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Why are you not using a SSD yet?

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Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#81

Post by rodh257 »

shin_lao wrote: post #77
rodh257 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vertex 2 is around $200 from what I can see: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227... If you buy a sony or apple laptop, replace the drive yourself. I just bought a 13" MBP and bought a $25 caddy to put my Vertex 2 in the DVD bay. That way I have Windows 7 booting from that SSD, OSX on the normal HDD with extra storage available there. Of course you could just replace the HDD with an SSD and…

Wouldn't that void the warranty?

replacing the HDD with an SSD doesn't void the warranty, however replacing the DVD drive with one (like I did) does.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#82

Post by khafra »

andreaja wrote: post #30

I'm amused at how strongly the for/against sides are arguing in this thread. This is a case where the cost benefit analysis is quite simple. I used to start my day at work by doing git status on my project repos to warm up the disk cache, then go get coffee. Now I just dive straight into whatever's on my plate. Then there's the 20 seconds I save whenever I start up Eclipse. The 2 minutes I save on every reboot. It al…

Is it costing you any midmorning mental energy not to have that initial dose of caffeine?

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#83

Post by bradleyland »

robgough wrote: post #66
stewbrew wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we have people who upgraded their hard disk to a ssd and say it resulted in a "serious performance increase" and we have people who still use traditional hard disks (why on earth would somebody want to do something like that?) who say it isn't. Maybe the judgment is based on experience?

I wonder if the non-owners think that it's merely a case of those who did buy one trying to justify their purchase. Those of us with one know that really isn't the case, but of course it's hard to convince someone to spend that much money on something they don't think will make a difference. Since I put one in my late-2008 MBP at Christmas, I've not seen a single beach ball. Best upgrade ever.

I was such a huge skeptic prior to upgrading. I was in the "why should I care about boot times; I never reboot" camp. Then I started thinking about whether or not I could use fast application boot times, but I rationalized that away with 4 GB of RAM and the fact that I pretty much leave all my important apps running all the time.

Then the Crucial RealSSD C300 (256 GB) went on sale prior to xmas 2010, and my girlfriend ordered one for me surreptitiously, after overhearing conversations between me and a friend about SSD performance.

As it turns out, I was completely wrong to be skeptical. The differences should have been crystal clear to me. Think of the difference between using your iPhone/iPad/Android and your computer. Notice how everything on your phone occurs nearly instantly. Most of us don't even consider it, because these devices never came with slow magnetic platter drives. Even with minimal (by desktop standards) RAM and absolutely anemic CPU power, these devices manage a level of responsiveness that makes them disappear in to the background as we use the software. An SSD brings this experience to your desktop. The performance difference is present in everything that you do, not just launching applications.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#84

Post by andreaja »

khafra wrote: post #82
andreaja wrote: post #30

I'm amused at how strongly the for/against sides are arguing in this thread. This is a case where the cost benefit analysis is quite simple. I used to start my day at work by doing git status on my project repos to warm up the disk cache, then go get coffee. Now I just dive straight into whatever's on my plate. Then there's the 20 seconds I save whenever I start up Eclipse. The 2 minutes I save on every reboot. It al…

Is it costing you any midmorning mental energy not to have that initial dose of caffeine?

Nowadays I pick up the coffee on my way in ;)

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#85

Post by andreaja »

acqq wrote: post #69
andreaja wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed that, I just don't understand why people who don't have them are so negative about them.

Because if you 1) have enough RAM and 2) between two boots you use less files from the HDD than the size of the RAM then you'll observe the speed up from the SSD exactly only once between two boots. Every modern OS uses the RAM cache like that -- once you actually start to work, you work from RAM. On another side, those who buy SDD "for speed" are the same who when asked "but SSDs are significantly smaller" answer "I…

Not absurd, just human. People are generalizing and deliberately misinterpreting each other. That's why I find this so odd. It's _easy_ to find out if an SSD is right for you or not. Why are people's identities so tied to spinning metal vs flash storage?

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#87

Post by mvkel »

ENOTTY wrote: post #2

Because it costs an outrageous amount of money. I'm waiting for further development of hybrid drives, which are SSDs combined with a traditional hard drive for mass storage, but seen as one drive by the OS. The SSD is basically used a huge read cache. Current models of hybrid drives from Seagate have only 4 GB of SSD cache, which I don't feel is large enough.

It's already been proven that hybrid drives perform as good as, or in some cases _slower_ than traditional platter drives. The SSD part is a marketing gimmick.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#88

Post by obfuscate »

andreaja wrote: post #85
acqq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you 1) have enough RAM and 2) between two boots you use less files from the HDD than the size of the RAM then you'll observe the speed up from the SSD exactly only once between two boots. Every modern OS uses the RAM cache like that -- once you actually start to work, you work from RAM. On another side, those who buy SDD "for speed" are the same who when asked "but SSDs are significantly smaller" answer "I…

Not absurd, just human. People are generalizing and deliberately misinterpreting each other. That's why I find this so odd. It's _easy_ to find out if an SSD is right for you or not. Why are people's identities so tied to spinning metal vs flash storage?

> Why are people's identities so tied to spinning metal vs flash storage?

In this case, probably because the original article was needlessly confrontational.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#90

Post by dexen »

masklinn wrote: post #79
reitzensteinm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newegg prices, both new: Vertex 3 120gb: $299.99 Cheetah 15k 147gb: $219.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227...

His prices are probably correct for an auction site though: since 15ks are pointless, I'd expect their resell price to be much lower than on SSDs.

I've failed to make myself clear:

at the pricepoint of 1100PLN, the Vertex 3 offers only 0 IOPS, transfers measly 0MB/s and stores appaling 0B for me. Because it's way over my budget.

Your arguments were that a modern SSD is faster. That's pretty clear. But will such an SSD (of 64GB+) be available at the pricepoint of my budget? If not, your argument is moot.

A fast harddrvive can be had for reasonable price, as I'm willing to buy a second-hand ones. No such option exists for the Vertex 3 yet.

reitzensteinm found a more expensive offer for the harddrive -- that hardly invalidates my original point. Btw., newegg doesn't ship to europe, Amazon adds some heft fee ($77 S&H last time I considered ordering headphones, itself $134) and I don't feel like using no-brand, mail-order hardware from Hong-Kong for my home folder.

If I had spare $300, I'd first buy a pair of noise-cancelling (or at least well sound-proofed) headhones -- would be a better boost of productivity than faster storage.

I hope that's enough of excuse-making for not buying an SSD yet.

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