Keep 300GB Velociraptor or buy SSD

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Burner27

Supreme [H]ardness
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I am wondering if I would see a 'real world' improvement over my 300GB Velociraptor if I purchased a 128GB SSD?

Can anyone offer me advice? I have read many review and gone to many other forums to see who has them and what they have found. I would like to know if anyone here can share their advice. Any pitfalls I should be aware of?

Keep Velociraptor or buy SSD?

Thx
 
Well I have both, and I now have put SSD in most of my systems for the OS/apps.
I still like the vraptors, and they are great for fast storage, but SSD's are awesome for the OS/apps things load pretty much instantly.

Its really cool to see my Outlook only take 3 secs to completely load.
 
So it's like night and day difference? You'll notice it in a A/B comparison test with 100% accuracy?
 
I cant predict how you are gonna feel.
But for me it was a big difference.

If your going to get an SSD then either get one of the New Intels if you can find them or an OCZ Summit.
Dont get one of the old SSD's with a Jmicron controller.
 
Ditch the VRaptor. I had a total of 9 of 'em at different times, and am down to 2. I've replaced 'em all with SSDs. There's just absolutely no comparison, and you can't go back. I loved my VRaptors when I got 'em and they're still great mechanical drives, but their day is done.
 
the differences between SSD and raptors are very subjective. some people swear by them, and some don't even notice. as for me, i also have a 120gb vertex and velociraptors. it wasn't a night and day difference, but i did (barely) notice like a split second faster in loading windows and opening applications. it was only noticeable if i tried to sit there and "feel" the difference. but if for instance you're already running raptors and someone swapped out your raptor for a SSD, you wouldn't notice anything
 
I've been looking at alot of youtube videos on comparisons of loading programs ssd vs harddrives.

Jesus christ, get ssd.
 
I'm pretty sure JC's got faster stuff than an SSD.
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WhiteFireDragon said:
the differences between SSD and raptors are very subjective. some people swear by them, and some don't even notice. as for me, i also have a 120gb vertex and velociraptors. it wasn't a night and day difference, but i did (barely) notice like a split second faster in loading windows and opening applications. it was only noticeable if i tried to sit there and "feel" the difference. but if for instance you're already running raptors and someone swapped out your raptor for a SSD, you wouldn't notice anything
Click to expand...

Yeah, but won't Superfetch do pretty much the same thing as the SSD and do it in memory? I don't notice slow loading with my Raptor 150 and it's not even a Velociraptor, especially after Vista got used to what I run.
 
i would say if you are concerned about windows start up time buy the SSD but if you are looking at overall performance keep the vraptor. access time for my vraptor is pretty fast, and with prefetch for vista my app load times are real fast also. you did not mention if you are running vista though. outlook loads in 3 seconds for me just like the person with the SSD
 
Vraptor is a nice drive.
Its just when you used ssd, then the difference will be more and more noticable as you get to use ssd.
I noticed difference between my Vraptor and ssd, it wasnt as much difference as from a slow 5400 to a fast raptor in the old days but the difference is there.

It also depends what your using your computer for, some apps and games benefit a lot from an ssd and some dont.

I have got used to the instant use with ssd and wouldnt go back to Vraptor.
 
to me you have to factor in the price too. they cost way to much right now for me to justify getting one
 
I've had a few vertex ssd's, raptors, and velociraptors and I can honestly say, the price is unjustified in my situation. I game pretty regularly, browse the interwebz, and word process.

For the premium you have to pay, I can wait an extra second for word to open. When the ss drives are similar in price to vraptors, and have the same capacity, I'll reconsider.

I guess it really comes down to what you use the machine for though. Some applications benefit more from ssd than others. In my situation, they really aren't that better.

HTH
 
sprout2287 said:
I've had a few vertex ssd's, raptors, and velociraptors and I can honestly say, the price is unjustified in my situation. I game pretty regularly, browse the interwebz, and word process.

For the premium you have to pay, I can wait an extra second for word to open. When the ss drives are similar in price to vraptors, and have the same capacity, I'll reconsider.

I guess it really comes down to what you use the machine for though. Some applications benefit more from ssd than others. In my situation, they really aren't that better.

HTH
Click to expand...

How about comparing velociraptors to regular 7200rpm? Are they much faster? I just made a purchased for a 150GB Velociraptor for $100 instead of getting two Blacks for RAID0 but I really wonder whether I made the correct decision.
 
I have had both a 74Gb ratpor and now a 300Gb velociraptor and recently pikced up a 64Gb Vertex SSD. While yes the SSD is faster depending upon what your doing it is not necessarily noticeably faster, especially when you factor in 300Gb vs 64Gb/price etc...

Here are some benchmarks from my systems showing this:
74Gb Raptor:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3604319202/in/set-72157619388716874/

300Gb Veliciraptor:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3603505713/in/set-72157619388716874/

OCZ Vertex SSD partition-aligned:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3603505761/in/set-72157619388716874/

OCZ Vertex SSD un-aligned:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3604319082/in/set-72157619388716874/
 
s1ngular said:
Get an SSD, it'll run much cooler and faster then a VRap.
Click to expand...

yeah, it will be much cooler. i will let this copy and paste from my sensors answer that :)
WDC WD1500HLFS-75G6U0 24 °C (75 °F) and that is after the computer being on since 6am this morning
 
hclarkjr said:
yeah, it will be much cooler. i will let this copy and paste from my sensors answer that :)
WDC WD1500HLFS-75G6U0 24 °C (75 °F) and that is after the computer being on since 6am this morning
Click to expand...

I'd like to see a CPUID screen shot of that along with an uptime screen shot. That's most likely your idle temps. :)
 
:) i failed to mention that i have 120mm fan on my lower chamber blowing onto both the black and vraptor

DSC04707.jpg
 
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Mainly I do video encoding/transcoding on my machine. I agree that the price is a big factor in this case. SSDs need to come down more. SSDs also need to prove to me that they are going to be reliable. While no one can predict that right now, I am sure as the technology progresses we will get there.
 
Burner27 said:
I agree that the price is a big factor in this case. SSDs need to come down more. SSDs also need to prove to me that they are going to be reliable. While no one can predict that right now, I am sure as the technology progresses we will get there.
Click to expand...

I'm of the same sentiment.

Price is my first concern. Once the price/GB of SSDs drop to Velociraptor level or below (~$0.60/GB currently) they will become more economically viable.

Reliability and recovery options are my second concern. Considering the lack of recovery options for SSDs in case of failure, unless they are able to build a solid history of long-term reliability, storing any type of irreplaceable data on one would be very risky without backups. This will continue to become more and more important as larger capacity, consumer aimed SSDs hit the market.

Once Intel gets around to developing and releasing their Gen3 or possibly Gen4 SSDs, hopefully the above concerns will be less of an issue.
 
shady86 said:
How about comparing velociraptors to regular 7200rpm? Are they much faster? I just made a purchased for a 150GB Velociraptor for $100 instead of getting two Blacks for RAID0 but I really wonder whether I made the correct decision.
Click to expand...

About to pull the trigger on two blacks myself, but am prevented from doing so by the lure of SSDs. Don't really need the space, but the speed would be nice :)
 
isn't there a price drop coming around soon.. don't pull the trigger yet.
 
I have the Intel SSD. While I only play DoD: Source at the moment, it's nice already being on a team before almost anyone else even gets into spec when maps change. You always get your pick of team. :)
 
I have a 300GB Velociraptor and, as a gamer, i see no reason at all to upgrade. The load times are very dependent on CPU it seems.

My load times decreased by a LOT when I went from my athlon 4000+ to my c2d 8600, but the raptor upgrade didnt seem to have much of an impact after that.

According to benchmarks provided by kyle, it doesnt appear the SSD will be much better. The most disappointing fact is that SSD, at this point in time, do not decrease game load times, or at least by enough to care about:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/images/articles/1222354583fRZBRCf50A_1_14.gif

I hate to say it, but so far it looks like SSD is a waste of money for gamers.
 
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I hate to say it, but so far it looks like SSD is a waste of money for gamers.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I have my demanding games on a Cheetah 15k.5, and generally the drive isn't running full out during loads, it's flickering and seems to be waiting for the CPU to decompress stuff. Not a scientific observation, but it doesn't seem like an SSD would be of much benefit in this area.

Dustin
 
dustNbone said:
I agree with this. I have my demanding games on a Cheetah 15k.5, and generally the drive isn't running full out during loads, it's flickering and seems to be waiting for the CPU to decompress stuff. Not a scientific observation, but it doesn't seem like an SSD would be of much benefit in this area.

Dustin
Click to expand...

According to your sig, you are using an AthlonX2 4200+. What happens when you're running a Core i7 at 4+ GHz? Is the processor or the hard drive the bottleneck at that point?
 
Well I upgraded to a Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD and to be honest, it wasn't 'earth shattering' in terms of performance. While it is quicker, it's not THAT much quicker than my Velociraptor was. Oh well.
 
Burner27 said:
Well I upgraded to a Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD and to be honest, it wasn't 'earth shattering' in terms of performance. While it is quicker, it's not THAT much quicker than my Velociraptor was. Oh well.
Click to expand...

Ok, good for you. NOW, go back to the VRaptor and say the same thing. :)

You will notice a BIG difference. Especially with multitasking and heavy I/O use. No comparison.
 
I don't have a velociraptor, but I just reacently upgraded from a WD 640Gb Black as my OS drive to an Intel 80Gb X25-M. One thing that I really notice a difference on is loading Adobe Photoshop CS. Before it would take about 10 seconds to load, now it takes about 3.
 
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Do these SSDs have to have air cooling? I don't know if they have temperature sensors in them either...
 
ferrisnox said:
I have had both a 74Gb ratpor and now a 300Gb velociraptor and recently pikced up a 64Gb Vertex SSD. While yes the SSD is faster depending upon what your doing it is not necessarily noticeably faster, especially when you factor in 300Gb vs 64Gb/price etc...

Here are some benchmarks from my systems showing this:
74Gb Raptor:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3604319202/in/set-72157619388716874/

300Gb Veliciraptor:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3603505713/in/set-72157619388716874/

OCZ Vertex SSD partition-aligned:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3603505761/in/set-72157619388716874/

OCZ Vertex SSD un-aligned:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferrisnox/3604319082/in/set-72157619388716874/
Click to expand...

I have a few questions on alignment.

1. Do you need to align an SSD if it wasn't cloned. IE: I was under the impression if you did a fresh install the drive would align properly already & alignment was done to fix the OS being cloned from a spindle drive.

2. Does WinXP align properly ?

3. What app/ program do you use for alignment ?
 
I wanted on the SSD train. Enough people said they are faster that I was excited to try one out. My bud has one and his XP OS loads fast. I've only compared my 300GB VR to the Vertex 2 SSD that just came in for me, but I must say my early impressions aren't exciting me as much as I hoped. The VR hdtune's at about 120mb/s read and the vertex 2 SSD on my system benchmarks at about 205mb/s...Average access is 7ms for the raptor and .1 ms for the SSD. Both using AHCI on a I7 motherboard.

Windows boots a smidge faster, but it isn't like night and day. Apps load a TINY bit faster, but again - so far I don't think the upgrade price was worth it. I'll give it a few more days and report back if my opinion changes. For the average joe - thus far I'd really just recommend a VR.
 
Archaea said:
I wanted on the SSD train. Enough people said they are faster that I was excited to try one out. My bud has one and his XP OS loads fast. I've only compared my 300GB VR to the Vertex 2 SSD that just came in for me, but I must say my early impressions aren't exciting me as much as I hoped. The VR hdtune's at about 120mb/s read and the vertex 2 SSD on my system benchmarks at about 205mb/s...Average access is 7ms for the raptor and .1 ms for the SSD. Both using AHCI on a I7 motherboard.

Windows boots a smidge faster, but it isn't like night and day. Apps load a TINY bit faster, but again - so far I don't think the upgrade price was worth it. I'll give it a few more days and report back if my opinion changes. For the average joe - thus far I'd really just recommend a VR.
Click to expand...

If you're running Windows 7, I think the benefits of an SSD are somewhat mitigated by the fact that it does such a good job of optimizing load times compared to XP thanks to Superfetch, Prefetch, etc. I would honestly expect to notice a greater difference between HDD and SSD on XP.

I haven't gotten to use an SSD with XP yet, but like others have said I wasn't blown away when I went from a 300GB Veloci to an X25-M on Win 7 Professional. It's definitely nice, but all these people were like "Once you use a PC with an SSD you can never use a traditional spinning disk again" and I don't think that's the case with me, at least with Windows 7. But the faster load times and silence are certainly nice if you don't mind dropping the coin on an SSD.
 
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