I'm planning on upgrading my current pc to a Sandybridge (when they fix the problem lol). I'm thinking of buying a small 50gb SSD for the OS and then running a 1TB for running games. I haven't got masses of money so i want a sub 100 quid SSD, looking at the read and write times they blow a 7200rpm HDD out the water but my question is will a 1tb raid 0 get close to the speeds and which would work better? Also ideas on which drives would be appreciated. Many thanks.
The speed of SSDs is mostly in the seek times. While RAID arrays increase write and read speeds, they can't improve seek times. This matters little for media as there is only one seek, but for programs a RAID isn't going to help.
A C300 is less than £100 and is more than enough for an OS install and a load of applications. RAID 0 gave questionable improvements a few years back when SSDs weren't around and mechanical drives weren't as fast as they are now, but these days it's utterly pointless. I'm guessing you're talking about random read/writes and latency since SSD's don't have to 'seek'. SSDs do excel at random read/writes, which is why they're a good choice for OS drives, but sequential read/writes are also faster than mechanical hard drives.
Here's some homegrown results for RAID0 versus SSD What are the real world differences I've noticed? 1) SSDs boot Windows in ~15 seconds, a RAID0 array can do it in 30. 2) Large programmes load up faster but average programmes (MS Office, internet browsers) don't. 3) Games don't magically run faster but they do load quicker. On the other hand, you have to plan for a RAID0 failure. I've never had one myself, but I did have a RAID1 failure on Tuesday! There are two other advantages to SSDs though: 1) No need to defrag. 2) Virus scans are rapid!
I upgraded from a Samsung F1 to a 64GB C300 and Samsung F3 last week and although running off a Sata 2 connection for the moment (until my wallet allows Sandybridge), I am seeing real tangible benefits in boot times and also general responsiveness of the OS.
Indeed, I can't wait for the day I can fit my entire Steam folder on an SSD that costs less than £100.
I found that the lack of responsiveness for HDDs comes from not turning off the 'power down' feature in Windows. Just Steam? I want my next major rebuild to have entirely solid state storage!
That would be nice to reduce noise and save on space in the case, but apart from my Steam folder the only thing not on my SSD is my music and videos, which wouldn't really benefit from the extra speed of an SSD anyway. It'll certainly be a long time before 2TB SSDs are affordable anyway!
Ok thanx everyone, I was gonna go down the ssd route I wanted to check that it was the better option. I was also looking at a c300 as they now go for 90 quid in some cases. I will use 1TB for Games and music and my 500gb sata for my anime lol. I don't want to load the drives up too much as I know it can affect performance.
Well, a 960GB Revodrive is only a couple of thousand pounds, so it depends on how much speed and storage you want... I want personally Just because they're atleast twice as fast as a C300...
You could try a hybrid drive like the Seagate Momentus XT which combines mechanical hard drive design with an SSD cache. It is not as fast as an SSD but you get the benefit of a fast HDD with plenty of storage (500GB), the same size as a 2.5" drive, as quiet as an SSD and considerably cheaper. Seagate claims they are 80% faster than a standard 7200rpm drive and faster than a 10Krpm drive. I couldn't say whether 80% faster was true but I use one as my storage drive and it is quick, crisp, cool and definitely QUIET, certainly faster, cooler and quieter than my 1TB Samsung F3. I don't see why you couldn't RAID them but that is something you could find out from Seagate whether it is supported on these drives.
Raid arrays with conventional disks are quick but only like saying a Golf GTi is 'quick'. When compared to an Audi RS4 they are dog slow, which is how even a Raptor Raid array would feel after using most recent SSD's, except maybe for the few slow exceptions from Kingston et al. SSD's are the sort of upgrade you only notice once you stop using one, you can't believe how slow your PC is. Photoshop loads faster, games like Company of Heroes loads up faster, you will be waiting for others in multiplayer sometimes and general feel of the PC is like much better 'throttle response'. Space and cost are the limitations. The Corsair F60 is very quick, an alternative to the Crucial.
Get a SSd it's faster and raid0 u risk loosing data easily, very hard to recover compared to a single disk dying
definitely +1 for the c300 cant wait to get mine after seeing how fast they run compared to my old ass HDD
This may be a good budget option: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SEAGATE-SATA-...K_Computing_HardDrives_RL&hash=item5d2d6dbc32
Ive heard a few people mention about the lifetime of ssds compared to that of a hdd. Just wondering if i was running the os and a relatively simple program (a machine control station at work). I have read on a few forums that if you read and write data constantly it significantly shortens the life of the ssd. Has anyone on here had theirs fail?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225804 - 81 pounds right now. I had an intel g2 ssd in my desktop for 15 month, but recently the SSD into a laptop. I really don't feel any difference with 2x 7200 RPM HDs in RAID 0.
You should definitely avoid using things like p2p apps (torrent) on SSDs... as they generate lots of writes.... however, we are talking about many, many thousands of writes and not about failure, just degradation in performance. Not come across anyone suffering a fail because of this. Personally, as far as the OP goes, it may be worth waiting a few weeks as the next generation of SSDs is almost upon us.... C400 and Vertex 3, so the goalposts will move somewhat.
