Hard drive query

S

satsunada

Gawd
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
632
I have a decent rig atm but I want to upgrade the space on the hard drive and perhaps the performance.

Current specs:
Intel i7 920 (OC'd to 3.4 Ghz)
6 GB (3x2) Mushkin DDR3 Memory
EVGA X58 motherboard
EVGA 460 GTX 768 MB (on a related note, I have an EVGA GTX 275 2 Gig graphics card and I'm curious if using it as a physics processor would improve performance enough to warrant the heat)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB HD
Coolermaster HAF932 case

I'd like to add an SSD but I'm not sure the space required to hold just the OS. Also, it would fix my storage woes as I've filled 450 GB of the HD. Would it be wiser to get a smaller SSD (like 60 or 80 GB ) just for the OS and then another 500 GB caviar blue and RAID the 2 500 GB drives to get 1 TB or would it be wiser to get a 1 TB Samsung F3. I have a small budget of around 200-300 bucks for this so cheaper is better.

Any help would be appreciated :)
 
I'd highly recommend a small SSD (80GB) that will hold your OS, basic software (anti virus, open office) and the games you play the most. Some people are selling their SSD on the forum, it might be a good deal. My Intel G2 80GB with windows 7, antivirus, office, some photo editing software, visual studio, Eclipse, and some games (NFS most wanted, COD4, MOH) still has 12GB of free space. I've had it for about a year, it has 2.44TB of host writes, and is still going strong. It's the best buy IMO to get a big speed bump (opening aps is almost instant).
Add that 1TB samsung F3 and you're good to go (for your 300$ budget, if you get the SSD second hand, you'll be able to get more storage for your HD)
 
Using that GTX 275 would not improve performance enough to warrant the heat.

Definitely go with a small SSD for the OS and the Samsung F3 1TB drive and yoou'll be set. Assuming that you don't go the used route, I recommend these SSDs:
$135 - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SSD
$200 - Intel SSDSA2MH080G2K5 2.5" 80GB SSD
 
Danny Bui said:
Using that GTX 275 would not improve performance enough to warrant the heat.

Definitely go with a small SSD for the OS and the Samsung F3 1TB drive and yoou'll be set. Assuming that you don't go the used route, I recommend these SSDs:
$135 - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SSD
$200 - Intel SSDSA2MH080G2K5 2.5" 80GB SSD
Click to expand...

I cannot recommend an ocz drive, however the intel is great, I would recommend a kingston drive as well, you can get the 64gb kingston value drive for around $95 on sale now days. My last ocz drive blew, I had problems with it.
 
munkle said:
I cannot recommend an ocz drive, however the intel is great, I would recommend a kingston drive as well, you can get the 64gb kingston value drive for around $95 on sale now days. My last ocz drive blew, I had problems with it.
Click to expand...

Actually, those were the old days of OCZ's SSD division. The current OCZ drives have improved.

Kingston, on the other hand, is still extremely slow for an SSD at that price point. In fact, that particular 64GB Kingston SSD is slower than the fastest current mechanical hard drives on the market overall.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, those were the old days of OCZ's SSD division. The current OCZ drives have improved.

Kingston, on the other hand, is still extremely slow for an SSD at that price point. In fact, that particular 64GB Kingston SSD is slower than the fastest current mechanical hard drives on the market overall.
Click to expand...

I bought an ocz vertex le about 4 months ago hardly the old days, it was slower than the kingston drive in everything except random reads and writes. Sandforce is good only at benchmarks, real world performance is a lot worse. And no the kingston drive isn't slower than a mechanical hard drive I actually get the rated speed out my kingston drive in real file transfers, the ocz didn't get anywhere near its rated speed in real file transfers. Also my judgement isn't based only on speed, the kingston drive is very reliable, sandforce drives not so much, right now I have a gksill sandforce drive that has problems with disappearing in the bios.
 
I just purchased my first SSD and for price/performance I ended up getting This.
I did a moderate amount of research before hand and wanted the Sandforce controller. I agree with the others on getting a 1TB drive to compliment your SSD. If you install things correctly and use the 1TB drive for games, pron and such you should have plenty of room on your SSD. Also, if you happen to be ordering from Newegg they have a 10% off harddrives deal going on with code EMCZZYR25.
 
Grimham said:
Damn, I guess it's only for mechanical HDDs. Sorry about that.
Click to expand...

Np, opted to get the Samsung F4 2 TB as a storage drive and the OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB drive as the OS drive. The shellshocker with the OCZ agility was tempting but the Vertex had a bay mount and is double the speed (by published numbers at least) so I'd say that's worth 20 bucks.

Thanks again!
 
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