SSDs again - what model and how to setup

My laptop main hard drive has gone bang. Sad

It has (had) 2 x 320GB drives (5400rpm) so I am considering whether to buy a 7200RPM drive for the system drive or an SSD.

There are a whole load of makes of SSD out there - can anyone suggest which manufacturers/models are better than others? I think I could so with 64GB but may consider 128GB.

So if I use the SSD as my system drive, I will install Logos on the SSD and presumably its data (currently c. 8GB) as well. I can then ensure most other data especially My Documents is on the D drive to ensure the SSD does not fill up. Any latest advice on how to set up a Windows PC using Logos with an SSD?

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Ben

Check out anandtech.com, a very respectable tech site. They regularly do a SSD showdown, broken down for price ranges.

Garrett Ho

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292293#Comment_292293

Even though the price is good, be wary of OCZ. Especially stay away from the OCZ Vertex Plus. The current supply seems to have major problems with corrupting data. Kingston SSDnow V seems to be a good value.

Tim McEntee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292298#Comment_292298

Jonathan,

I did a great deal of research on SSDs during the first 8 months of this year. There are many products now on the market but I would recommend going with Intel. They created this market and their products are very throughly tested before release (unlike some of their competitors like OCZ). Intel SSDs may not be the cheapest or the always the fastest in synthetic benchmarks but they will be the most trouble-free. Their failure rates have been much lower than the competitors. Although synthetic benchmarks show clear performance differences between different SSDs, for most real-world single-user applications the differences in speed between them will not be significant. So, unless you have a very specialised application, it is not much of a differentiator. Of the Intel range, the mainstream is the 320 series which I would recommend. I use of these dedicated to Logos. I have had no problems since installed (3 months ago) on my PC and the performance increase is massive.

Blessings, Tim.

Paul C

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292392#Comment_292392

Jonathan,

I did a great deal of research on SSDs during the first 8 months of this year. There are many products now on the market but I would recommend going with Intel. They created this market and their products are very throughly tested before release (unlike some of their competitors like OCZ). Intel SSDs may not be the cheapest or the always the fastest in synthetic benchmarks but they will be the most trouble-free. Their failure rates have been much lower than the competitors. Although synthetic benchmarks show clear performance differences between different SSDs, for most real-world single-user applications the differences in speed between them will not be significant. So, unless you have a very specialised application, it is not much of a differentiator. Of the Intel range, the mainstream is the 320 series which I would recommend. I use of these dedicated to Logos. I have had no problems since installed (3 months ago) on my PC and the performance increase is massive.

Blessings, Tim.

Yeah !!! What he said !!! [:D]

Greg B

My laptop main hard drive has gone bang.

It has (had) 2 x 320GB drives (5400rpm) so I am considering whether to buy a 7200RPM drive for the system drive or an SSD.

There are a whole load of makes of SSD out there - can anyone suggest which manufacturers/models are better than others? I think I could so with 64GB but may consider 128GB.

So if I use the SSD as my system drive, I will install Logos on the SSD and presumably its data (currently c. 8GB) as well. I can then ensure most other data especially My Documents is on the D drive to ensure the SSD does not fill up. Any latest advice on how to set up a Windows PC using Logos with an SSD?

I just built a desktop system in the last month and used a Crucial M4 128MB. (see Tom's Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-nand-reliability,2998.html ) I got it for $159. I use the Intel Rapid Storage Technology to accelerate my main hard drive. It keeps track of which files you use the most and stores them on the SSD. The max you can use for that is 64G. It significantly speeds up your hard drive. That left me with an extra 55G and so I put Logos directly on there.

I'm real happy with it. However the Intel is considered to be a better drive. But if price is more important, the Crucial M4 is a good drive.

Greg

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292454#Comment_292454

I have an OCZ Agility 3 and it works great in my MacBook Pro

Ron Corbett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292551#Comment_292551

I got a good deal on a Corsair Force 3 and installed it on my laptop. My ASUS G73JW laptop was having troubles so I thought a SSD with a new install of Windows 7 would solve my problems. The Force 3 is supposed to give 300 MB/s speeds (if I am saying this right) - but this speed was measured on a SATA 3 setup. My old HD was giving me 111 and this new one is only pushing 133. It is a fairly new laptop which surprises me that it is not making better use of the Solid State drive.

I guess my point would be to check very carefully the compatibility of new drives with your current setup. Don't be drawn into buying a "faster" drive that might not be faster at all on your system.

Randy Lane

Laptop?

Better make sure you get an SATA II (3.0 GB/s) and not an SATA III (6.0 GB/s).

It is sometimes hard to find the fine print that tells you that, and more and more are SATA III.

Unless your laptop is extremely new, I doubt seriously it has support for SATA III.

Jonathan West

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292454#Comment_292454

Thanks for the various responses - all very helpful.

I see you used your SSD as a second drive rather than primary for the OS? Any particular reason for that choice?

Greg B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292663#Comment_292663

Laptop?

Better make sure you get an SATA II (3.0 GB/s) and not an SATA III (6.0 GB/s).

It is sometimes hard to find the fine print that tells you that, and more and more are SATA III.

Unless your laptop is extremely new, I doubt seriously it has support for SATA III.

SATA III drives are backwards compatible with SATA II adapters.

Greg

Greg B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292675#Comment_292675

Thanks for the various responses - all very helpful.

I see you used your SSD as a second drive rather than primary for the OS? Any particular reason for that choice?

First, I am not positive that my setup is the ideal setup and maybe someone else can speak to that.

I got a motherboard that had the Sandy Bridge chipset which supported the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) mode for SSDs. I got a 128G because the price was good. In the IRST mode, it doesn't even appear as a drive. It just stands between your magnetic drive and the CPU as a cache. Once I went to put everything together, I found out that IRST is limited to 64G. So I partitioned the rest of the drive as another Windows drive. I figured a lot of my Logos stuff was going to end up on the cache portion anyway so I put Logos on the Windows portion and saved the cache for my other apps.

If I was doing it over, I might have used the SSD as my C: drive, and installed the OS here and Logos here as well as some other apps and put all my music, videos, etc. on the magnetic drive.

Greg

John Duffy

So if I use the SSD as my system drive, I will install Logos on the SSD and presumably its data (currently c. 8GB) as well. I can then ensure most other data especially My Documents is on the D drive to ensure the SSD does not fill up. Any latest advice on how to set up a Windows PC using Logos with an SSD?

Jonathan, I've gone for a hybrid drive (Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus XT Solid-State
Hybrid Hard Drive 500GB) . The 4GB SSD acts pretty much like ReadyBoost, but transparent to the operating system (Windows 7 64-bit). It's a fast drive on its own, but with the 4GB SSD, it works even faster at times. It was just what I needed to get some improvement in performance, across the whole 500GB, without paying SSD prices. It's a compromise, but another option between conventional and SSD that keeps the cost down a bit. I could see that it sped up my laptop significantly, without the need for speed tests.

Tim McEntee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/292675#Comment_292675

My reason was cost. SSDs are still around $2/GB whereas HDDs are as low as $0.03/GB. So I use SSD for the applications that really need performance and retain HDD for everything else such as office apps which are fast enough from HDD and media files which are large and don't need the speed of SSD. Tim.