SSD: I am not at all impressed

[flip-mode]

So, yeah, not impressed with SSD. Am I the only one?

Faster boot: yep
Faster shutdown: yep
Faster program start: mostly, although certain programs (Autodesk Revit) don't seem any faster at all
Changes "computing experience": Not even nearly enough. The main sticking point is working with large files (50 MB +) and that some programs don't start faster.

If I could get one at the same price / gigabyte, or even relatively close, I'd take it every time, but at current prices, I'd feel completely dissapointed to spend my own money on one. I spent the company's money to get two of them and both me and the other user that got one are largely unimpressed. Two 80 GB Intel X-25 M G2 solid state drives for approximately $250 a piece. I'd strait-up puke my guts out if it had been my own computer that I'd bought these for; I'd be tremendously disappointed.

For any of you value oriented individuals out there that are expecting a sustantial difference in the computing experience, my advice is to stay away from SSD, becuase I don't think it delivers much for the price. You'd be way better served by getting a very fast and very large mechanical drive. SSDs are faster, but in my opionion they're not enough faster; and of course, there are certain usage scenarios that and SSD would probably make a huge huge difference, but I'm talking about average desktop computer here.

That's just me, and perhaps I'm the only one that feels that way.

[Krogoth]

Weren't the TR HDD/SSD reviews good enough indicators?

SSDs in their current form make little sense for everyday usage and non-server workloads in desktops. I don't understand the craze behind them. For laptops, SSDs do offer lower power consumption = more battery life.

[flip-mode]

I don't understand the craze behind them.

I kind of understand - look at some of the graphs and there's a 10X difference, and at boot time that difference actually manifests, but I boot my computer once a day! It's not big deal and not worth $250 to shave 20 seconds off boot time. And I don't care if Firefox starts up in 0.5 seconds instead of 1 second. I want Revit to start up faster but it does not. And I want to work with large files a lot faster, and while they do open and save a little faster, it's not $250 faster. It's just not enough.

[thecoldanddarkone]

I don't understand the craze behind them.

I kind of understand - look at some of the graphs and there's a 10X difference, and at boot time that difference actually manifests, but I boot my computer once a day! It's not big deal and not worth $250 to shave 20 seconds off boot time. And I don't care if Firefox starts up in 0.5 seconds instead of 1 second. I want Revit to start up faster but it does not. And I want to work with large files a lot faster, and while they do open and save a little faster, it's not $250 faster. It's just not enough.

I'll probably keep using regular disk drives for my desktops, but my laptops are moving to ssds.

[Krogoth]

I don't understand the craze behind them.

I kind of understand - look at some of the graphs and there's a 10X difference, and at boot time that difference actually manifests, but I boot my computer once a day! It's not big deal and not worth $250 to shave 20 seconds off boot time. And I don't care if Firefox starts up in 0.5 seconds instead of 1 second. I want Revit to start up faster but it does not. And I want to work with large files a lot faster, and while they do open and save a little faster, it's not $250 faster. It's just not enough.

10x faster at server-related tasks. This is where IOPS and access time are king. It isn't quite the case with mainstream programs, especially games. They are often CPU-bounded in their load time. Manipulation of large files depends mostly on STR performance. SSDs are not much better at STR than current HDDs. The most cost effective way of increasing STR performance is go with a RAID configuration.

[UberGerbil]

For laptops, SSDs do offer lower power consumption = more battery life.

Not really; or at least, not enough to matter to most people. Mobile 2.5" HDs are already very power efficient. For a laptop with a normal 3 hour battery life an SSD adds maybe 10 or 15 minutes, which is hard to justify when factoring in the price. If you're a heavy user, doing work with apps that overcommit your available memory and force a lot of paging, you might see more. And that's the usage scenario where you can justify the price: given that many laptops are still constrained to 3GB or less of memory (or, like some Dells, can only be upgraded from 3GB to 5Gb at a price of $250+), a heavy user can see their productivity limited by paging performance, and an SSD can help hugely with that. That, and not battery life, is the justification for an SSD in a notebook.

[flip-mode]

I'll probably keep using regular disk drives for my desktops, but my laptops are moving to ssds.

That's understandable, although I'd wait till I could get a 160 GB drive for under $100, personally. The price just needs to fall dramatically before I'd feel it worth the cost, none of their positive attributes withstanding.

[thecoldanddarkone]

I'll probably keep using regular disk drives for my desktops, but my laptops are moving to ssds.

That's understandable, although I'd wait till I could get a 160 GB drive for under $100, personally. The price just needs to fall dramatically before I'd feel it worth the cost, none of their positive attributes withstanding.

Well both my tablets have ssd's for an obvious reason. I've lost a disk drive in one of my tablets already. With my e6400 though, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with that. In the end I'll probably just purchase a 320 or 500 gig hard drive instead of the 160 I have in it. The 160 gig drive is 3/4 of the way full. Since I got rid of my desktop it'll be my main system until I get a decent job, so It'll need a decent sized hard drive.

[flip-mode]

That, and not battery life, is the justification for an SSD in a notebook.

And the fact that they are better at surviving the dropsies.

[UberGerbil]

That, and not battery life, is the justification for an SSD in a notebook.

And the fact that they are better at surviving the dropsies.

True, although I've seen more screens wrecked by drops than mobile HDs (extremely small sample size, however).

[Flying Fox]

Not quite sure why Revit does not start faster, but for the Adobe CS suite, I have seen it in front of my eyes. Things are just snappier.

[emorgoch]

It really is workload dependent, and the value you place on waiting time. For my laptop at work, the SSD made such a substantial difference in my ability to get work done, I can easily justify it. Being able to run 3 different VMs at once is a god-send. However, for at home use, I'd have a harder time with the justification. But I am a major multi-tasker, so it may be enough to make it work while.

[Game_boy]

When Anand says this:

"I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves. "

You can't then wonder why expectations are so high (I regard Anandtech and TR as the only two good hardware sites).

[flip-mode]

When Anand says this:

"I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves. "

You can't then wonder why expectations are so high (I regard Anandtech and TR as the only two good hardware sites).

Exactly. I had read that review. I must say, I think Anand overstated it.

[dragmor]

When Anand says this:

"I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves. "

You can't then wonder why expectations are so high (I regard Anandtech and TR as the only two good hardware sites).

Exactly. I had read that review. I must say, I think Anand overstated it.

Maybe a little, but it does make more difference to your average user than spending $200 on a CPU speed grade pump or going from dual to quad core. Its got than undefinable snappy that going from single to dual core had.

It does depend a lot on what your usage patterns are, if you open and close applications like I and many other old school users do then you will get more benefit out of it. At work booting to working desktop went from 5min plus to 2min, the AV barley slows the system down at all and opening firefox, word, excel, etc is now just a blink. Considering I open each of those apps 30+ times a day each it makes a noticeable difference to me. Surprisingly Outlook is much improved. I have one exchange server mail box and 3 pst files which add up to about 8 gb. Used to take a long time to open now it doesnt.

I wont even talk about the database, web server or MS Search improvements.

[swaaye]

I've killed a notebook HDD or two. Head crashes mostly, I imagine.

I have a new HP though that uses an accelerometer within the HDD to protect the drive from excessive force. I wonder how well this works...

Honestly HDD I/O speed is becoming a non issue with me. Hell, I'm happy with even the "green" HDDs because they are still faster than the fastest 7200 desktop drives from a few years ago. What bothers me about SSDs are their capacity/$ and performance caveats with small files. It will be cool when there is no decision anymore because they have completely overshadowed HDDs in every way, but I'm not gonna pay a premium for them.

[shank15217]

Most notebooks come with 4-6 GB of memory now. Aggressive pre-fetching and write buffering in most modern OSes really diminish the need for really fast storage.

[GokuSS2]

I guess to each thier own Flip.. Multitasking and my WoW load times (dalaran is instant) there is a Huge differance.
Do I regret buying the SSD.... I'd have to say HELL no.

[just brew it!]

I have a new HP though that uses an accelerometer within the HDD to protect the drive from excessive force. I wonder how well this works...

If they've done their homework, it should work very well. Hard drives can withstand substantially more Gs when the heads are not over the platters; these "G protection" systems are supposed to detect when the laptop has gone into free fall, and yank the heads off of the platters before the laptop hits the floor.

[flip-mode]

I guess to each thier own Flip.. Multitasking and my WoW load times (dalaran is instant) there is a Huge differance.
Do I regret buying the SSD.... I'd have to say HELL no.

That's great! That gives me hope. And the fact of the matter is that it could be the specific thing that I am doing where an SSD is not as beneficial.

[Shining Arcanine]

I installed a 1TB hard drive in my cousin's computer today and it took ages to install both Windows 7 and some basic programs (I was there for 7 hours). On my 80GB Intel SSD, programs usually install in a fraction of the time. The only part of my day that took less time than doing all of that on my SSD was installing the physical hard drive. :/

Anyway, flip-mode, I think companies like Western Digital would be very happy with your sentiments if they knew about them.

[FubbHead]

Despite what is said around?