What does an SSD improve?

[ishyishy]

Hello,

 

I just "upgraded" from a 2x 10,000rpm 300GB raid 0 hard drive set up to a single 240GB kington hyperx SSD. Other than OS load time, I am not noticing any difference in performance.

 

I have done some minor research on hard drives, and I find benchmarks, technical specs, and general definitions. I want to know what an SSD is meant to improve over a "traditional" disk platter hard drive (or like the ones I used to use in raid 0). Can someone give me some examples of things that should be noticibly faster or points where there should be obvious performance boost? I can look at numbers all day and never know what they mean, so I need some practical examples to help me better understand how to compare hard drives. I have been told and lead to believe that an SSD ( especially the one I bought) will offer higher performance and speed over any kind of typical HD, and I am not a believer yet.

 

Thanks a lot.

[ccokeman]

As you have noted OS load time is the primary thing that most people see. Application load time, file access times, lower power consumption and the "feel" of the system.

[ishyishy]

As you have noted OS load time is the primary thing that most people see. Application load time, file access times, lower power consumption and the "feel" of the system.

 

Ok I will have to test these things then. As I said before my system doesnt "feel" any faster. Maybe I am looking at the wrong things?

 

For example: I downloaded windows updates. After they were completed downloading, they started installation. This process still took a ridiculously long time. When something says "fast read/write" time, I expect things that are already on my hard drive to be installed faster. Is this the wrong way to think about this?

[Fogel]

I don't see any diff in installing programs.

 

Where I see the difference:

 

- O/S load time - my raid 0 rig takes 1.5min to boot - my ssd system takes 32s (from pushing the button to windows fully loaded)

- Programs launch faster

- Files copy faster (this is probably the biggest notable improvement - if i copy to a USB3.0 external it is damn near instant)

- Files launch quicker (not a big difference but i see it)

- Some games see improvement ...but only those that use the HDD, like BF3

[ccokeman]

Ok I will have to test these things then. As I said before my system doesnt "feel" any faster. Maybe I am looking at the wrong things?

 

For example: I downloaded windows updates. After they were completed downloading, they started installation. This process still took a ridiculously long time. When something says "fast read/write" time, I expect things that are already on my hard drive to be installed faster. Is this the wrong way to think about this?

 

I don't care what you are running the OS updates take forever. SSD or not!

[Waco]

I saw a noticeable increase in performance for everything that touches the HDD.

[phil69]

SSD is quieter.

[Speedway]

Yea, an SSD is not really going to speed up an installation. CPU speed however may impact this

 

Like it has been said though, of course boot times! But IMHO the single biggest benefit I find with an SSD is program load times! From the moment I click Steam, until I am wating for a 4v4 L4D2 Vs lobby to fill is seconds! 15 seconds to be exact to load into game, from the time I load steam and then L4D2

[Waco]

Yea, an SSD is not really going to speed up an installation.

I saw pretty dramatic decreases in install times when installing from a disc image. Installing from discs probably won't be faster though...

[VaporX]

People make the mistakes of thinking the read and write speeds are what matters in the day to day use. These come into play with large file access but 99% of regular computer use is small file access where these speeds mean nothing. For you the speed bump will still be there but will be less noticeable than to people with 7200 RPM drives. In day to day computing experience access time is king and SSDs rule the kingdom. Though a good 10K HD will give some great performance.

[Waco]

People make the mistakes of thinking the read and write speeds are what matters in the day to day use. These come into play with large file access but 99% of regular computer use is small file access where these speeds mean nothing.

Read and write speeds at small block sizes are extremely relevant.

[Fight Game]

Ed is right, as a matter of fact it is greater than 99%, more like 99.9% haha. Not many people are loading up hundreds of MB (or GB!) of data at a time, combined with the fact that ram is soo cheap and most systems now have more than they need. Once information is loaded into ram, there will be no difference at all.

 

Also as already stated, having a low access time tends to be far more important. As always, it depends on what exactly you are doing on your computer, but for the vast majority of people, it will be. But, I will point out that when you raid-0 traditional hard drives (spinning disk), your access time goes up. Unless you are transfering or loading very very large files, and often, the things you can gain from raid-0 (sequential read rates mainly) are often negated from the increased access times and other frustrations that come having a raid; for example, the extra time needed at each boot to load the raid, increased chance to lose all your data, and sometimes you may need to do something outside your operating system but the program you are using isn't supported or can recognize your raid.