Quick and generally easy question... lol

[Daven]

Well, i got my computer together and on the win7 rating everything was either 7.4 or 7.5 .... BUT... my harddrive was a 5.9 lol. So my computer is still "5.9" lmao. This must change

I just bought whatever harddrive because i figured it wouldnt make too much of a difference. Just for storing space lol so i just got a 1.5TB harddrive so i would never need to upgrade space-wise. But now i need a faster one to boost my rating up with the other components, and obviously for performance as well.

So basically, can i just get a smaller SSD and have that for windows and stuff, then keep my massive harddrive as storage for movies, music, whatever? This is my first computer build so i wasnt sure how this would be set up. If i had a 7.5 rated SSD, and my 5.9 currrent HDD... Would it be rated at 7.5?

And what harddrive would you guys suggest for this? Want to stay as cheap as possible since im almost at the 1 grand marker for total spent already... And if i can just keep my HDD i wont need too much space. I am running win7 if that matters too much.

Thanks

 

[gribly]

Hey - you're smarter than you think. The hot setup is to put your OS and most commonly used things (everything used during startup definitely) on an SSD so that your computer is really snappy. I'm not sure what to go with for an SSD, I know samsung ones are fast.

 

[Daven]

Maybe if someone could explain a bit about what specs make them "fast" as well? I just want something to match my other numbers so a minimum of 7.4.

 

[gribly]

Read and write times. The seek times are pretty much non-existent on SSD's. Compare these three factors to your hard drive.

 

[gribly]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227578 What I recommend if you can afford it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227550 What you need minimum for a Windows 7 install, in my opinion.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227604 What I'd get if it was my computer.

First, go read some articles about how they work, how they are different, and what is good. Then learn how to set one up, what trim is and all that.

 

[Daven]

Ok thanks. WIsh they werent so much money, but nothing u can do about that lol. So having one of these and my old one both hooked up will still give me the better rating of the SSD one right?

 

[Jaymz9350]

So having one of these and my old one both hooked up will still give me the better rating of the SSD one right?

Yes it will raise the rating if windows is installed on the SSD, though the windows rating is pretty much useless and not what I would base upgrades on. I still would recommend an SSD the OS and applications and a regular hard drive for data storage.

 

[Daven]

Yes it will raise the rating if windows is installed on the SSD, though the windows rating is pretty much useless and not what I would base upgrades on. I still would recommend an SSD the OS and applications and a regular hard drive for data storage.

What would you suggest for size? SSDs are expensive lol And i do have pretty much all the space i could every want. Like, what will i want on the drive? Everything but the music/vids/pictures?

 

[gribly]

WIndows 7 needs what, 30gb all on it's own to run properly? I'm not sure, I don't use it. You'll need at least that plus whatever space your other startup programs need plus commonly used things that you want to open really fast. Everything else goes on the hard drive.

What you will gain from the SSD is much faster boot times and programs on the SSD will open faster. It will make your computer feel a lot faster to you, but won't actually affect how it runs games and programs that much. You don't HAVE to get one, it's just nice to have.

 

[Jason]

WIndows 7 needs what, 30gb all on it's own to run properly? I'm not sure, I don't use it. You'll need at least that plus whatever space your other startup programs need plus commonly used things that you want to open really fast. Everything else goes on the hard drive.

What you will gain from the SSD is much faster boot times and programs on the SSD will open faster. It will make your computer feel a lot faster to you, but won't actually affect how it runs games and programs that much. You don't HAVE to get one, it's just nice to have.

20 gb max, and that is for 64-bit which not many home users use anyhow. 16gb otherwise.

 

[kemo]

Sata drives are going to be slower than the PCI-Express drives.

Wanna blow away all your buddies? Get PCI-E, just make sure you can set your mobo to boot off of PCI-E.

Just remember that USING the solid state drive "damages" it. it gets slower the more you use it, speed drops much more noticeably than a hard disk drive.

There is an article floating around on understanding SSD's... I can't manage to find it, but you probably can over at tom's hardware. it is at least 15 pages long... they get very in-depth.

Here IS an article that should be very helpful:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ssd-value-performance,review-1455.html

Just remember, the lower amount of storage, the quicker the drive will fail... *See page 6 in the article I linked.

 

[Daven]

I have win7 home premium 64 bit. I just figured i should get it to match the rest of my stuff lol. The hd making my rating so low bugged me

Sow what would u suggest i do? Get a 60 gig or so SSD? Is the decrease in performance alot and fast?

 

[gribly]

The decrease in performance is a bunch of hokey with a modern SSD. My RunCore has no "allowance" built into it and it benchmarks at it's rated 125/90, exactly like it did brand new. ALL the drives I pointed out to you have extra space that is not used at first, which is why they are strange numbers like 60 and 90. When they get used, if part of it goes bad or slows down, it just skips over to a new area. You'd have to use it hard for many, many years to even know anything happened. At this point I'll say in complete confidence an SSD will outlast a mechanical drive.

 

[Jaymz9350]

I have win7 home premium 64 bit. I just figured i should get it to match the rest of my stuff lol. The hd making my rating so low bugged me

Sow what would u suggest i do? Get a 60 gig or so SSD? Is the decrease in performance alot and fast?

60GB is fine that's what I have. I have Vista 64bit (runs about the same size as 7) and I have all programs except games (they take way too much space) on my SSD and only use about 23.4 GB on the SSD. I do have some things trimmed to save space. I don't use system restore (never have though but it saves quite a bit of space) have hibernation turned off and page file on a mechanical drive. Really on the SSD you need the OS and any program you use alot and want better load times. My boot time went from agony (I would walk away so I didn't get pissed at it) to very quick and things like web browsers and other apps open almost instantly.

I have a 500GB drive for my games (My old drive from before the SSD) and a 1.5TB data drive. I have the my User folder set to the 1.5TB so anything that gets saved there is not on the SSD and will still be there if I need to reload the OS.

 

[AllanD]

while a typical Win7 install runs <20gb I still like using a MINIMUM of three thime
the installed size of the OS (with all programs installed)

SSD's DO wear... they need lots of additional space for wear leveling.

Frankly on a Win7 setup I don't think I'd consider anything smaller than
an 80gb SSd for a system drive.

A further note, anyone who doesn't maintain a clone of their OS install is someone who is willing to LOSE their entire setup.

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