Is SSD good for the OS?

R

Ryou-kun

Limp Gawd
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Sep 13, 2011
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I heard that the OS will load incredible fast if you use it on the SSD.
I have no experience with the SSD, but I was thinking how fast is it?
What are the advantage and disadvantage minus the capacity.

I was thinking to use a small and cheap SSD ONLY for the OS.

Is there any bonus if you put a game in the SSD? Like will I gain better FPS and etc?
 
Windows 7 loads in 7 seconds for me on my Crucial M4 128GB. For what you're planning, I would recommend getting a 64GB or 128GB drive and putting windows, all your applications, and 2-3 of the games you play the most on it. Typically SSDs slow down after they are over half full, so that is something to consider. I picked up my M4 last weekend for $75 shipped.

As for any "bonus", games will load faster, but you will not get higher FPS.
 
I would now get at minimum a 128GB drive since these can be had for around $80 delivered. And yes windows will boot in only a few seconds on an SSD.
 
If you are playing a game that frequently loads or streams data off the drive then an SSD can make a significant improvement by smoothing out the gameplay. It won't impact the FPS specifically, but it'll stop the game from hitching while it loads data. I've heard the WoW, for example, makes good use of a SSD.

But in anycase, switching to a SSD is about the most noticeable upgrade you can make to a computer now.
 
Which type of SSD I should get that is cheap and allow few "hard-core games" in it?
 
Ryou-kun said:
Which type of SSD I should get that is cheap and allow few "hard-core games" in it?
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i got a Crucial M4 128GB for around 120$ (yeah, shitty price, but i didnt wait for a sale). u can get them for around 90$ shipppped if u shop around :) the SSD is probably the best purchase ive mad for my computer


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eric335 said:
i got a Crucial M4 128GB for around 120$ (yeah, shitty price, but i didnt wait for a sale). u can get them for around 90$ shipppped if u shop around :) the SSD is probably the best purchase ive mad for my computer


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I guess I can wait till "Thanksgiving, CyberMonday, Christmas or Black Friday" to get the SSD.
It'll be really cheap, and I might get a better SSD.
 
prices of SSD's are dropping, 256GB SSD's are going for as low as $160 on newegg right now.
 
x509 said:
Cost per GB? :rolleyes:
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That may be a disadvantage of a SSD in general (although you get what you pay for), but it certainly isn't a disadvantage for using the OS on the SSD. Honestly, if you aren't putting the OS on it, I don't see much purpose in getting a SSD (unless you are using it for a specific purpose, like a Photoshop scratch drive or something).
 
I first bought my SSD for use with Skyrim. The load screens take 5 seconds at most.. saves a lot of time if you need to travel around selling stuff to poor people in game. I agree with the disadvantage being cost especially when i bought mine, however thats not so much an issue anymore.
 
What about OCD or whatever it's called?
The one you purchase a card's slot where you put in your PCI-Express Slot and put your SSD and HDD in it?
To combine it to increase the capacity and speed?
 
SSDs are definitely good for the OS, that's really their best purpose at this point due to their smaller size and write limitation. (yes you can only write so much to it till it dies) The OS will not write enough on it for the limit to be an issue for at least 10 years though so I would not really worry about the limit unless you are using it on some very high I/O server or something where HDDs in raid still make more sense.
 
The write limit issue was totally overblown (and at this point pretty much debunked). No normal user will ever have to worry about it.
 
Forceman said:
The write limit issue was totally overblown (and at this point pretty much debunked). No normal user will ever have to worry about it.
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Exactly. A user has to work hard to try to wear out their drive. It's not going to happen at all via normal usage. That is not to say that a SSD will not die there have been quite a few firmware and controller problems however I have yet to single SSD on any forum that died because it was worn out under normal usage.
 
Forceman said:
The write limit issue was totally overblown (and at this point pretty much debunked). No normal user will ever have to worry about it.
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The write limit is real, and aggressive applications can approach it. You have to be careful about how you define "normal", of course. If you mean "normal desktop users", you're closer -- but I think your assertion isn't strict enough.
 
Don't get too into worrying about raw MBps speeds either. Go purely on size and price.

I've installed 500MBps SSDs in laptops that are SATA1 and SATA3 capable and even though one only runs at 115MBps and the other at nearly 3 times that, in practice they feel about the same.

Its the access times that count.
 
mikeblas said:
The write limit is real, and aggressive applications can approach it. You have to be careful about how you define "normal", of course. If you mean "normal desktop users", you're closer -- but I think your assertion isn't strict enough.
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Have you heard of a single normal user - i.e. an enthusiast like most of the people here, not people running database apps or something - hit the write limit on an SSD? I don't know what kind of aggressive applications you are talking about, but if you are doing something that would cause a problem with a SSD, you probably already know it. Those guys at xtremesystems have put thousands of terabytes onto some SSDs without them failing.
 
mikeblas said:
Nope. There's really no definition of "normal user".
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I guess it's a lot like obscenity - you can't define it, but you know it when you see it.

Are we really going to go around on the semantics of this though? Everyone knows there is a range that reasonable people consider to be "normal users".
 
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Normal user - People who dont run benchmarks, crunch video all day and use their computers to make money.
 
Forceman said:
Everyone knows there is a range that reasonable people consider to be "normal users".
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What I thought everyone knew was that there's no definition for "normal", and a claim based on a term that has no definition is meaningless.
daglesj said:
Normal user - People who dont run benchmarks, crunch video all day and use their computers to make money.
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That's not an "enthusiast", which is what Forceman thinks a "normal user" is.
 
mikeblas said:
What I thought everyone knew was that there's no definition for "normal", and a claim based on a term that has no definition is meaningless.
That's not an "enthusiast", which is what Forceman thinks a "normal user" is.
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Are you being serious here? I honestly can't tell at this point.

In case you are, I'm pretty sure Webster's has taken a stab at defining normal. I believe it is something like:

nor·mal/ˈnôrməl/Adjective: Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

Noun: The usual, average, or typical state or condition.

Synonyms: adjective. regular - standard - ordinary - common - usual
noun. normality - normalcy - perpendicular
 
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mikeblas said:
What I thought everyone knew was that there's no definition for "normal", and a claim based on a term that has no definition is meaningless.
That's not an "enthusiast", which is what Forceman thinks a "normal user" is.
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If we exclude people with incredibely obtuse thinking and took an overlapping view of what all the people on this forum thought were normal users...i'm pretty sure we would have a very solid agreement without having to have a firm definition.

Furthermore, i'm pretty sure the enthusiasts here who have SSD's know damn well that they don't need a hard definition in this case since the class of people capable of wearing out a SSD is incredibly small and if the OP was already doing work like this he already would have gouged out his eyeballs trying to do that work with platter drives.
 
Trepidati0n said:
If we exclude people with incredibely obtuse thinking and took an overlapping view of what all the people on this forum thought were normal users...i'm pretty sure we would have a very solid agreement without having to have a firm definition.
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I doubt it.
 
Honestly Ive been using a Crucial M4 ssd for over a year now mainly for gaming and have had no issues with it. I ran it in my laptop then popped it into my desktop when I built that 2 months ago. I bought a new Samsung 830 to replace my laptop hard drive because I could not stand running the 5400 rpm drive that came with this system.
Running the Os off that old hard drive was painful..
 
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