My laptop HD is going, I don't do much with it, but I want to get good value. Besides being Sata 6 and trim does the read and write speed play a major role? I see various ones with anywhere from 300mb/s to 550mb/s do you actually see the difference? Some have a slower write and faster read etc etc
Is the read/write speed the main thing when buying a SSD?
- Thread starter Twister
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It depends on how much of what you're doing is I/O-bound. And if you're currently using a (spinning platter) HD, the increase is speed to any SSD will be very significant.
Do a bit of research on the particular brand of SSD that you're looking at, just to make sure they're reasonably up-to-date on managing the aging of the device, since SSDs fail in very different ways from other Hard Drives. (I don't know any which aren't up to date, btw.)
If your HD is already on its way out, I wouldn't wait too long.
Do a bit of research on the particular brand of SSD that you're looking at, just to make sure they're reasonably up-to-date on managing the aging of the device, since SSDs fail in very different ways from other Hard Drives. (I don't know any which aren't up to date, btw.)
If your HD is already on its way out, I wouldn't wait too long.
I'll start out by saying that a SSD compared to a mechanical drive will make a tremendous difference in your laptop's performance. It's not just the speed increase for boots/shut-downs/sleep it's amazing how much faster applications boot, encoding speed improves, games are more responsive, photoshop is quicker, etc. Also, SSDs are more resistant to shock and consume less power (both advantageous in a laptop).
SSD size: Most SSDs are 2.5" and 9.5mm thick. Some laptops can only take a 1.8" (microSata) 5/7mm thick drive. My Lenovo is a 1.8" drive so I was limited in what I could buy (Mushkin Chronos GO 480GB SATA 6Gb/s 1.8" Solid State Drive)
Interface: determined by your laptop. Almost all SSDs are SATA III (6Gbps) which is backwards compatible with SATA II and SATA. A fast PC can saturate SATA II, but 98% (?) of the time this will never be an issue.
Laptop OS: Windows 7 and 8 are SSD TRIM friendly. I believe all other Windows OS are not and as a result you may have to manually trigger TRIM <-- I'm not 100% sure on this, if you have a different OS, you should research.
Memory Technology: There are 2 main types of NAND: MLC and SLC. SLC is faster and more expensive. <-- MLC is plenty fast, but if you have the cash and want speed ........ go SLC
Garbage collection: Is a function of the controller and is usually based on TRIM. Not all algorithms work the same, but for a consumer PC, all modern algorithms work well
Controller: This used to make a big difference and SandForce was considered the best. Much less of an issue today if you buy a big-name brand.
Memory aging: NAND fails during use and older drives barely last 1-2 years - that's why controllers perform wear-leveling. Most drives have extra memory (memory over-provisioning) to recover from failed memory.
Stats: There are a ton of them - sustained read/write, random read/write, synthetic tests, Sony Vegas, PCMark Vantage, etc. <-- all modern (introduced in the last year) brand name drives perform very well and I wouldn't get too caught-up in this. If this is important to you, read the reviews in MaximumPC or Tom's Hardware.
Warranty: Definitely a difference here. Some SSDs are backed with a 5 year warranty and some only come with a one year. From what I've read, the SSDs with the longer warranty have better NAND.
You would be happy with: Samsung 840 Evo, Samsung Pro, Crucial, Corsair Neutron, Sandisk Extreme Pro. Watch Intel, they are a confusing variety of product, some get great reviews, others not.
http://www.maximumpc.com/samsung_840_evo_1tb_review
If you are a techie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification#BG-GC
SSD size: Most SSDs are 2.5" and 9.5mm thick. Some laptops can only take a 1.8" (microSata) 5/7mm thick drive. My Lenovo is a 1.8" drive so I was limited in what I could buy (Mushkin Chronos GO 480GB SATA 6Gb/s 1.8" Solid State Drive)
Interface: determined by your laptop. Almost all SSDs are SATA III (6Gbps) which is backwards compatible with SATA II and SATA. A fast PC can saturate SATA II, but 98% (?) of the time this will never be an issue.
Laptop OS: Windows 7 and 8 are SSD TRIM friendly. I believe all other Windows OS are not and as a result you may have to manually trigger TRIM <-- I'm not 100% sure on this, if you have a different OS, you should research.
Memory Technology: There are 2 main types of NAND: MLC and SLC. SLC is faster and more expensive. <-- MLC is plenty fast, but if you have the cash and want speed ........ go SLC
Garbage collection: Is a function of the controller and is usually based on TRIM. Not all algorithms work the same, but for a consumer PC, all modern algorithms work well
Controller: This used to make a big difference and SandForce was considered the best. Much less of an issue today if you buy a big-name brand.
Memory aging: NAND fails during use and older drives barely last 1-2 years - that's why controllers perform wear-leveling. Most drives have extra memory (memory over-provisioning) to recover from failed memory.
Stats: There are a ton of them - sustained read/write, random read/write, synthetic tests, Sony Vegas, PCMark Vantage, etc. <-- all modern (introduced in the last year) brand name drives perform very well and I wouldn't get too caught-up in this. If this is important to you, read the reviews in MaximumPC or Tom's Hardware.
Warranty: Definitely a difference here. Some SSDs are backed with a 5 year warranty and some only come with a one year. From what I've read, the SSDs with the longer warranty have better NAND.
You would be happy with: Samsung 840 Evo, Samsung Pro, Crucial, Corsair Neutron, Sandisk Extreme Pro. Watch Intel, they are a confusing variety of product, some get great reviews, others not.
http://www.maximumpc.com/samsung_840_evo_1tb_review
If you are a techie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification#BG-GC
Few other tidbits:
-I believe most recent Linux builds properly support TRIM, however, you have to manually turn the feature on. <-- lots of info available on-line to help here.
- Once you install the SSD, turn Windows automatic defrag function off. This is important, it offers no advantage and just reduces the lifespan of your SSD.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2110095/the-ultimate-guide-to-proper-ssd-management.html
- I'd suggest Canada Computer for your purchase. They have decent prices and an okay return policy (there is a restocking fee for some items if the package is opened). I hate Tiger Direct mostly because of their pathetic return policy.
- Hybrid drives seem like a reasonable compromise, but SSD has really come down in price. I'd suggest just going with a SSD. You can get a Samsung 840 for under $500 now (I paid ~$700 in September).
-I believe most recent Linux builds properly support TRIM, however, you have to manually turn the feature on. <-- lots of info available on-line to help here.
- Once you install the SSD, turn Windows automatic defrag function off. This is important, it offers no advantage and just reduces the lifespan of your SSD.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2110095/the-ultimate-guide-to-proper-ssd-management.html
- I'd suggest Canada Computer for your purchase. They have decent prices and an okay return policy (there is a restocking fee for some items if the package is opened). I hate Tiger Direct mostly because of their pathetic return policy.
- Hybrid drives seem like a reasonable compromise, but SSD has really come down in price. I'd suggest just going with a SSD. You can get a Samsung 840 for under $500 now (I paid ~$700 in September).
Depending on the age of the laptop, you might not even be able to use an SSD. All SSD's use a SATA connection so if your laptop uses the old PATA connection, you cannot use a SSD. Take out the old hard drive and take a look at the connectors. It should look like either of the following: http://wiki.freegeek.org/images/2/21/Pata-vs-sata.jpg
All SSD's are going to be much faster than the traditional platter drives. For day to day work like browsing, email, word processing, etc. faster read/write performance is hardly noticeable and not worth the extra expense IMO. You only notice the extra performance gain when copy a lot of data around.
All the brands mentioned like Sandisk, Samsung, Kingston, Corsair, etc are very good, but they can vary widely in price since they supposedly deliver faster performance. The reality is that they perform better in benchmarks and not so much in real life use. A lot of the perceived performance gain is for marketing purposes.
All SSD's are going to be much faster than the traditional platter drives. For day to day work like browsing, email, word processing, etc. faster read/write performance is hardly noticeable and not worth the extra expense IMO. You only notice the extra performance gain when copy a lot of data around.
All the brands mentioned like Sandisk, Samsung, Kingston, Corsair, etc are very good, but they can vary widely in price since they supposedly deliver faster performance. The reality is that they perform better in benchmarks and not so much in real life use. A lot of the perceived performance gain is for marketing purposes.
Thanks for the very good replies, its an older IBM T60 with Sata 1.
SSD's start at about $70 so its worth it Skyrider. I don't do much with the laptop.. its my 3rd computer that I use only when I go out of town or go to a coffee shop I've also used it to download larger files. But all my work is done with my 2 desktops. The current drive is only 80 gigs...but even the cheapest HD at CComputers is 54 bucks so for 15 more I can get a 120 SSD. Otherwise I can get a used 120-160 gig for 20 bucks.
SSD's start at about $70 so its worth it Skyrider. I don't do much with the laptop.. its my 3rd computer that I use only when I go out of town or go to a coffee shop I've also used it to download larger files. But all my work is done with my 2 desktops. The current drive is only 80 gigs...but even the cheapest HD at CComputers is 54 bucks so for 15 more I can get a 120 SSD. Otherwise I can get a used 120-160 gig for 20 bucks.
I wouldn't bother with a used drive since you've got no idea what state that it's in. Invest the money on a new drive.
Its probably best to go with a 256 GB which will hold windows, apps and still have room for data. You'll also need to clone your current hard drive onto the ssd so look for drives that include cloning software.
You'll also need a USB to sata adapter so you can plug in the ssd externally to your laptop. It will take a long time to do the cloning over USB though.
I concur with Omega, but I have another angle. If your interested. I picked up a 7400 rpm western digital for my x200. I upped the ram to 6 gb and I would say there was a 3x speed/start-up improvement over the stock drive that was in there. The stock drive was 52-5400 rpm.
Your laptop is pretty old, you can install any modern SSD and it will not bottleneck your system. The big question is how much space you need, and how tolerant you are of hardware failures. In terms of size, the best deal these days is 256GB SSDs, they go for about $100 from what I consider to be 2nd tier brands. If you demand the absolute best in terms of reliability then you will be paying a fairly big premium for an Intel SSD, or a smaller premium for a Samsung Evo SSD. If you do not care about reliability and you are good with backups then just get whatever is cheapest.
Sequential read and writes, which are the big impressive numbers that is advertised, does not matter much in terms of daily use unless you are constantly transferring huge files. A better indicator of real world performance is 4k reads and writes. If this is over your head then just get a brand name modern SSD, do not get some old junk from a crap brand like Kingston or OCZ, and you will be certain that both sequential and 4k performance is more than enough for the average user.
Sequential read and writes, which are the big impressive numbers that is advertised, does not matter much in terms of daily use unless you are constantly transferring huge files. A better indicator of real world performance is 4k reads and writes. If this is over your head then just get a brand name modern SSD, do not get some old junk from a crap brand like Kingston or OCZ, and you will be certain that both sequential and 4k performance is more than enough for the average user.
What Operating System are you using and how much RAM?
Brand name, mid-range, mid-sized SDDs are ~$.40-.50 per GB and continue to come down in price. CComputers have several rebates available this month.
If someone tells you you won't see a day-to-day difference in normal apps when using a SSD, they've probably not used a SSD equipped PC or they are a "slow" user themselves. It's not just the PC boot-up/shutdown/sleep times that are impressive. Apps boot-up in half the time. Video encoding is much faster. Windows and application upgrades are >>2X faster. Spell check or document comparison in Word is a bit quicker. Outlook with a large .pst file loads MUCH faster. The PC feels "snappier" and more responsive -- to me that's worth the $25 more compared to a 256GB HDD. Sure, if you click on a URL in Chrome, the page won't paint noticeably faster, but all the other benefits outweigh. But, no need to trust people here; If you have a buddy with a SSD equipped PC, ask him for feedback and try for yourself.
I would suggest: http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1088&item_id=078039 or http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1088&item_id=078040. Both SSDs are inexpensive, are a decent size, are mid-pack in terms of speed and I haven't read about any reliability issues. When your PC finally dies you can protect your investment by pulling the drive out and install it either in another PC or in a external HD enclosure. Since it's a SDD, it will tolerate being moved-about more than a HDD.
If you don't mind spending a few dollars more get a Samsung EVO or PRO.
Cavet: I didn't research your particular machine, but it might be a 1.8" drive. If that's the case, the 1.8" drives are significantly more expensive and it probably doesn't make sense to spend the $$. Either buy a HDD or look at alternative platforms.
Last comment. 7200 vs. 5400 RPM drives will result in a noticeable improvement in your PC (although no where near as much as a SSD). However, modern consumer-grade HDDs don't last as long as those of 3-4 years ago, ESPECIALLY in a portable device. 5400 rpm drives are less prone to head crashes (one of the reasons they are so common in laptops, the other reasons being power consumption and heat). If you do go 7200, please buy a better quality drive that was designed for use in a laptop. <-- they are more shock resistant and can park their heads more quickly.
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I agree with your concept, but it sounds like you are implying that there are reliability compromises with SSDs . Any SSD built in the last year should last 3+ years in normal use. Many name brands offer 3 and 5 year warranties. I have clients who are each running 100s of consumer grade SSDs in their no-name web servers which are running under high-load 8x25 and not yet had a failure. Yes, their application and database servers run server-grade HDD and SDDs, but most web servers are all about TCP treads per second and cache and if they fail, no big deal as no data is lost.
Agree, external backups is a best-practice that all users should observe.
Based on my observations (i.e RMAs, talking with hardware vendors, etc), recently-built consumer-grade HDDs have become less reliable. Used to be HDD would last 3-5 years without problems. Lately I've seen many name-brand HDD develop problems within 2 years. There is too much pressure on lower costs by our throw-away society. Quality has suffered.
BTW anybody in IT knows what I mean by 8x25.
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I have 4 gigs, but the damn thing will recognize only 3 because of the chipset that doesn't allow more, not the bits. Good I payed very little for it, but its a tank very strong and for what I do its runs fast enough. I had 8 on it, but now trying 7.
I buy usually only at Ccomputers, they have the best prices.
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Once bit twice shy, in 2009 I got an OCZ SSD, it completely failed on me and to this day I am still paying for that failure. Of course today things are much more reliable simply because there are more guinea pigs using SSDs, but if a SSD fails on you and you do not have backups, your prospect of salvaging data is slim to none even if you are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a recovery service.
If you want reliability then you need to get an Intel SSD, Intel does not screw around, their brand name is worth more than any profit made from selling SSDs. If IBM made SSDs, I would have no hesitation about buying it, again because IBM's brand name is worth more than any profit made from selling SSDs. POS companies who have no brand name value like; kingston, OCZ, corsair, PNY, etc... they just get into the SSD business if it is convenient for them and get out of the SSD business if it is also convenient.
Now, I do not care about the brand anymore, I just buy whatever SSD is cheapest, I do backups of backups of backups, If the SSD fails then I will just go out and buy another cheap SSD and in 30 minutes I will have restored my backup and can continue as if nothing happened. I would buy a refurb SSD without hesitation even from a POS brand , the hardware I do not give a crap about, my data I care about and with my backup routine I am almost 100% safe regardless if the SSD fails or not.
"IBM T60 with Sata 1. " That came out in 2006 - that's approximately a 10 year old machin.e
Forget it, just buy whatever is cheap if you are adamant on reviving it. Your interface is severely limiting any benefit from a SSD you will see.
IMO get a new laptop, your $ is better spent towards something newer.
Forget it, just buy whatever is cheap if you are adamant on reviving it. Your interface is severely limiting any benefit from a SSD you will see.
IMO get a new laptop, your $ is better spent towards something newer.
If all he invests into the machine is a SSD then that is a good upgrade. When he gets another machine, he can move the SSD to the new machine. If he upgraded anything else, he would not be able to use it with a new machine. The old IBM T series is quite a workhorse, I can understand why people hold on to them.
