I'm currently looking at buying a ssd for a boot drive, unfortunately I don't have any idea what I should get or if I should just get one for windows and programs ( office, iTunes, etc) or if I would see sizeable improvements on games if I got a larger one to also store those on. And on that subject, is it easy to move game files between the ssd and hdd? I've looked at the reviews, but having no experience with them I don't know how much I'd notice the difference between the latest and greatest, and the last generation. As far as budgets goes I was looking at under £200, but nothing is set in stone. I've also read about adapters that connect the ssd to the hdd to get the best of both worlds, are they worth it? Cheers
Are you a steam user? There is a programme for moving steam games, I am sure someone will be along soon who can remember the name! I am going to use the Crucial 128Gb M4 in my build next month which will be plenty for the OS and quite a few programme files. iTunes mainly needs to access the music database which I could never fit in a 128Gb SSD, so depending on your library size I would imagine it still needs to be on an old school mechanical drive
I've seen this recommended on the forums for moving games between a hard drive and an SSD. Clicky. Edit: Damn beaten to it!
Here's the thing regarding games and SSDs - you won't see increased FPS, but you will see dramatic reductions in load times. I found it well worth it to have my games on my SSD as it's so much easier to jump in and out of different games
Really depends on what you want to load quicker. The OS is most people's priority and also games. But if iTunes is your preference then load that onto it however there must be enough space on the SSD for all music and videos you play via iTunes.
I do use stream for the majority of my games, and a faster load is exatly what I'm after. I'm not sure how long it takes portal two to load a level, but it's too long. I don't intent to store my music library on the ssd, just iTunes ( and libray info) since it feels very sluggish at the best of times.
Can you take advantage of SATA 3? If not then don't even bother looking at the really fast drives like the Vertex 3. For a SATA 2 port I would go Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB for around £90. Have a play around with that as your operating system drive and you'll be happy how fast everything loads up. The best part about it for me is I can simply access everything immediately, gone are the days when I make a cup of tea whilst Windows loads every little background process. Once Windows loads that's it with an SSD, immediate access to all areas. It's a pleasure even flicking on the internet browser, loads immediately! Also great for games, I get a kick out of beating everyone to the character selection screen in Alien Swarm because it loads faster than the other non-SSD users. So I get to chose my favourite space marine and weapons ahead of my comrades! The Witcher 2 loads in the blink of an eye as well, really impressed on that one.
if you're currently on a decent (intel or AMD) 3Gb/s controller the fastest option within budget atm will be a pair of decent 60GB SandForce drives in R0 - something like the Corsair F60. Alternatively, if you do have a proper 6Gb/s controller (well SandyBridge atm, as the Marvell ones really aren't great), sticking within budget then a 120GB Agility 3 would be a decent option, but the Vertex 3 "max iops" is significantly better (& is rated as the fastest 120GB out there atm) - though it's currently ~£45-50 over budget... in between the A3 & the V3 max iops, you've got the normal V3 which gives a decent enough improvement, but the "max iops" is worth the difference at the 120GB level. Also, (as i've said before) i'd expect the V3s to drop in price before too long... though it seems that 'a' hold up on this is down may happen d.t. to nand supply still recovering following the events in Japan... Well, it's the stated reason as to why you can't get the 240GB "max iops" drives for love nor money. Oh, & as to adapters, you can do it in software instead (or with the Z68 chipset), but they're really not worth it unless you happen to have an old SSD kicking around - much better to have the SSD as an SSD.
my mothered board is the ex58-udr3 (1366 i7 920 build) iirc. I'll have to check on Sata type when I get home.
That's the one. So an m4 is best for me I guess, I notice the 128 has almost double the write speed of the 64 one.
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB Sequential Read (up to): 415MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s) Sequential Write (up to): 95MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s) Random 4k Read: 40,000 IOPS Random 4k Write: 20,000 IOPS Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB Sequential Read (up to): 415MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s) Sequential Write (up to): 175MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s) Random 4k Read: 40,000 IOPS Random 4k Write: 35,000 IOPS If my mobo can only mange 3GB/s though will I see the benefit of the 128 GBs write speed? And even if can can is it worth the extra? Considering I could get away with sticking the programs I want on a 64gig and have ~40gig left over for games.
theoretically you should still be able to get max write speed, though your max read speed will be cut to approx 270-80 mb/s due to sata 2 limit is 280mb/s. unless you're doing a lot of work that is write intensive like 3d rendering or audio / video editing or encoding, then write speeds aren't as important. though if you have the budget i would still go for the larger drive, as having more space is nice. i've got a 60gb for my boot / apps drive and once you install a game like gta4 on top of windows and the usual apps its pretty much used up.
Overclockers have the 120gb vertex3 for 220 inc. on their weekly specials. I have a couple of games on mine and, especially in NFS Shift2, the load times are nothing short of astounding! well worth it IMO
Right, I went for the 128gb m4 in the end. Decided that I did not want to be tight on space from the start, and have to be militant on temporary files and having only 2 games on it at once. Ive set bios to achi in both options and I'm currently installing win7. Is there anything else I should do?