The new SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News and Advice)

[Les]

Yes..they are here.

Refer to post #15 for information relating to how and where to buy.

[Les]

I have included all the benchmarks to the main thread which include the Seagate hard drive benchmarks. For anyone questioning the difference between the HD and SSD, these are great examples of such.

[antonbrk]

Discussion of whether or not one can replace one's laptop HD with an SSD drive are hard to locate here in these forums. Can someone put a link from here to that topic, if it has been discussed in detail elsewhere? If not, might one of these SSD threads add an answer to that here? Thanks for your help.

[Les]

The answer for the most part is yes. I always recommend that anyone interested contact the laptop manufacturer first as there had been a few problems, specifically with Sony originally.

As long as the form factor is the same (ie 2.5" SATA), one can simply pull out the HD, insert the SSD and reinstall the OS and system drivers. There are no separate drivers required for the drive itself.

In my M1330, I have changed SSDs no less than 25 times by now, there is no special considerations whatsoever. I have also thrown a SSD in my sons Compaq, for the fun of it, to ensure there were no complications.

This is from my Introduction to the SSD thread below:

"I am going to have to stick to personal experience here and limit myself to notebooks as I haven't had the pleasure of playing with a SSD in a powerhouse desktop as of yet (although I am interested hint hint). I have switched my SSD with a Seagate Momentus HD no less than 8 times now for testing. Further, I have had the opportunity to switch one SSD for another and can state that nothing could be easier.

Do you want an SSD? Simply find one, backup your system with a disk imaging program, pull out the HD and replace it with the SSD (both being SATA of course) and restore your system. Similarly, you can do a clean install just as easily as having the HD inside the system. There are no additional cables or carriages to worry about."

[neeto]

New here.. please be kind :-)
This thread & others on this site seem to be the most informed about SSD anywhere - good job!
Hope I'm not taking the thread on the wrong direction.

I'm wanting a recommendation for a SSD for a Vista based HTPC.
I'm using iSCSI to a NAS for all the main storage, so this is strictly to boot & run Vista & start Media Centre.
Is 16G enough?
Wouldn't need to be fast??
And would prefer lowest cost.

Recommendations most welcome.

Thanks,

Neeto

[Les]

SSDs, by there nature are incredibly fast because of their access time initially. A Mtron SSD has .1ms access time compared to a typical hard drive which could be 15ms or higher.

My belief is that you want to utilize the SSD for only the operating system which would mean that yes, a 16Gb would suffice unless you need to factor in media for any reasons. You would be then interested in media sizes and have to consider the size of pagefile you would want, the pagefile taking up space on the SSD.

If you could give me an idea of the drive specifications you require, I could help from there.

With respect to expense, the biggest factor you might want to consider is how much writing to the SSD you will be doing. If not much, then you could go with a cheaper SSD such as a Sandisk which can be had on Ebay now for just over 300 bucks; this SSD having the poorest write speed but still a quick performer on normal Vista operations as it has a decent read speed.

[neeto]

Thanks flamenko,
You're correct don't need it for any media writing on the "totally silent" HTPC I building, that will be done via an iSCSI volume to the NAS - testing has shown even the PVR time-shift buffer of Media Centre can be done over iSCSI successfully.
So in the end the SSD will be a minimal write volume - the data base index of music & video perhaps being the most application write intensive & that's not much at all. Not really sure about Vista OS & how much "writing" it does.
I'll check the pagefile size - should be small the HTPC is doing anything other than HD FTA TV, BR/HDDVD/DVD & music.
The Sandisk 16G sound like the go.
Now I just need to source one in Australia as a lot of the ebayers don't ship to Australia. Any suggestions on how to get one in or to Australia much appreciate.

Neeto

[calculus]

Hi. I just put the sandisk SSD 32gb I ordered from dell into my
sony Vaio TXN17. Now the DVD drive doesn't work and not detected
by bios.
As soon as I remove the SSD, the DVD works again. Can anyone
help or any suggestions?

thanks.
by the way, why can't I post a new thread?

[Les]

K...first things first. Thank you for deleting all those copies. What is the make of the SSD and is it 1.8 or 2.5"?

Next, are you able to go into your bios?

[calculus]

it's sandisk ssd UATA 5000 with zif, 1.8.
I go into bios it said optical drive not available, hard drive 32gb.
can't change anything.