Should I get an SSD?

VenomIreland

So, I'm planning a large upgrade for around mid-may, here's what I have selected right now:



But I'm wondering, I put an SSD in my friend's PC. Since I'm re-installing Windows when I build this, should I get an SSD? I really liked the speed increase when setting up my friend's PC but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

(don't question the extra GPU + 3D monitor, it's something I definitely want)

EDIT: If photo doesn't load:
ASUS 23" VG236H
GIGABYTE GTX 460 OC (matches the one I have in my PC right now)
MSI P67A-GD-65 (B3)
Thermalright Silver Arrow
i5 2500k

Tea_Bag

cant see your basket mate.

im probably the only person to ever say this, but i have an intel X-25m 80gb SSD, and its not really worth the price you pay (yet anyway)

its great that the PC boots fast, but in all honesty, you do that once or twice a day, and you could live with the extra 30sec boot time.
Programs like browsers and lighter stuff (the stuff you'll use most often probably) dont have a noticeable start time decrease. you're looking at Opera browser opeing in 3sec on a HDD to 1sec on an SSD. 2sec is nothing.

i cant speak for games other than mafia 2 which does seem to load faster.
Gimp was definitely not that much faster to start. disappointingly slow tbh.

i got a great bargain on my SSD. if i had to pay retail price or near retail now, id have a serious think about it. that money could go towards a better GPU/CPU or even a great sound system.
(im ordering this today: http://www4.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=27731&agid=581 )


that said, 80gb is the absolute minimum id ever get. ive been using mine carelessly to be fair, and my library folders are still on my SSD cause i cant be arsed to move them to the HDD, and ive still got 20gb free, which is great. on a 64gb drive though id be full.

i cant speak for the whole "windows never slowing down like it does on a HDD" registry error/fragmentation thing because ive not had the SSD for long enough, but that usually doesnt affect me much anyway cause i usually reinstall W7 from time to time (for different reasons)

VenomIreland

Fair points, I'll put the saved money towards something else I guess, possibly the headphones and amp I've been looking at for a good while.

sink

I'm currently playing through Dragon Age II, and load times between areas are less than 5 seconds with my Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB. When I played Dragon Age Origins on my old HDD it was more like 20-30 seconds, which got very frustrating when you wanted to transition between areas several times in a few minutes. For those sort of games an SSD is really worth it, but for FPS it's debatable.

VenomIreland

sink wrote: »

I'm currently playing through Dragon Age II, and load times between areas are less than 5 seconds with my Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB. When I played Dragon Age Origins on my old HDD it was more like 20-30 seconds, which got very frustrating when you wanted to transition between areas several times in a few minutes. For those sort of games an SSD is really worth it, but for FPS it's debatable.

I wasn't planning on putting my games on it anyway (300GB of games on STEAM alone and growing).

sink

VenomIreland wrote: »

I wasn't planning on putting my games on it anyway (300GB of games on STEAM alone and growing).

You see I only have games which i'm currently playing installed, once I finish them or stop playing them I uninstall them but keep the save games.

ATM I have Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2, Portal 2, Bulletstorm, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Shogun 2: Total war and Starcraft 2 installed. Coupled with office 2010 and photoshop CS5 and assorted other programs my drive is virtually full.

When I go to install my next game I will have to delete an old one, but it worth it to not have to deal with loading screens.

VenomIreland

sink wrote: »

You see I only have games which i'm currently playing installed, once I finish them or stop playing them I uninstall them but keep the save games.

ATM I have Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2, Portal 2, Bulletstorm, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Shogun 2: Total war and Starcraft 2 installed. Coupled with office 2010 and photoshop CS5 and assorted other programs my drive is virtually full.

When I go to install my next game I will have to delete an old one, but it worth it to not have to deal with loading screens.

I like having them all downloaded and installed because I'm prone to randomly playing any one of the games I have

I think I'll stick with just my HDD (and buy a second one for recording).

I will still be re-installing though, I've got 200GB or so of crap that I don't need and when re-installed I'll be keeping track of everything I download and install.

ykt0di9url7bc3

http://www.dabs.ie/products/crucial-128gb-realssd-c300-sata-600-2-5--solid-state-drive-74VX.html?q=c300

I bought this SSD from Dabs when it was about €300 when I was rebuilding my PC last year. I got the right motherboard and I am getting the the full speed out of the Sata 6Gb/s ports. It holds my OS and I have a steam folder on there thats about 65Gb and other games. I have it with old 250GB Sata drive on which I keep my personal data

If you consider that nearly all applications you use on the PC will load quicker with a SSD Drive then you should consider how much of this time is of value to you. Most basic applications are three times quicker to load but when it comes to games it really starts to shave off minutes per hour. Playing Portal 2 has been amazing as a game but when I played it on a friends PC I found myself getting impatient while I was waiting for each level.

Thats the luxury of the SSD for me, I am spoilt to the point that if it died outside of warranty I would immediately replace it. There are other items that I have purchased for PC gaming over the years that were pricey but worth it. The logitech mx500, the steel series mat, the 120Hz LCD, sennheiser headphones.

Its not practical imho its luxury

VenomIreland

I'm still not entirely sure, I might get a 120GB Vertex 3 and only install the games I'm playing right now, while keeping backups on the HDD. I might go with it but it depends on how much money I have at the end of May.

EDIT: Or a 160GB Vertex 2, but probably the Vertex 3.

EDIT2: Yeah after checking benchmarks, the 160GB Vertex 2.

VenomIreland

After more benchmarks, probably the 128GB Crucial M4, seems to be faster than the Vertex 3. Spoiled for choice with these SSD's.

Tea_Bag

just adding to that portal 2 comment. I'm playing it at the moment and the load times are very very short. never timed it but a guess is 15 seconds at the most. maybe im not giving my SSD enough credit. I've never played it on a HDD so I didn't know it takes "minutes" doing it that way.

VenomIreland

Tea_Bag wrote: »

just adding to that portal 2 comment. I'm playing it at the moment and the load times are very very short. never timed it but a guess is 15 seconds at the most. maybe im not giving my SSD enough credit. I've never played it on a HDD so I didn't know it takes "minutes" doing it that way.

Doesn't take minutes for me, takes a few seconds between each chamber.

VenomIreland

Currently uninstalling most junk from my PC to see how small I can get it, if I can get it under 100GB I'll probably get the SSD.

marco_polo

VenomIreland wrote: »

Currently uninstalling most junk from my PC to see how small I can get it, if I can get it under 100GB I'll probably get the SSD.

Straight after a fresh windows 7 home install with nothing else installed you are looking at about the 14 GB used or thereabouts as I recall. So its whatever you are having yourself after that.

VenomIreland

marco_polo wrote: »

Straight after a fresh windows 7 home install with nothing else installed you are looking at about the 14 GB used or thereabouts as I recall. So its whatever you are having yourself after that.

I'm backing up my games anyway in early preparation

Monotype

Since you have a load of games, why not consider two (or more) hard drives in RAID 0?

You get the space which is good for games, you get good speed (close to double) and it's cheaper than SSDs. The drawbacks are double the risk of failure and poorer access times (though not really much worse than one HDD).

VenomIreland

Monotype wrote: »

Since you have a load of games, why not consider two (or more) hard drives in RAID 0?

You get the space which is good for games, you get good speed (close to double) and it's cheaper than SSDs. The drawbacks are double the risk of failure and poorer access times (though not really much worse than one HDD).

Hmm, I understand why someone would do that, but I just feel that's a disaster if one of the drives fails.

VenomIreland

ooh, just read about RAID 10, very interested now, might get 3 more drives and set it up.

EDIT: Or I'll just get 4 new ones and give this old(ish) one to my brother for his PC when he builds it

Any tutorials for setting up RAID 10 so I can learn in advance?

VenomIreland

Oh god, RAID controllers are very expensive.

Monotype

VenomIreland wrote: »

Hmm, I understand why someone would do that, but I just feel that's a disaster if one of the drives fails.

That's why you back up.

VenomIreland wrote: »

ooh, just read about RAID 10, very interested now, might get 3 more drives and set it up.

EDIT: Or I'll just get 4 new ones and give this old(ish) one to my brother for his PC when he builds it

Any tutorials for setting up RAID 10 so I can learn in advance?

You don't need a tutorial. If your board supports it, you just set it in BIOS under your hard drives then press another key when booting to go into the RAID menu. Create a new RAID, select the drives, type (and sometimes the option of stripe size) and you're done. Widows 7 probably has everything it needs to install.

RAID 10 is great for speed and if a drive fails but it doesn't make your computer invulnerable. It won't save you files if your whole computer blows up or if you accidentally delete a file.

VenomIreland wrote: »

Oh god, RAID controllers are very expensive.

Remind me what your motherboard is.

VenomIreland

Monotype wrote: »

That's why you back up.



You don't need a tutorial. If your board supports it, you just set it in BIOS under your hard drives then press another key when booting to go into the RAID menu. Create a new RAID, select the drives, type (and sometimes the option of stripe size) and you're done. Widows 7 probably has everything it needs to install.

RAID 10 is great for speed and if a drive fails but it doesn't make your computer invulnerable. It won't save you files if your whole computer blows up or if you accidentally delete a file.

I really want to go with RAID 10 now

A controller seems nice but, I don't know if a certain one is decent. From a video I watched they seem to have better performance than just an onboard controller.

Monotype

You do get a bit better performance but it was really a bigger issue before with processor power being stolen. With multicore processors, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. IMO for RAIDs with 4 or less hard drives it's not necessary.

VenomIreland

That's Exactly how much I planned to use

4 Spinpoint F3's in RAID1+0 is the plan. Ditched the 3D Monitor + Glasses though (going to wait a year or two until prices for the monitor drop.

Monotype

Another (cheaper) option would be RAID-0 two 1TB F3s and have something like a 2TB green drive for backup. But you would have to go to the trouble of backups.

VenomIreland

Hmm, I could go with that, but as you said that would require me manually backing up data, instead of just having to rebuild an array if a drive implodes.

EDIT: It'd only be like £10 cheaper so I'll stick with the RAID1+0.

Unregistered.

VenomIreland wrote: »

Hmm, I could go with that, but as you said that would require me manually backing up data, instead of just having to rebuild an array if a drive implodes.

EDIT: It'd only be like £10 cheaper so I'll stick with the RAID1+0.

Don't forget you'll have to listen to four drives spining as opposed to one.

VenomIreland

Unregistered. wrote: »

Don't forget you'll have to listen to four drives spining as opposed to one.

This one on it's own doesn't bother me at all, so I'm sure I'd be fine with the sound of 4.