SSD drive

[SpikeSoprano]

To be perfectly honest a 40 gb sata would be a waste of money ,w7 alone with updates would take up a good part of it so the only thing you would gain would be a faster boot time. Put that $60 with another $40 and get a 120 gb on sale so at least you could load a game or 2 on it.<IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt= src="http://forums.overclockersclub.com/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif">

[towhog66]

No, what you would do is get a crucial M4 128 GB SSD and just back up your game files to your existing hard drive. You need more back up locations, not more drives

 

never heard of this name.... i look it to it... and i give on my idea, ill get one 120 or better SSD

Edited July 28, 2012 by towhog66

[towhog66]

SSDs themselves have enough IOPS that you do not need to worry about using two drives (like you would with two hard drives). Just go with a 120gb SSD at first and see how you like it. They seem to be about $1 per GB nowadays, so it's not terribly expensive like it used to be to own an SSD.

 

To answer your original question, the improvements you will see will consist of reduced Windows boot time (expect <20 seconds after a fresh install), reduced game and program loading times, and significantly faster system processes such as virus scans and file moving operations. **Tip** Never defragment an SSD.

 

THANK you for looking at my 1st post!!!! ( much respect ) I found 3 drives I'm they are looking to me but what do i know!

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%2050001504%20600038484&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=636|20-226-152^20-226-152-TS%2C20-226-236^20-226-236-TS%2C20-226-318^20-226-318-TS

[IVIYTH0S]

because i hate losing saved games that's a hassle and makes my head hurt, ( dose it not work like SATA drives? ) i use one just for my OS and one for videos and programs so on... i set up files and till widows where to find them... its just how Ive always done it! Would that work? With SATA isn't it faster...

No, what you would do is get a crucial M4 128 GB SSD and just back up your game files to your existing hard drive. You need more back up locations, not more drives

I agree, I save my game saves on the external HDD I carry in my pocket, the 2TB I have sitting at home and I also keep saves of the games I'm currently playing on the flash drive around my neck.

 

THANK you for looking at my 1st post!!!! ( much respect ) I found 3 drives I'm they are looking to me but what do i know!

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%2050001504%20600038484&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=636|20-226-152^20-226-152-TS%2C20-226-236^20-226-236-TS%2C20-226-318^20-226-318-TS

My Agility 3 240GB is amazing so I highly recommend this:

http://www.amazon.com/Agility-2-5-Inch-Midrange-Performance-AGT3-25SAT3-120G/dp/B004Z0S6SO

[Shurman292]

THANK you for looking at my 1st post!!!! ( much respect ) I found 3 drives I'm they are looking to me but what do i know!

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%2050001504%20600038484&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=636|20-226-152^20-226-152-TS%2C20-226-236^20-226-236-TS%2C20-226-318^20-226-318-TS

You're welcome The drives you chose are good, especially the first one (Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB). It has a higher IOPS than the others (90k), which will benefit you more than pure throughput at those speeds. You may also want to consider the OCZ Vertex 4 which has very similar specs. Just make sure you have SATA III (6.0gbps) support on your motherboard before you pull the trigger on one of these.

[towhog66]

You're welcome The drives you chose are good, especially the first one (Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB). It has a higher IOPS than the others (90k), which will benefit you more than pure throughput at those speeds. You may also want to consider the OCZ Vertex 4 which has very similar specs. Just make sure you have SATA III (6.0gbps) support on your motherboard before you pull the trigger on one of these.

 

 

i like that OCZ.... looks fast, im still looking just got done putting in my new V-card ( it fits great )

 

going to be looking at my Windows Experience Index scores Graphics was a 7.0 V-G 7.0 to.... hell yeah 7.6 word now i just need to get my P-drive up and this Pc will be hot ... ( not bad for a am2+ ) my last real upgrade was from a 9850 2.5g be to a 940 3.0g be it gave me 3 points stock to like 5 points oc.....

Edited July 28, 2012 by towhog66

[Tjj226_Angel]

I have to warn you that the mushkin drive is misleading. Hardware wise it is similar to the OCZ agility 3. The firmware is what allows it to reach higher IOPS and higher read and write speeds.

 

The mushkin drive is an asynchronous drive which in basic terms means that it will actually perform about the same as an 80K iops drive with synchronous NAND.

 

In reality the drive still performs well, but for 15 bucks more the OCZ vertex 4 pretty much obliterates everything else on the market.

[Shurman292]

I'm not hating on the motherboard you have there, but just by looking at it I do not think it has SATA 6gbps support. You will not see the full benefits of a newer generation SSD until you get a motherboard with the newer SATA standard. SATA 6gbps SSDs will work but will be limited to SATA 3gbps speeds (about 280MB/s).

 

I also found another option for you. If you prefer reliability over speed, this Plextor SSD has very good quality control (<0.5% failure rate), and the reviews on the Egg back up that claim.

[Tjj226_Angel]

I'm not hating on the motherboard you have there, but just by looking at it I do not think it has SATA 6gbps support. You will not see the full benefits of a newer generation SSD until you get a motherboard with the newer SATA standard. SATA 6gbps SSDs will work but will be limited to SATA 3gbps speeds (about 280MB/s).

 

I also found another option for you. If you prefer reliability over speed, this Plextor SSD has very good quality control (<0.5% failure rate), and the reviews on the Egg back up that claim.

 

Well even though he has sata 2 ports, he can still see a performance difference based on the actual controller of the drive. In this case I would say that the crucial M4 would be better than the plexor, and the vertex 4 would still be the best drive for the job.

 

From what I understand (mind you this is what I have heard, and I have not looked into this a whole lot) the main difference between a plextor drive and the cruial M4 is that the crucial has an updated controller, but the plextor has a higher quality NAND. This meant that as a consumer the crucial was better because it was faster, and the plextor was better for small business stuff because it lasted longer.

 

Quite frankly it doesn't matter if that statement is true or false. If you want speed go with the vertex 4, if you want reliability go with intel, if you want some weird red headed step sister of an SSD go with crucial, and lastly if you were building a data center go with plextor.

[towhog66]

You're welcome The drives you chose are good, especially the first one (Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB). It has a higher IOPS than the others (90k), which will benefit you more than pure throughput at those speeds. You may also want to consider the OCZ Vertex 4 which has very similar specs. Just make sure you have SATA III (6.0gbps) support on your motherboard before you pull the trigger on one of these.

 

 

you are right. i need one that dose 2.0 3gbs and 3.0 6gbs... : i think i did say ill be up grading soon. so i would for sure want one that can do both!

[towhog66]

Well even though he has sata 2 ports, he can still see a performance difference based on the actual controller of the drive. In this case I would say that the crucial M4 would be better than the plexor, and the vertex 4 would still be the best drive for the job.

 

From what I understand (mind you this is what I have heard, and I have not looked into this a whole lot) the main difference between a plextor drive and the cruial M4 is that the crucial has an updated controller, but the plextor has a higher quality NAND. This meant that as a consumer the crucial was better because it was faster, and the plextor was better for small business stuff because it lasted longer.

 

Quite frankly it doesn't matter if that statement is true or false. If you want speed go with the vertex 4, if you want reliability go with intel, if you want some weird red headed step sister of an SSD go with crucial, and lastly if you were building a data center go with plextor.

 

 

 

all this new words i need to look up gee thanks.. jk

i need one that well work for 2.0 and 3.0 for my upgrade.......

[Tjj226_Angel]

all this new words i need to look up gee thanks.. jk

i need one that well work for 2.0 and 3.0 for my upgrade.......

 

All of them would be good. All sata III drives are backwards compatible with sata II so no worries there.

 

Basic crash course on SSD terminology.

 

NAND: It is a type of flash memory. If you look at your RAM, those black memory chips on it is basically the same thing. Better quality NAND chips = more reliability and performance.

 

Controller: The controller is the processing chip that determines how and where the data is written to on the drive. The more efficient the controller is the better the drive will perform. Most drives use a sandforce (name of a company, not a term like I first thought ) model 2281 controller. That controller gives you very nice benchmarking scores, but the issue is that it achieves higher levels of speed by being able to compress your data before it is written to the drive. For example a 2gb file might be compressed into a 1GB file which is much easier to write and read to the drive than a 2gb file. This increases the theoretical speed of the drive. HOWEVER, most of your data is incompressible which slows down the SSD. The Crucial and plextor drive uses a marvell controller. This controller does not have the same max read and write speed that the sandforce controlled drives, but it somehow makes up for that in real world performance (not familiar with the marvell controller). Somehow the drive ends up as performing better than a low end sandforce drive like a corsair force 3, but worse than a intel 520. Finally you have the indilinx everest controller that is in the vertex 4 drive. Where this controller really sets itself apart from the other drives is that it does not suffer from the incompressible data limitations that are on the sandforce drives. So what the drive is lacking in numbers is made up for in real world performance.....by a lot. Now there are some other controllers out there, but they don't matter as much as the three primary ones.

 

Firmware: The firmware is the software that controls the controller. It is basically a fancy driver. And just like any driver, the firmware can be used to improve the efficiency of a component (in this case it would be the SSD) or it can be used to fix an issue. To give you an example, when the sandforce 2281 controller first came out, there was a pretty big problem with it giving people BSODs. Updating the drive to the newest software actually reduced the performance slightly, but actually did a pretty good job at fixing the issue. On the other hand you have the crucial company who released a new firmware that improves on what was already a stable drive and made it a lot faster. Lastly you have the vertex 4. Now this controller is so new that there really hasn't been a firmware release that has done anything noteworthy, but like crucial, they are sure to release one that will actually improve performance on an already stupidly fast drive.

 

I hope that solves some of the confusion.