Help - SSD advice

Hi guys,

I have finally managed to get to the stage where I am happy with my laptop spec except for one thing. An SSD! I will be using my laptop for a prolonged period on a daily basis for image editing in photoshop. I was hoping to stick to a budget of £700 but the spec below comes in at £799. This includes an SSD though and if I remove it then the price comes down to £736. My question therefore is - is the SSD worth the extra cost? Also what difference will it make - will it only make my laptop start up 20 seconds faster and then that will be it? If so then I would happily go without it, however if it would make photoshop perform faster then it would probably be worth while.

I would really appreciate any advice.

Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3210M (2.50GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD7500BPVT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
128GB KINGSTON V200 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (300MB/R, 190MB/W) (Special Offer)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £799.00 including VAT and delivery.

Hi Dancait

Basically the SSD should realistically be the first drive and have the operating system on it. You would then also put your most used programs like photoshop. You would then use the HDD for installing all other programs and holding all personal data etc.

The SSD will boost boot up times, shut down times, programs that are installed on it will also boot up faster. My photoshop on HDD used to take a good 30 odd seconds to be up and ready to use, now I open photoshop and its open straight away ready to use.

An SSD will not boost any game performance. Realistically an SSD is just a faster, smoother, more expensive hard drive. Its not needed by any means but IMO well worth the money for the added speed. Copy and paste is crazy fast. start up/shut down crazy fast and programs loaded on SSD are pretty much open in an instant.

It will all boil down to....Do you want speed and if so are you willing to part with the extra few quid.

Thanks so much for the quick response Buzz. Ok, time for a few basic questions before I go ahead and order.

Should I change the two hard drives around when choosing my spec. Will it make any difference when it is being built as to what I choose first and second?

You have said that the SSD should store the os and photoshop and that I should store everything else on the HDD. Is it easy to set my laptop up this way or would someone who is not too clued up on the workings of laptops have difficulty? Also just to confirm, if I am saving an image having edited it in photoshop, would this be saved to my HDD rather than SSD?

Is the SSD that I have selected a sufficient enough size to store both my os and photoshop?

Thanks again and I'm really sorry for the basic questions.

You could drop it down to the 90GB Kingston option which shades a little off the cost, which probably brings it down to about £770?

Failing that, go without it and purchase one at a later date if / when you feel like you'll benefit from it. If you've never been that concerned by speed of boot, loading etc, then you'll be fine without it.

In relation to your second post, I think PCS will always load the OS on the SSD. The difference between the disks depends on how you want to use it - your C: drive will be the SSD and the D: or E: drive (depending on what letter is given to it), will be your storage (750GB) disk.

You'll always have the option as to where you want to install or store data, so when prompted you can choose between your disks.

I'd defo go for an ssd. I even tried to put one in my naf packard bell netbook, but couldn't because i aint got a 32 bit win 7 install -.-

I have a 120gb corsair forge GT in my desktop and a 60gb version in my laptop. - http://www.corsair.com/en/ssd/force...20gb-sata-3-6gbps-solid-state-hard-drive.html

I'd certainly go for a top of the range one though, as they are dirt cheap at the moment, if you look around you can get a 240gb version ( many different brands ) for about 100-140 quid!

Dancait said:

Thanks so much for the quick response Buzz. Ok, time for a few basic questions before I go ahead and order.

Should I change the two hard drives around when choosing my spec. Will it make any difference when it is being built as to what I choose first and second?

You have said that the SSD should store the os and photoshop and that I should store everything else on the HDD. Is it easy to set my laptop up this way or would someone who is not too clued up on the workings of laptops have difficulty? Also just to confirm, if I am saving an image having edited it in photoshop, would this be saved to my HDD rather than SSD?

Is the SSD that I have selected a sufficient enough size to store both my os and photoshop?

Thanks again and I'm really sorry for the basic questions.

Click to expand...

You would need to put the SSD in the configuration as the first drive so PCS know what drive to install the operating system on.

It is very easy to set everything up. Basically when you want to save something you just direct it to the D drive rather then the C drive. The C: will be the SSD operating system and the D: will be the data disk. Along with when installing programs, if you want to install it to the D: you literally just direct the install location to D: rather then C: upon installation.

I have 128G SSD and has my operating system on it along with my most used programs and files and I still have plenty of room. 75Gig left to be exact.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm currently not sure whether to go for it or not but will make my mind up by tomorrow and get it ordered! I probably open photoshop on average 3 or 4 times per day which when combined with starting and closing my laptop would probably mean that the SSD would save me just 3 minutes of waiting each day. Not exactly a long time but the temptation is there to go with it as I can be a bit impatient when opening photoshop

I'm sure this was already answered above but I can't be bothered to read the other replies, lol.

A SSD is essentially a bank of memory chips, regular hard drives use mechanical parts such as a spinning platter, motor, etc. An SSD (usually) use flash memory. This means that load times/data transfers/applications, etc, are extremely quick and more often than not instant. It also means that there is no noise from the drive and the reliability is increased. There is no need to defrag an SSD as the data saved on them is not stored randomly across a platter.

The only con is that they do have a finite life, where as a HDD will live until the mechanics fail and could possibly be repaired, a SSD will stop working once it has reached the end of it's life span (roughly 10k writes), although you most likely will never experience this as an issue (they are usually good for 5 years to the average user).

Most people (including myself) will run the OS and a few core programs/applications from the SSD and everything else will go onto a normal hard drive.

If your budget can stretch to a SSD I would highly recommend it. DO a few searches on Google/Youtube and see for yourself.