Is it worth installing a Solid State Drive (SSD) into my old PC?

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S

ship

Hi

A friend said I should buy an internal SSD (Solid State Drive) and put
all my data onto that...
- How much faster is a SSD drive in practice than a conventional hard
disk?
- And would it be technically possible for me to add a SSD to what I
have (listed below) which is now about 3 years old...

Cheers


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system £555.04
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset
800FSB 2Mb cache
RAM: 1Gb (2x 512Mb) 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem
 
ship said:
A friend said I should buy an internal SSD (Solid State Drive) and
put all my data onto that...
- How much faster is a SSD drive in practice than a conventional
hard disk?
- And would it be technically possible for me to add a SSD to what I
have (listed below) which is now about 3 years old...

Cheers

Ship
Shiperton Henethe

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system £555.04
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset
800FSB 2Mb cache
RAM: 1Gb (2x 512Mb) 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA
PCI Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem
Click to expand...

What is it you are hoping to gain?

What do you do that you think such a drive would do for you?

IMHO - They are still a bit on the 'high-price per GB' side of the table
(especially when you compare to the alternative) and for a standard user -
the differences you *might* get are not very noticable. They are great for
lighter/cooler laptops, they are less noisy (duh! *grin*) and there is some
performance differences between these and standard (x)ATA drives.

Technically possible - sure.
 
A friend said I should buy an internal SSD (Solid State Drive) and put
all my data onto that...
- How much faster is a SSD drive in practice than a conventional hard
disk?
Click to expand...


A very difficult question to answer. How much faster it will turn out
for you depends on things like how much data you have, how big the
files are, how often you read and write them, etc.

In my view, you would likely see a much bigger improvement if you
would put Windows and your installed programs on the SSD rather than
data.

And bear in mind that SSDs are expensive, especially if you want a
decent sized one.
 
Hi

A friend said I should buy an internal SSD (Solid State Drive) and put
all my data onto that...
- How much faster is a SSD drive in practice than a conventional hard
disk?
- And would it be technically possible for me to add a SSD to what I
have (listed below) which is now about 3 years old...

Cheers


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system £555.04
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset
800FSB 2Mb cache
RAM: 1Gb (2x 512Mb) 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've just finished building one high end "Gaming" PC for a friend which
had two drives.Intel Core i7 940 Extreme a WDC Black 1TB and an Intel SDD
(80GB).

Now building a second system with an i7 920 and two drives like the first
unit.

The current problem with SSD drives is managing free space (pages) and
"Trim" software which is not yet perfected. Until Trim works as advertise
I stay away from an SDD and look at a high performance WD Black SATA drive
as a less expensive alternative.
See: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=8

In theory SSD units are about 3X faster, in real world benchmarks they are
about 1.5 to 2X faster (150 to 200 MS/sec) than a WD Black.
The WD Black clocks in at about 100MB/sec and more than likely your Seagate
SATA is about 50 to 60MB/sec.

HD Tune, provides drive speed info and has an option to test your drive.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Also SpeedFan has an online health analysis feature
(SMART tab) for hard drives. It will show how your drives
compares with other drives of the same make and model.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

You could buy 1 WDC 640GB drives like I did for $50.00 each (on sale).
Use the remaining money you would have spent on a SDD unit
for a better Video card and Power Supply (500 Watts or better) as
your 300 Watt supply is marginal at best.

Now configure XP such that the OS in installed on the WD Black
and your applications and pagefile are on two partitions on your
Seagate 120Gb (or a second WD Black). For the record the first 25%
of a hard drive is the fastest, slight drop in performance from 25 to 50%
of total capacity, about a 20% drop from 50 to 75% and then a severe
drop in performance in the last 25% or end of the drive. SSD drives are
flat with no loss from beginning to end.

The split of OS and applications across two SATA drives will speed
things up considerably. The Power Supply should be upgraded even if
you do not replace the video card because some of the P4 socket 775 are
power hungry.
If you want more specifics on this technique just ask

As for a video card an NVIDIA 8600GT or GTS would make
a nice addition providing you upgrade the power supply.
 
Hi

A friend said I should buy an internal SSD (Solid State Drive) and put
all my data onto that...
- How much faster is a SSD drive in practice than a conventional hard
disk?
- And would it be technically possible for me to add a SSD to what I
have (listed below) which is now about 3 years old...

Cheers

ShipShipertonHenethe

PROCESSOR:      Intel Pentium 4 based system £555.04
MOTHERBOARD:    Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
                   Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
                   *Intel High definition audio
                   *Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
                   *4 conventional PCI  *2 PCI Express x1  *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
                   *4 Serial ATA interfaces
                   *1 Parallel ATA IDE interface withUDMA33,
ATA-66/100
                   *PS/2 Keyboard port  *Mouse port
                   *Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset
800FSB 2Mb cache
RAM:           1Gb (2x 512Mb) 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE:          ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK:          Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL:       DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
O/S:           Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­-----------

I've just finished building one high end "Gaming" PC for a friend which
had two drives.Intel Core i7 940 Extreme a WDC Black 1TB and an Intel SDD
(80GB).

Now building a second system with an i7 920 and two drives like the first
unit.

The current problem with SSD drives is managing free space (pages) and
"Trim" software which is not yet perfected. Until Trim works as advertise
I stay away from an SDD and look at a high performance WD Black SATA drive
as a less expensive alternative.
See:http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=8

In theory SSD units are about 3X faster, in real world benchmarks they are
about 1.5 to 2X faster (150 to 200 MS/sec) than a WD Black.
The WD Black clocks in at about 100MB/sec and more than likely your Seagate
SATA is about 50 to 60MB/sec.

HD Tune, provides drive speed info and has an option to test your drive.http://www.hdtune.com/

Also SpeedFan has an online health analysis feature
(SMART tab) for hard drives. It will show how your drives
compares with other drives of the same make and model.http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

You could buy 1 WDC 640GB drives like I did for $50.00 each (on sale).
Use the remaining money you would have spent on a SDD unit
for a better Video card and Power Supply (500 Watts or better) as
your 300 Watt supply is marginal at best.

Now configure XP such that the OS in installed on the WD Black
and your applications and pagefile are on two partitions on your
Seagate 120Gb (or a second WD Black). For the record the first 25%
of a hard drive is the fastest, slight drop in performance from 25 to 50%
of total capacity, about a 20% drop from 50 to 75% and then a severe
drop in performance in the last 25% or end of the drive. SSD drives are
flat with no loss from beginning to end.

The split of OS and applications across two SATA drives will speed
things up considerably. The Power Supply should be upgraded even if
you do not replace the video card because some of the P4 socket 775 are
power hungry.
If you want more specifics on this technique just ask

As for a video card an NVIDIA 8600GT or GTS would make
a nice addition providing you upgrade the power supply.
Click to expand...

Interesting...

But how depressing that SSDs get slower when you write to them (i.e.
use them, afterall !) too much.
Does this boil down to a lack of any defrag for them?

I fear that it's probably too late to put the applications onto a
separate hard disk from the operating system - not unless I reinstall
windows from scratch - and that would mean literally DAYS of man-hours
lost... which makes me think I should by a whole new computer if I'm
really going that far. I have re-installed WindowsXP once already
(plus all the applications). The most painful part is getting the
licenses back (e.g. Microsoft Office2003 - which was an upgrade in any
case...)

My PC (top of this thread) is now what, 3 years or so old.
If I spent say GBP 600 or 800 on a new PC, how much faster would it
run?
(e.g. right now it takes about 18 seconds to open my old Adobe
Photoshop (v6))

Btw, one thing that seems to have helped recently was that I got rid
of AVG free anti-virus in favour of Avira Antivirus...


Ship
 
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