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Noob questions about SSD

M

magoo

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I'm about to build a new system.....most likely a z87 Maximus board of some sort.
I have used caching SSDs but never an SSD for the entire system.

So.......

What should I buy, brand-wise? (I am a Corsair fan)
What is the preferred size? This will be a gaming computer, no large files like videos or music. Not a principle work machine.
Should I also have a storage mechanical HDD?

Do I partition the SSD to hold the OS and them use the rest for storage?

How do you guys do stuff like this for gaming use?

Thanks for the advice, in advance. :D
 
What should I buy, brand-wise? (I am a Corsair fan)
Click to expand...

Samsung, Crucial or Intel.

There are other brands to consider however absolutely avoid the train wreck that is OCZ.
 
Got nothing but love for my Samsung 128GB 830 and Crucial M4 128GB. I've also got some Sandisk and Adata SSDs which appear to work well.

Whatever you do, do not buy the Samsung 840 non-Pro.

The 840 Pro is on the other hand one of the best SSDs on the market, if not the best.
 
Ditt on Samsung and Intel. Have worked really well. I didn't bother to partition the SSD, you can just keep everything on it as is.

Gaming use is great ... regular use is even better. Putting SSDs in my laptops made 6 year old laptops still a pleasure to use.
 
magoo said:
Should I also have a storage mechanical HDD? Do I partition the SSD to hold the OS and them use the rest for storage? How do you guys do stuff like this for gaming use?
Click to expand...

I have my OS and all the games I'm playing on my SSD. You should have an internal HDD as well, for backing up images of your SSD and storing non-critical but large media such as movie files (playing movies gets no benefit at all from SSDs). Make the internal HDD large, and you can have many backup images of the SSD. Note: because of the way the market works, the cheapest large internal drives are usually found in external drives; just pop open the external drive case and pull the internal drive out.
 
atp1916 said:
Got nothing but love for my Samsung 128GB 830 and Crucial M4 128GB. I've also got some Sandisk and Adata SSDs which appear to work well.

Whatever you do, do not buy the Samsung 840 non-Pro.

The 840 Pro is on the other hand one of the best SSDs on the market, if not the best.
Click to expand...

Depending on the Prices, he can also try the 840EVO.. its TLC as regular 840. but as fast as the MLC in 840PRO, also have higher Space and are cheaper than PRO.

shekkery said:
Ditt on Samsung and Intel. Have worked really well. I didn't bother to partition the SSD, you can just keep everything on it as is.

Gaming use is great ... regular use is even better. Putting SSDs in my laptops made 6 year old laptops still a pleasure to use.
Click to expand...

+1 intel 520Series.


about the OP.

You can use as me, I have 250GB for OS and couple of heavy games that take long time to load, or that have benefits with SSD(as example Diablo 3 with the crappy stuttering thing or battlefield 3 and the higher load times, sims 3, etc). the rest, pics, movies, other games, all directly to the Regular HDD.
 
How much hd space do you currently use?
If you have a lot of games you may need a mechanical drive too.
I have a Samsung 840 pro and love it, but now the Evo might be a better deal.
 
Depends on what your budget is and how large a drive you are looking to get. If the system is going to be used primarily for games, then there is no real reason you can't go with a regular Samsung 840. The only drawback I am aware of is lifetime and as a gaming computer you should still get 10+ years out of it. That being said, the 840 EVO is better. Personally I have an 840 Pro and that works well.

As for implementation, I would not partition the drive, there really is no need to. Partitioning was done in the past to keep your system files in the faster portion of the mechanical disk as well as to make it easier when upgrading or recovering the system so you didn't have to format or affect the data partition (also Page File, but these days that is hardly a concern anymore). What I do now is I have everything on a 512GB SSD and I use an external 2 TB drive to store any information or data that I may want to use.

As for all the hate for OCZ, just to give a practical experience, I have had 6 OCZ SSDs and only had an issue with the very first one which their SSD engineer repaired himself at no charge to me and it worked even better than their stock releases and has been steady as a champ ever since. All the other drives have worked flawlessly. I even have a 60GB from the infamous Vertex 2 line that I won in a raffle and it is still working like a champ as well. Although generally one should stay away from their entire Agility/Vertex 2 line.

I also own a Crucial M4 which has been rock solid and performs like a champ. I had it paired up with an OCZ Agility 3 and they actually worked very well together in a RAID 0. I originally had them all RAIDed with the 60GB Vertex 2 and it worked well. I did end up taken out the Vertex 2 as it was slower than the other 2 drives and I had a use for it elsewhere.

The Intel SSDs have been pretty good, used a few of those at work. Although I did find they seemed to lag behind the Crucial and the Agility which both lagged behind the Samsung 840 Pro.

I do not have any real experience with the Corsair SSDs although I am a big fan of most of Corsair's other products (RAM, Case, Power Supply, Headphones are all great).

When looking at SSDs, I generally refer to Anandtech's reviews and StorageReview for information on them.
 
Thanks everybody.:D

I am going to do a little research at present.

Cost isn't really a problem. I'm looking at reliability and capacity.
The newer 480GB drives look pretty good.

Any more advice is welcome. Again, thank you.
 
if you will stick in that amount of space, then go with Samsung 840 PRO.. they are actually the best you can find in the market..
 
Put your OS and important progs on the SSD, your games and steam on a spinner...unless you're buying an ungodly expensive 1tb ssd.


Samsung, Intel, crucial, and Kingston all make nice drives. I'm skeptical about Corsairs offerings, as I just had a caching ssd from them crap out in just over a year.
 
Skripka said:
Put your OS and important progs on the SSD, your games and steam on a spinner...unless you're buying an ungodly expensive 1tb ssd.
Click to expand...

As noted above, some games benefit much more from an SSD than others. From the OP's description, I think they'll be able to have all their games on a 480GB drive.
 
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