hdds vs ssds. the truth now!

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ar09

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are ssds really faster than hdds, in everyway possible? yes or no?

and, what about doing 10 different things at the same time?

and now, what is the faster 2tb hdd on the market?
 
YesMan.jpg
 
The only advantages a HDD has over a SSD is capacity and longevity. There are still drives around that are over a decade old still working, while the NAND used in SSDs has a very limited lifetime when it comes to data retention. Also, HDD don't have a finite amount of write cycles like SSDs do. But for speed, even HDD in RAID0 will feel slower and less responsive compared to even a mediocre SSD.

As for a fast 2TB drive, look at the Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB. It should be made of 4 500GB platters, and that kind of density with the dual controller chip design will mean good performance.
 
For a ex, have about the same WS at home (SSD) and at work(normal HDD), i always have about 70-90 tabs in firefox and at home it take about 15-25sek to start it and everything is loaded, at work it takes about 5-6min.

And one thing i <3 about SSD is that you can start a full virusscan+windows defender and some other stuff and still use the computer normaly and don't feel anything about the scans, do that with a normal HDD at the computer is totaly useless until everyting is done.
 
Use SSDs for your system disk (Windows + Applications + Games)

Use HDDs for your mass-storage data (movies, pictures, archives) - best to use slow spinning drives like 5400rpm because they are just as good at sequential transfers than their faster spinning brothers.

In fact, i think most high rpm HDDs will disappear, and HDDs focussing on storing large amounts of data at cheap price, while SSDs focus on speed for the system disk function. Because that's where REAL speed is needed; random IOps is about 100 times that of HDDs; so its clearly superior here.

This all counts for a good SSD with good controller, like the Intel ones. Not any crappy JMicron/Samsung powered SSD.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
The only advantages a HDD has over a SSD is capacity and longevity. There are still drives around that are over a decade old still working, while the NAND used in SSDs has a very limited lifetime when it comes to data retention. Also, HDD don't have a finite amount of write cycles like SSDs do. But for speed, even HDD in RAID0 will feel slower and less responsive compared to even a mediocre SSD.

As for a fast 2TB drive, look at the Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB. It should be made of 4 500GB platters, and that kind of density with the dual controller chip design will mean good performance.
Click to expand...

The lifespan of SSDs is still up in the air since no one really knows at this point. Also, it depends on what kind of flash you're using (MLC vs. SLC vs. whatever's coming out next).
 
MLC. SLC is dead.
Even the new Intel X25-E will use MLC memory. MLC has all the potential for fast I/O just it needs a good intelligent controller and lots of parallel channels.

The X25-E will have more invisible/hidden capacity than the X25-M, but otherwise they will both be using MLC NAND in Q4 when the new SATA 6Gbps controller generation presents itself.
 
sub.mesa said:
MLC. SLC is dead.
Even the new Intel X25-E will use MLC memory. MLC has all the potential for fast I/O just it needs a good intelligent controller and lots of parallel channels.

The X25-E will have more invisible/hidden capacity than the X25-M, but otherwise they will both be using MLC NAND in Q4 when the new SATA 6Gbps controller generation presents itself.
Click to expand...

SLC is the memory that lasts much much longer...
 
Yes, but its quickly becoming less useful. In situations with excessive random writes; the SLC provides lifetime benefits the MLC can't match. But SLC is expensive, and not necessary for most users, even those who write heavy.

The difference with next generation X25-E and X25-M will consist of the fact that the E reserves more space than the M version, for more performance and plenty of free cells to map to. Much like server-oriented HDDs have limited capacity but focus on performance instead.

In 2011, 1TB SSDs would also see the light with acceptable consumer-range pricing. These would have lots of NAND flash cells, and therefore their write iteration endurance will also be higher. Besides the SSDs sold now are for system disks that generally are not write heavy but read heavy instead.
 
Only Sandforce's marketing dept. is claiming that their controller allows MLC to be used in enterprise applications. SLC is far from dead. And the death of HDD is greatly exaggerated. Meet me back here in 4-5 years.
 
ar09 said:
are ssds really faster than hdds, in everyway possible? yes or no?

and, what about doing 10 different things at the same time?

and now, what is the faster 2tb hdd on the market?
Click to expand...

Faster in every way, yes. Better in every way, no. The most major difference between HDD and SSD is that flash was never intended for critical applications but has been adopted to them. Flash is still a very immature tech compared to HDD. If you use your computer to perform "10 different things at the same time" though then you are probably a perfect candidate for SSD.
 
sub.mesa said:
Use SSDs for your system disk (Windows + Applications + Games)

Use HDDs for your mass-storage data (movies, pictures, archives) - best to use slow spinning drives like 5400rpm because they are just as good at sequential transfers than their faster spinning brothers.
Click to expand...

This isn't true. Sequential transfer speed is based on 2 things mainly at the physical level, platter density and rotational speed. An increase in density will make more data pass under the head in a given period of time, an increase in rotational speed will also cause more data to pass under the head in a given time. The fastest hard drives on the market right now are 15,000 rpm units, both in access time and transfer speed. The 500GB platter 7200rpm drives come pretty close for peak transfer though. But the 5400 rpms drives are significantly slower, about 25%.

Dustin
 
I just went from a 36gb Raptor to a 40gb Intel SSD. I was amazed at the difference. Windows boots faster, the few programs I have installed on the SSD drive load quicker, and my god is my computer way quieter. I really didn't expect to be this pleased with the drive, but it is probably the biggest difference making upgrade I've done to a computer in a long time.
 
Depends on what you're upgrading from... I upgraded from 4x 80GB Velociraptors in a stripe on a 3ware 9650SE card and wasn't exactly 'blown away'.
 
Right now most people still need both. And it will remain that way for a while as costs will prohibit everyone from going to an (large enough) SSD alone.

Look around most people have an 80Gb or 160Gb X25-M then a 1Tb drive or 2 for storage.

I'm liking the new RAID controller card that uses an Intel X25-M 80Gb as a harddrive cache. ie: gives you the best of both worlds.
 
Went from a 640GB WD Caviar Black and didn't notice an amazing difference. Everything is noticeably quicker however, the system makes no noise and is much lighter now (which is important since I throw my system around everywhere).

I find a 750GB 5400RPM external HDD sufficient for storage of media and music files (my system also does double-duty as an HTPC, besides being a main system and improvised football).
 
There's needs to be a faq regarding what kind of upgrades people should be expecting. SSDs are significantly faster than conventional mechanical drives, but differences we're talking about here are still usually on the scale of seconds. Something that loads in 10 seconds now loads in 5. That's a 50% improvement but still only 5 seconds. Those are not "blown away" numbers.

But put this in a work environment where you have many applications going (and in my case, source control updates, compile times, etc.) and those seconds really add up.
 
Or anytime you have something thrashing the disk SSDs remain useable while platters chug.
 
dustNbone said:
This isn't true. Sequential transfer speed is based on 2 things mainly at the physical level, platter density and rotational speed. An increase in density will make more data pass under the head in a given period of time, an increase in rotational speed will also cause more data to pass under the head in a given time. The fastest hard drives on the market right now are 15,000 rpm units, both in access time and transfer speed. The 500GB platter 7200rpm drives come pretty close for peak transfer though. But the 5400 rpms drives are significantly slower, about 25%.

Dustin
Click to expand...
You are correct, though my point is that 5400rpm disks easily get 100MB/s throughput speeds due to their data density being very high. Their access times suffer though, so 5400rpm won't be good system disks.

But for mass-data storage, 5400rpm is the way to go. You'll have half the heat, half the energy consumption, less vibrations/noise and don't need to cool your drives. For the sequential I/O tasks these drives will only be a tad slower than 7200rpm, never noticeable to any human degree (requires 30-40% performance increase at least). And this only counts for copy tasks as streaming large movies etc. is no problem for any HDD.

The 10.000rpm disks targeted lower capacity but higher performance, especially for the system disk. But these disks are quickly becoming obsolete as they can never match the inherent performance advantages of solid state storage - electronics is inherently faster than mechanics, and also allows for parallel operation while HDDs stay largely serial.
 
ar09 said:
are ssds really faster than hdds, in everyway possible? yes or no?

and, what about doing 10 different things at the same time?

and now, what is the faster 2tb hdd on the market?
Click to expand...

I'm not tellin'! :p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p
 
Yes, and No to your question...

I would wait until Generation 3's come out before considering a SSD. Still far too many hoops one has to jump through to get things optimized and the nvidia chipset are not supported and one has to have access to an Intel chipset to get the Sanitize Erase program, not to mention access to a 32 bit OS (Vista or Windows 7 ) as well (Read OCZ forum).

At least one soon to be released SSD (From OCZ in March-The OCZ Sandforce-based SSD) will have a Tool Program so we can do some of the clean up in windows.

Review of the Sandforce SSD from OCZ with the ToolBox Program linked below

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1208/1/
 
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