks. Intel has set a very high bar for everyone else.

Reliability is very high for the big three, but that is no excuse to not have a backup plan. SSDs (particularly the big 3) are probably more reliable than HDDs now, but they are not immune to failure; when they do fail, the data is gone with no chance for recovery. The nice thing about upgrading from a HDD to an SSD is that you can keep the HDD as a backup; just leave them both internal, and back up the SSD onto the HDD. If it's a new build, you should still have a HDD backup, whether it's internal or external (both would be ideal).
 
I am in the "you probably won't notice the difference between an 840 Pro and 840 EVO" camp. Especially if this is your first drive. The EVO is such an amazing value, I just picked up a 250 GB one a couple of days ago for $140.
 
Crucial M500 is significantly cheaper than Samsung 840 Pro. Should I choose it instead? It uses MLC NAND flash.
 
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