Storage Why wouldn't You?

I've just completed the upgrade of a three year old Dell Inspiron 5110 laptop from a 7200 RPM hard disk to a 240GB Crucial M500 SSD. The existing disk was a respectable 320GB WD Scorpio Black Edition, not a slow HDD at all but not fast enough for the high productivity this owner needs to achieve whilst using this machine. Obviously the SSD has made a huge difference though, this thing runs like a dream now. Like any of the rest I've done, it has breathed new life into an aging machine. I've also put the 320GB Scorpio into a 2.5" USB3 external enclosure for her to use as a backup, so it won't go to waste.

With the price of SSDs now so low now compared to a few years ago, I don't think there's any excuse for not having one in a modern computer. I'm happy to say there isn't a computer our house or the business which doesn't boot from an SSD now, no matter the age.

What systems have you brought new life and speed to with an SSD upgrade and how long do you think it'll be before SSDs overtake HDDs as the preferred option to supply retail systems with?

 

In my eyes SSD's are the upgrade with the most noticeable physical difference around.

I built the missus a new pc and used a crucial V4 (big mistake) and when I had to revert her back to a hdd for a while the difference was ridiculous. Installed the free ssd I was given, albeit an older model and the difference was night and day.

 

I have an ssd in my main pc, laptop, wife's laptop and will soon have one in the new budget build I'm doing for myself since my darling wife adopted my machine, but only when funds allow. I don't think they will overtake hdds in mainstream pc's unless the price plummets and the storage volumes increase. I do see the hybrid drives like the wd 1tb and 120gb ssd become a viable mainstream alternative in the near future though, all the benefits of both types of tech.
Trouble is that whilst enthusiasts know and shout the benefits of ssd the average Joe doesn't know or care. my in laws got an upgrade a few months ago, he saw an instant improvement (obviously) but wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't talked him and shown him first.

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Every system I use for myself has an SSD for the boot drive at least.
My sig system is my primary machine and it only has an SSD. My home server G620 H67 machine has a 240GB mushkin chronos DX (originally in my main rig but the Seagate SSD had better performance on sata 3gbps so I switched them) along with some 4TB Seagates for file storage. My back up server which is an old E4500 machine is using my first gen intel 80GB (third machine it's been in) as a boot along with some 2TB Toshiba and Seagate hdd. I've got a 32GB Patriot SSD in my Atom 330 quadro FX 1800 nix machine. Even my ancient Athlon XP system I use for retro 98/DOS gaming has a 16GB pata SSD. I've even been considering installing a 512MB flash dom to replace the old hdd in my Goupil Golf 286 for fun. Both computers at my parents have been moved to SSD too.
Now if only we could get SSD in the 2-4TB range for similar prices as hdd I think there would be nothing else. Not only are they much faster but SSD is so much more reliable. SSD are also much better on power use. Since 2009 when I first started using SSD I have only had one fail. In the same period I have had at least 4 hdd fail.

 

The one I really noticed the difference in is my laptop. I got an absolutely mint Dell Latitude E5500 with very average specs for a steal, and made the following upgrades (all using very reasonably priced second hand parts):

WD Blue 250GB -> OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
Core 2 Duo T7250 -> Core 2 Duo T9400
1280 x 800 LCD -> 1680 x 1050 LCD (not officially supported but hey - it works!)
2GB DDR2-667 -> 8GB DDR2-800
Windows 7 Pro -> Windows 8.1 Pro

I's like a different freaking laptop, honestly. It mightn't be the most svelte thing in the world but it runs fanless most of the time and is a solid slab of last-gen portable computing goodness. The best part is that the upgrades ended up costing me about £30 all-in once I'd sold on the parts I replaced.

So yes, I'm entirely solid in our household now except a few external drives and the Sky Box.

 

Good point actually, the Sky boxes are still booting off mechanical disks! Must do something about that soon I also forgot about the two folding rigs, they're still running on old 250GB Hitachi Deskstar SATA2 disks. Both with over 20000 hours use on them!

Here's my SSD list

Gaming: 2x Samsung 840 Pro 256, RAID0
Office: 250GB 840 EVO
HTPC: 250GB 840 EVO
Laptop 1 (X230): 512GB 840 Pro
Laptop 2: 250 GB 840 EVO
Workshop: 128GB Crucial M500 (to be upgraded to recently bought 250GB 840 EVO)
Mum & Dad's Laptop: 256GB Crucial M500
Main Server: 120GB 840 EVO
Microserver: 120GB 840 EVO

Pretty huge Samsung SSD fan here

Shirty, my HP 6720s laptop is similar to your Dell, not exactly cutting edge, but still an incredible slab of technology which cost me next to nothing 6 years ago, with upgraded RAM, CPU, SSD and OS in the past few years. Faster than the day it was built and still better built than anything they build now.

I will never knock the Latitude E series, I've worked on some in my time and they're a very well built machine. The older set of laptops (which the teachers use) in school are Latitude D series (531's). We have 24 of the things. Again, built like tanks and in VGC for their age and the amount of use they get, but in desperate need of the same treatment. With more RAM, slightly better CPUs and an SSD to boot from, they'd be ten times more usable than they are now. I wonder if I could get huge discounts on 4GB DDR2 SODIMM kits and 120GB SSDs anywhere?

 

My Windows 7 installation has been going 3 years now and it's as fast as the first day I installed it on the Vertex 3!

 

I thought SSDs were the preferred option!

 

Well, yes but I meant how long before more off the shelf computers ship with SSDs than HDDs.

 

There's no big number or sales line, that's the problem with an SSD at retail! Where's the Terabyte sales pitch that they drill into customers at PC World!

 

Haha I suppose that's true! It takes too much explanation to get the benefits across to the average joe computer shopper. Still, surely it has to happen at some point? Which big laptop manufacturer will be the first to ship more SSD based machines than HDD based in a fiscal year?

 

None of my PCs have or have ever had SSDs... and tbh I can't see that changing any time soon...

...and yes, I know that probably puts me in the minority on here

 

You don't know what you're missing!

 

That is true, in my last job we started building pc's with ssd in. It was entirely down to me & I was told that it was on my back if it went wrong. After getting first hand experience with the first one I built the entire office became fans of ssd overnight.
Until they experienced it themselves they couldn't see the improvement it'd make, or didn't believe it would make a difference, thinking that it was all marketing hype.
I think it is probably the biggest improvement in the industry in the past 5 years (probably, it is late and I'm mentally sleeping so may have forgotten something epic)

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It's without a shadow of a doubt the most significant industry leap in recent years. Semiconductor lithography has shrunk steadily, GPUs have become progressively more powerful, RAM speed has been gradually increasing and enthusiast grade motherboards have slowly gained more and more features, but the leap from the fastest hard disk to the first SSD and the speeds which SSDs are now capable of in just a few short years is unrivaled.

[edit]

I missed one out of my list above, the all important workhorse and jukebox in the workshop!

Workshop: 128GB Crucial M500 (to be upgraded to recently bought 250GB 840 EVO)

 

... and what was the reward for getting it right? I wouldn't say there's been a lack of innovation besides SSD, just look at how Windows 8 has turned the industry around!

 

They definitely make a big difference, no doubts about it.

My main PC uses one, along with the family computer at home, and the media PC I built them. Specs on them all aren't amazing (all AMD APUs) yet they feel nice and speedy

 

I've thought about getting one for a while but to be honest I can't justify the expense. My 10k RPM 300Gb raptor does me just fine as a main system drive. My machines performance is perfectly fine for what I want it to do which these days is limited to a bit of SC2, Hearthstone and the odd game of DOTA2.

In truth I can't be bothered with all the faff of re-installing windows, all my games and other applications. More effort than it's worth at this point in time.

I'll wait until I upgrade from Windows 7 and build a whole new rig at some point in the future before I jump to an SSD.

I have no doubt they are great and offer a real performance upgrade but now is not the time.

 

The greatness of them cannot be overstated, which is why I'm posting in here again. They make you realise how much of the overall experience of using a PC is tied up not with CPU/GPU grunt, amount/speed of memory or even chipset, but just waiting for the ones and zeros to make their way from your storage to your screen.

Even on SATA 2.0 they are great, although I wouldn't put a never SSD in one of those ports. The Vertex 3 in the laptop I'm currently using is clearly hamstrung by the interface, but at least it floods it rather than sitting in the middle.

 

Much IT infrastructure is stuck in the stone age. This thread got me thinking about the time wasted by using HDD. For the past couple of years I've been working on the desk bound side of a major supermarket chain and when things go wrong it takes at least half an hour to reboot a PC! Multiply that by the number of employees and the substitution of an SSD makes sense!

The computers are relics in themselves now anyway! Dell Workstations released when Windows XP was all the rage. All they need to do now is spend some more money on a decent display with a USB hub and VESA mount a small SSD computer and that's all we need to run the depots systems! All the programs and files are maintained on a network anyway so the computers need minimal capacity on the SSD.