What do I need to know about solid state drives?

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Fuzzball

Bronze Level Poster
I'm planning to get myself a new all-purpose/gaming laptop, and have been persuaded by people to invest in the luxury of a solid state drive. This'll be the first time I've ever come across one, so I have a few questions about which I should get and how I should use it.

I guess before I ask what I should get, I should say what I'm currently planning to use it for:
  • Mainly just to have Windows 7 loaded on it, so that the computer starts up faster.
  • Maybe a few everyday programmes like Office and an Internet browser, if being on the SSD makes them faster.
  • My iTunes library so it can load up faster and run without a hitch.

Questions:

1) What model should I get? I'm thinking it won't need to be large, so 120GB should be fine, but there's three types of those; a Kingston one, an Intel 330 series one, and an Intel 520 series one. I saw in one forum thread someone mention that the Kingston ones weren't as good. So I figure I should get an Intel, but do I need to bother spending the exta money on a 520 series for my planned uses?

2) If you have Windows on the SSD, I gather that the computer starts up nice and fast. But can you then start doing things on your computer straight away? Or do you have to wait before you can access files on your larger, slower HDD?

3) What should I put on it? I'm currently thinking I should only put in things that makes the computer applications run faster, but not any personal files. I rather like the idea of having all my documents, pictures and games all on one hard-drive (the 750GB HDD I'm also getting).

4) Does putting programmes like an Internet browser and Microsoft Office (but not the saved documents created by them) on the SSD make those work faster?

5) How do I use the SSD effectively and not mess up all the locations of my personal and programme files? My current laptop only has a C: drive, and that makes it easy in that the User and Programme Files folders are complete and in one location. But if I get the extra SSD will the computer (or more likely, I) get confused in that some Programme Files might be on one drive, and some on another? Is it easy to move programmes between the SSD and the HDD, or does then trying to run them confuse the computer because the files aren't in the location it thinks they are? Is it easy to set it so that most things are saved by default to the HDD?


I always have so many questions. I just want to be certain on things before I spend my money!
 
Torgan

Torgan

Gold Level Poster
Hi,

I am no expert, but I do use an SSD/HDD setup in my laptop, so I will list the benefits as far as I can see.

1. I used a 120GB Intel 520 in my previous laptop for my OS but changed to a 330 Series in my latest one and I have not seen any noticeable change in Boot time or application loading. I've never used a Kingston SSD but have installed an OCZ Agility SSD for my games and this works excellently. The only major benefit I have seen with using an Intel SSD is the facility called the "Intel SSD Toolbox" which you download and runs data integrity scans and tune ups on your kit. I have not seen anything that OCZ provide in that respect.

2. I also use a separate Seagate Momentus HDD in my optical bay caddy for files and documents and this can be accessed as soon as the boot sequence has completed

3. I use my C:/ SSD for Windows and installed program files. This is what an SSD is for, so you get faster load times. You can install the actual program files on the SSD and then if that program uses extra storage (for example iTunes) you can configure the internal options manually to store the media library onto a seperate Drive. This means that iTunes will load quickly due to it being on an SSD, but the actual songs etc will be stored on your HDD so you are not filling up your C:/. This can also be done with Steam and Origin for gaming. Google how to do it for each utility and there are masses of pages with detailed step by step instructions out there.

4. It is worth pointing out that installing a full game onto your SSD will not hugely speed up gameplay. This is still down to your CPU and Graphics Cards. It will however speed up the loading sequences.

5. Finally, make sure that you turn off Windows scheduled Defragmentation for your SSD as they should never be defragged as this lowers the lifespan and is not necessary

Hope this has been of some use to you

Torgan
 
Toxophilix

Toxophilix

Bright Spark
Putting the OS and frequently used programs on a SSD will make a PC feel a lot faster, subjectively, and also quieter.

I think the best size is the one that doesn't stretch your budget too far. Whatever you choose will have room for the OS itself, so it's really a question of how many other applications you can put on there. Anything that is on the SSD will benefit from much faster start-up times. Eg, running Firefox from an SSD it opens more or less instantly when you click on its icon.

If you have room on the SSD you could put some favourite games on there also. Games which regularly need to load media assets from disk could ("could", he says ;)) be noticeably faster. Eg, games in which you are moving from one level or zone to another.

Regarding your question 5, most programs will be quite happy to let you install them where you choose. They just default to C. What is slightly trickier is the Windows Users folder. You may wish to put that on your HDD even though Windows itself is on the SSD, so you get the fast loading times but don't fill up your SSD with random stuff. It's certainly possible to move the Users folder to another drive. However, it's not as simple as just dragging it with your mouse and so far as I can see, it's not possible through the User Accounts tool. It probably involves changing some Registry keys. Anyway, I would read up on it or ask someone who is more up on Windows than me.
 
I

ilike2burnthing

Gold Level Poster
If you post up a potential spec it will be a lot easier to give you advice. Put in what you think would work well for you and within your budget (aim for the ceiling of your budget rather than the floor, I've noticed many people, myself included, tend to overestimate what they need anyway). Of course, tell us how much your budget is and your expectations for your laptop in as much detail as possible (are you going to be playing Sims and Warcraft 3 occasionally on it or Black Ops 2 and Crysis 3? Are you wanting ultra graphics or medium? What else will the laptop be used for? etc.)

Kingston is a very good make and do great SSDs, it's just judging whether you want 'good' or 'amazing', what suits your needs and then whether you can afford that.

1) if you're wanting piece of mind and longevity (5 years or more), and/or if your laptop will be in almost constant use, then the Intel 520s are probably the best choice, but if you want to spend a little less while getting every ounce of speed possible then the Kingston 3Ks are better for you. Depending on what laptop or PC you go for, the difference in price between the SSDs can be very small, maybe £10 (and so it's easy just to pick the 520), or it can be jumps of larger amounts and you have to balance your budget, maybe choosing between the 330s and the 3Ks.

2) No, Windows will load quickly and the files on your hard drive will be ready and waiting for you. The only way it would be any faster would be if you had another SSD instead of a HDD, but once again we come back to balancing budgets.

3) Use the SSD for Windows OS, games and programs (so long as you don't have too many of either), perhaps some storage you'd like quicker access to, say if you want to play a high quality video that day.

Some helpful tips - http://www.auslogics.com/en/articles/ssd-tweaks-to-increase-ssd-performance/
More - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911-5.html (that whole guide is useful actually)
To move your Users directory to the HDD - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html (option 2, not option 1)
If you wish to move other important folders without causing problems then you can use what Windows calls symbolic links or symlinks - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/

None of it is hard (if you have the instructions in front of you), it's just a little time consuming, so clear an evening or a Saturday afternoon to do it all, preferably as soon as you get the laptop. Keep it in mind when installing new programs that you should never go with 'express', 'quick' or 'default' install, some programs you will want to change the installation directory if you don't want them on the SSD, or if they are installed on the SSD and they have 'temp', 'scratch' or 'cache' folders, there should be an option to change the directory of that to the HDD.

4) Yes, and you could actually keep the aforementioned temp, scratch, cache, etc. folders on the SSD and it would speed up the access to them, however these folders tend to be used for lots of small writes, shortening the life of your SSD. Internet browsers are a good example of this.

5) I seem to have answered this in my response to question 3.


Hope that helped :)
 
F

Fuzzball

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks for the responses so far! I guess I will try and get round to reading the links people posted and hope they educate me enough to feel confident when my new laptop arrives.

ilike2burnthing said:
If you post up a potential spec it will be a lot easier to give you advice. Put in what you think would work well for you and within your budget (aim for the ceiling of your budget rather than the floor, I've noticed many people, myself included, tend to overestimate what they need anyway). Of course, tell us how much your budget is and your expectations for your laptop in as much detail as possible (are you going to be playing Sims and Warcraft 3 occasionally on it or Black Ops 2 and Crysis 3? Are you wanting ultra graphics or medium? What else will the laptop be used for? etc.)
Click to expand...

Here's what I'm going for:

Vortex III 17.3"

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675MX - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD

When that's all added up (including warranties and accessories), it comes to £1,283. An Intel 520 series SSD would make it £1,297. While that's still less than £1,300, considering I originally planned to only be spending around £1,000, I'm wanting to save anything I can at the moment.

People seem to say the 520 series SSD would last longer, but how long would the 330 series last? Surely a good many years/the life of the laptop? Would that end up being the limiting factor forcing me to get a new computer in several years time?

I'm also getting the impression that if I just have the basic program files on the SSD, and don't allow any documents and temporary files to be saved, it'll last longer?
 
vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
That's a very nice build,If you want to lower the price the first thing I would drop is the SSD to be honest,it will save you a few seconds on start up and loading applications if that's important to you,but if you've never had one you wont miss it,plus due to it's small capacity I don't think they're worth it.
 
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I

ilike2burnthing

Gold Level Poster
If you're trying to save money from the Intel 520 then go for the Kingston 3K as it's cheaper than the 330 but with a similar life expectancy, and while it gives lower performance it's not by much - http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Intel-330-Series-120-GB-Solid-State-Drive-Review/1674

In terms of how long will the 330 or the 3K last, completely depends on how you use your computer, but both are rated for 3k (3000) P/E cycles whereas the 520 is rated for 5k P/E cycles, so the 520 will last 1 and 2/3s time as long. In saying that, just surfing the web right now, that seems to be a rather long time.

In doing the maths:
write speed of around 500MB/s
capacity of 120GB
so it would take 4mins to fill it and we'll say a minute to format it
that's one program erase cycle or P/E cycle
therefore it would take 1200mins or 20hrs to kill it

Of course you're never going to use your SSD like that, even if you were to write 10GB a day (still a high amount but possible depending on what you use it for), that would be: (120x3000)/10 = 36000 days or around 100 years of daily use (with the 520 being around 150-175 years). Yea I think you'll be fine with the 330 or the 3K :p

Only change I would really make is to get the glossy screen over the matte, unless you are going to be exposed to any bright lights pointing at the screen and can't move round much. Matte stops these annoying reflections but at the cost of lower of reduced colour and contrast.

Oh, and make sure to get the silver warranty :) enjoy!
 
F

Fuzzball

Bronze Level Poster
ilike2burnthing said:
your expectations for your laptop in as much detail as possible (are you going to be playing Sims and Warcraft 3 occasionally on it or Black Ops 2 and Crysis 3? Are you wanting ultra graphics or medium? What else will the laptop be used for? etc.)
Click to expand...

Forgot to mention what I'll use it for.

Basically everyday stuff and I want it to be my all in one computer, storing all my files and so forth. I'd ideally like to play modern games on good graphical settings, and older games on very high settings. But I'm not demanding super duper amazing Crysis 2 graphics!

Some games I'm hoping to play:
  • Dishonored
  • Bioshock Infinite
  • Arkham City
  • Mass Effect 3
  • Shogun 2: Total War (Maybe Rome II when it comes out.)
  • Far Cry 3
  • Skyrim
  • L.A. Noire

And I'm really starting to wonder now if I should bother with a SSD... It does seem nice to have things load faster, but I wonder if the hassle of going into the technical processes of moving default locations and folders around will be a bit too much for me, along with the constant worrying about how long the SSD will last. I'm not too bad with computers, and have certainly learned more by using this website to choose my laptop parts, but still I'm not hugely confident in my ability...
 
Toxophilix

Toxophilix

Bright Spark
ilike2burnthing said:
Of course you're never going to use your SSD like that, even if you were to write 10GB a day (still a high amount but possible depending on what you use it for), that would be: (120x3000)/10 = 36000 days or around 100 years of daily use (with the 520 being around 150-175 years). Yea I think you'll be fine with the 330 or the 3K :p
Click to expand...
Even if it doesn't last quite that long, an SSD still probably has a mean time to failure longer than an HDD. However, for some reason human psychology prefers the Russian-roulette type of fallibility of HDDs to the more predictable failure point of SSDs.

Ultimately, if you can't stand to lose data than you have to back it up. But most data on home PCs probably isn't that important to start with. It's not going to ruin your life to lost your saved progress in a game. Losing your thesis after three years of work - that's another matter.
 
I

ilike2burnthing

Gold Level Poster
I'd say go with the SSD and don't worry about moving things. Even if you were using crazy amounts of data every day, the SSD is going to last you till you would be replacing your whole system any way.
 
M

mdwh

Enthusiast
1. I have a Kingston - from what I've read, these days SSDs are long enough for any normal person's usage, so unless it's for a 24/7 server, not to worry. Also similarly with the advice of minimising writes by moving files to another disk (consider that many computers these days only have a single SSD). The only reason to move things to another disk is to save space. In terms of performance, it still scores the maximum 7.9 in Windows 7 performance scoring.

2. Yes it boots quicker, no you don't have to wait for the second disk to start up.

3. In general, though depends if the personal files would benefit. Things like say playing music or watching videos in VLC, or editing documents in Word, generally don't need it. If you were editing large image files, or doing programming, then they would.

4. They will start up faster at least.

5. You can do this in various ways in Windows 7 (and presumably 8):
* There's an option to Move any of the folders like "My Videos", "My Documents" (I forget where, somewhere in the properties).
* You can move all the user data, as someone else says.
* Windows 7 also has the concept of "Libraries" - so e.g., you have a Documents library which by default only consists of the My Documents folder, but you can add other ones on other drives. So my Documents library is actually split across both drives, depending on whether the document needs fast access (e.g., program source files) or not. If you go to a folder, there should be an option to add it to a library. You can also create your own new libraries, with any name you want. You shouldn't need to change each programs options separately, especially if you've moved the entire user folder (although it wouldn't surprise me if itunes has to be awkward).

the first thing I would drop is the SSD to be honest
Click to expand...
IMO, an SSD is the single best thing you can do to a computer to make it faster (in terms of general perception and all-round performance, not just pure CPU speed).
 
L

Lliam

New member
Programs which use cache like Photoshop benifit a lot from SSD's. I would never use a conventional Drive on my operating system/systems again. My main machine takes about 8 secs to boot from cold to a working Win 7 program like Adobe Photoshop CS6 so yes they are fast. Adobe photoshop CS6 loads in about 3 secs when it used to take about 12-20 secs on a Western Digital Raptor Drive.
I use Samsung SSD's I have about 12 of them at present but Intel are stable too. If you limit your operating system drive to have at least 20% free capacity then you will have a very fast boot and operation. SSD's like at least 18-20% free space to work optimally.
SSD's cost a lot per meg but are easily worth it. If someone had a small SSD with only the operating system on it they would see a significant difference in their PC so upgrading need not be majorly expensive. Games tend to be less affected by SSD's people claim they are but games dont at present really utilise SSD's qualities. The life of SSD's is supposidly less than conventional platter based drives although as platter based drives also suffer from impact SSD's dont. You can drop and SSD it would have no real damage and would not lose data not so with conventional platter as SSD's dont have moving parts.
I have over the years had just about every make of drive from every maker and though I still have 2 platter drives working after 20 years both are enterprise class all the others have failed in 4-5 years max so I never rely on hard drives after 2-3 years so SSD suits my need.
 
Tiger Feet

Tiger Feet

Silver Level Poster
5. Finally, make sure that you turn off Windows scheduled Defragmentation for your SSD as they should never be defragged as this lowers the lifespan and is not necessary
Click to expand...


Just picking up on Torgan's quote above, he is exactly right of course but you can preserve the life of your SSD by other means.

It is recommended to use TRIM to maintain the lifespan of the drive. Using TRIM is dependent on operating system, drive make and model, and configuration drive is in, as I understand it. Others may be more informed on the exact limitations of TRIM.

Diskeeper 12 and PerfectDisk are also both certified and approved by all SSD manufacturers and properly maintain solid-state drives. They not only prevent file fragmentation on SSD's, but they also actually ensure and enhance longevity, as well as maintain and improve performance.


I am going to purchase Diskeeper 12 for my SSD.


Cheers
 
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