planning on buying a ssd
- Thread starter enyaw
- Start date
SSD technology has been maturing rapidly over the past two years or so. There used to be the SLC vs MLC (the former better but much more expensive) difference but nowadays all consumer class SSDs are MLC.
To be very honest, unless you are an extreme user requiring the fastest and best hardware, the average consumer will hardly notice any difference when the SSD speed goes above 100 MBps. The reason people feel that SSDs make the whole system "much faster", particuarly when they migrate from platter drives, is the extremely short seek time (no moving "record player" needle as in the platter drive).
I think just about the only thing to watch out for is the controller / cache of the SSD - if you see a real "bargain" which is like $100 less than all other similar size drives, you need to see if they have an older controller which may give "stuttering" problem.
The first generation consumer grade SSDs have a cheap jmicron controller which severely throttle the performance of the drive in certain conditions, causing "stuttering" of the whole system. However, I think most of these earlier drives have since disappeared from the market. The latest SSD controllers such as those made by Indilinx and Sanforce are very good, at least to the average consumer, and there is nothing to worry about.
Therefore if you find a "bargain", do some research to see what year / generation it is, and see if you can find some review on the particular series of drive. You should also do some basic reading on the web (Wikipedia and Google are your friends) about SSD stuff such as SLC/ MLC, controllers etc.
To be very honest, unless you are an extreme user requiring the fastest and best hardware, the average consumer will hardly notice any difference when the SSD speed goes above 100 MBps. The reason people feel that SSDs make the whole system "much faster", particuarly when they migrate from platter drives, is the extremely short seek time (no moving "record player" needle as in the platter drive).
I think just about the only thing to watch out for is the controller / cache of the SSD - if you see a real "bargain" which is like $100 less than all other similar size drives, you need to see if they have an older controller which may give "stuttering" problem.
The first generation consumer grade SSDs have a cheap jmicron controller which severely throttle the performance of the drive in certain conditions, causing "stuttering" of the whole system. However, I think most of these earlier drives have since disappeared from the market. The latest SSD controllers such as those made by Indilinx and Sanforce are very good, at least to the average consumer, and there is nothing to worry about.
Therefore if you find a "bargain", do some research to see what year / generation it is, and see if you can find some review on the particular series of drive. You should also do some basic reading on the web (Wikipedia and Google are your friends) about SSD stuff such as SLC/ MLC, controllers etc.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_179&item_id=031785
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_179&item_id=032804
Thanks alot, which drive is better out of these 2? And it's going to go into an older laptop ibm t43 is it worth it?
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_179&item_id=032804
Thanks alot, which drive is better out of these 2? And it's going to go into an older laptop ibm t43 is it worth it?
Buy online for the best price.
Prices are falling.
I'm waiting for prices to drop more on 100-160GB size SSD.
SSD is an ideal boot drive.
You can get lots of good info reading SSD reviews at Newegg.com
Here's a nice one, click on reviews:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227601
Prices are falling.
I'm waiting for prices to drop more on 100-160GB size SSD.
SSD is an ideal boot drive.
You can get lots of good info reading SSD reviews at Newegg.com
Here's a nice one, click on reviews:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227601
Go to the top right hand corner of the page that lists all the threads. Look for the button that says "Post New Thread", click on it and VOILA!!!
Actually it depends on which forum you want to post a new thread in.
Click on 'Forum' at the top page,
then select a forum, perhaps The Lounge,
then click on Post New Thread.
OCZ is one of the first manufacturers who got into the mass produced consumer SSD market. I have two OCZ SSDs, one Agility and one Vertex 2. The Agility 2 uses the same Sanforce controller as the Vertex 2, which does not have any problem with "stuttering". It should be good.
The Kingston SSDNow V+ uses a revised version (JMF618) of the problematic jmicron controller of early MLC SSDs. According to expert reviews, there is still some throttling in heavy operation, but I do not know how it would affect the average light-to-moderate use of the average consumer. I also do not know if there would be any noticeable effect on an older laptop such as your Pentium M IBM. I do not have a Kingston SSDNow drive for comparison.
I suspect that no matter what SSD you buy, cheap or expensive, old(er) or new models, you shall notice a significant difference in the response of the whole system (eg. programs open faster, immediately after clicking). However, if you use intensive programs such as video editing, you may not notice that much improvement since the limiting step goes from the speed of the drive to other hardware components, such as speed of the processor or RAM.
Don't quite know what you mean, but if you mean "physical impact", the SSD can tolerate more acceleration / deceleration ( G force) than platter hard drives, again because SSD has no physical moving part (such as the read/write head and spinning platters of the hard drive).Rockslinger said:
the first thing I noticed when going to SSD was the booting up speed. my windows 7 boots up and is ready to use in under 20 seconds from a cold-start. When I had the HDD in, it took over 4 minutes with all of the startup software I have.... the only difference was that I changed the master drive from HDD to the SSD.
I've noticed the same thing, my laptop cold boots in 7-9 seconds and apps (even the pigs that are M$ office) open instantaneously. I'd never go back.
OTB
Intel also makes highly rated SSDs.
For Kingston make sure they have second generation or later controllers.
Some report in reviews SSDs still fail and you lose everything but they are getting better all the time. Nothing is foolproof when it comes to PC components.
