OCZ Vertex yes or no?

T

tonyluu

Gawd
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I'm upgrading from a 5400RPM SATA HDD

For what I do the drive is fine & doesn't really bother me but I would love to be able to boot super fast & load games in amazing speeds (compared to this thing)

I am using XP 32-bit

The firmware update (to make the Vertex ~ X25-M) is already released & now in form 1275 correct?

Majority of the time I am browsing the web/foruming/IM/youtube - will this be bad for the SSD due to those small little writes?

Could that be fixed by disabling the browswer cache & cookies?

I only play Soldier Front and sometimes (L4D hardly) for games
For those of you who don't know what SF is, regardless how fast your computer is you still have to wait for everyone else to load so in the end it seems like the SSD solution is going to be put to waste here

When I do play L4D I go windowed so the onboard solution is no problem

AMD 780G
4GB DDR2 1066
7750 BE
onboard GFX

What do you guys think? Can MFT benefit me even though most of my usage is going to be pure reads? If so, how & in what areas?

I do not have the budget to buy more than 1 SSD & the SSD I do intend to get if any is the Vertex 30GB (enough space for me)
 
Since it sounds like you are on a budget, I would suggest getting 1 or 2 of the 640 gig WD drives. They are really good drives, and will be a huge step up from your existing drive. I have been playing with SSDs for a couple of months, and they are still seeing rapid improvements.

Hmmm, Newegg is not even stocking the 30 gig Vertex drive yet.

SSDs are still a niche market. But of course if you like playing out on the bleeding edge......

Don
 
Yep, SSD are fast but there only getting better. Prices will drop even more but I don't think the prices are worth there Smal Size
 
Newegg is stocking the 30GB.. you won't find performance equal to an Intel X-25M in this drive.. you'll find excellent performance, for sure.. but it doesn't beat or equal the Intel in all of the key areas.

If budget is a concern and you need storage space, I would second the recommendation for a pair of nice, fast normal hard drives.

As for worrying about web browsers writing a bunch of small files.. you can actually configure firefox to keep the browser cache in memory instead of on the drive.

If you want speed, you think 30GB is enough for your OS and any programs you want to load on there then by all means go with a Vertex.. they are very fast drives and they won't break the bank in small sizes.

However, I thought 30GB would be enough... but it turns out that it is not enough. For optimal performance, OCZ recommends leaving 1/3 of the drive free.. so that knocks you down to 20GB available, 18 usable. I've got my vertex about half filled and there is more stuff I want to put on it because it is so fast.

I'm going to have to get myself a second Vertex so I can have a larger OS/applications drive.
 
Before you get a 30GB model I would ask yourself what you'll do when you outgrow it, and make sure you have a plan. We're all early adopters here and we definitely WILL outgrow this stuff... especially in the SSD market where leaps are taking place every quarter. The problem is that 12 months from now, it'll be a lot harder for me to repurpose or give away to a family member a 30GB SSD than it would, for example, the 500GB drive you have now. My thought so far is that twelve months from now these would make nifty external shuttle drives or maybe a good base drive for a child's netbook-type device, but that's about it. Therefore I think I will wait for lower prices on 60GB or 120GB models since I think those are going to have a useful shelf life (e.g. how long you'd -want- to use it, somewhere, anywhere) that will be several years longer.
 
Andrmgic said:
However, I thought 30GB would be enough... but it turns out that it is not enough. For optimal performance, OCZ recommends leaving 1/3 of the drive free.. so that knocks you down to 20GB available, 18 usable. I've got my vertex about half filled and there is more stuff I want to put on it because it is so fast.
Click to expand...

I have only 8GB of stuff used on my current drive & that has everything I need (except L4D downloaded)

I am certain that I will not even use 50% of the space at most

Caching the web browser in the RAM instead of the drive with my 4GB would be perfect (hardly use half of it anyways)
 
To limit writes to the drive (since windows by default writes to the drive constantly at a very torrid pace) you want to move the temp folder, web browser cache on a seperate drive, its recommended for the page file as well although this seems a real waste. Disabling write caching and indexing, a couple other things I believe...there's a fairly substantial list of tweaks that are recommended to increase the lifespan of a SSD.
 
I'm not going to spend the money for an SSD until the "trim" command comes into use.
 
I say NO. I want one for my self, but I don't think its a time yet. OCZ Summit will hit in April.
 
All you guys that are "waiting" are missing out.

I'll take the performance, today. $220 worth, just two 30GB disks, will wipe the floor with a couple of Raptors - or even SAS disks - for most individuals' usage profile.

OP: Go for it. The Vertex is the first "cheap" SSD that really performs properly. You don't even *have* to move all the temp folders and stuff off unless you want to. You can easily just align, install, and disable defrag/prefetch/superfetch, and you are done.
 
hmz said:
I say NO. I want one for my self, but I don't think its a time yet. OCZ Summit will hit in April.
Click to expand...

Have fun with the Summit - the engineering samples show the Vertex ahead of it. Maybe they will do something more with the firmware?
 
I was considering two 60gb Vertexes (vertices? :p) in raid 0 for OS and apps/games, but I don't know if it's worth it to run games on SSDs. Is that okay to do because of all the reads/writes?

I would love to see my games and stuff load up in seconds.
 
Pete1burn said:
I was considering two 60gb Vertexes (vertices? :p) in raid 0 for OS and apps/games, but I don't know if it's worth it to run games on SSDs. Is that okay to do because of all the reads/writes?

I would love to see my games and stuff load up in seconds.
Click to expand...

In short: They wil rock.

The Vertex's are not plauged by "write issues" like many other MLC SSD's are.

You might consider three 30GBers, however.....
 
Only 90GB that way. If I'm going to put all my apps and all my games on there, I'm afraid I'll outgrow it way too soon.
 
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