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All that jazz about SDD Cards has me intrigued

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  • 19-12-2011 2:13pm
    #1
    Stev_o
    Registered Users Posts: 9,249 ✭✭✭


    So yeah all im hearing is that SDD cards are the way to go if you want to get some great performance boosts for your OS or certain applications. My question is what is the actual story about buying one and installing it? Does it basically come as a adapter that connects via your motherboard or is it a USB connection?

    Any information would be great!

    Cheers.


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    #2
    Fluffy88
    Registered Users Posts: 1,414 ✭✭✭Fluffy88


    It's a new type of hard drive and it replaces your old hard drive.
    So it connects to your motherboard using the same connection a HDD does, SATA.

    It would be recommended to install an SSD along side a HDD, like you said using the SSD for the OS and some applications and then all your data and other big less used applications go on the HDD since SSD's are very small currently.
    To use it you would have install the SSD into your PC then reinstall windows on the SSD.

    Sorry I'm so bad at explaining things:o


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    #3
    ShadowHearth
    Registered Users Posts: 22,929 ✭✭✭✭ShadowHearth


    1 word - YES!

    SSD is the best greatest thing that happened to PCs in these few years.

    You will have to make your SSD main drive with OS. The increase in speed from SSD is just mind bogling.

    My old pc feels like old man loading up now after i got new system with SSD.


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    #4
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    if you used an SSD for your OS and general programs, and had a normal SATA for your games and movies. Would it still be noticeably faster for general use ?


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    #5
    Serephucus
    Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    Hell yes. :)


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    #6
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    And when it comes to games, is it just the load times that are increased or does it effect in-game performance


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    #7
    Serephucus
    Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    Nah, just load times. You might see a slight boost, but nothing worth mentioning.


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    #8
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    It makes such a difference! Where it excels is reads that are scattered all over the drive. Mechanical drives suck at this because the read head has to travel between each read adding quite a bit of time to the OS boot or similar overall. SSDs aren't slowed at all by such reads because of the way they work. OS boots are one of the things that are like this and you see substantial gains in boot times for Windows or whatever with a SSD drive.

    Games, not so much because level loads tend to be from a few big files rather than loads and loads of little files. You will see an increase but it's nowhere near as dramatic as with an OS boot.


    Where SSDs are bad is where you're doing loads of writes to the disc because the SSD will fail faster under such conditions. This only really applies to enterprise stuff and running databases though and similar kinds of activities. Most of the time with a home PC you'll be doing mostly reading not writing to the disc and reading does not decrease the time to fail for SSDs.


    But when you come down to it, SSDs are a luxury not a necessity. I love having one in my PC though and they're a great way to add a bit of zip to an aging machine (with SATA II ports at least!!) like adding more memory is. I got completely converted to them after seeing how fast my wife's Macbook Air booted and launched apps.


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