Are SSDs the new RAM for boosting system performance?

RAM was once the king of the system performance boost. Now, there's a new kid in town that's usurping the throne: SSDs.

SSDs are the new performance panacea. But, when SSDs first hit the scene a few years ago, we hated them. They were small--too small to be useful and too slow for anything but Netbooks. Technology took hold and now SSDs are our new heroes. They are the new RAM. Still a little pricey for widespread consumer use; servers, high-end laptops and ultrabooks come equipped with them. And, they're fast. They're cool. Sure, they're cool in the vernacular sense of the word but they're also cool in the Fahrenheit/Celsius sense too. No moving parts means cooler temps and cooler laps under them. My favorite thing to say about SSDs is that, "They toil not and neither do they spin."

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Are SSDs the new RAM for boosting system performance? | ZDNet

 

[FSeal]

^^^

Same here all my SSDs are on sata 2, and completely agree, it's the 150 times faster access time that causes the real speed increase.

 

[ecevit]

Thank you all for the information.

 

[Ray8]

Hi there
depends also on the SSD -- if the SSD is an old one then the performance wouldn't be THAT great -- but the newer one's (SAMSUNG, VERTEX etc) really DO FLY. The technology has improved hugely in the last 12 months.

If your tablet is designed to run windows7 or windows 8 I'm surprised that the SSD doesn't make a difference unless it's an OLD SSD

I doubt in a cheaper tablet whether the original HDD would have been good (fast 7200 RPM with decent cache) so I'm really surprised by your findings.


Cheers
jimbo

I have a Gigabyte S1080 tablet, designed to run Windows 7 and it runs Windows 8 fine. The SSD is the latest Samsung 830, which I bought because it received great reviews for performance (not absolute top) and reliability (the equal of Intel). I'm just reporting real world examples.

 

[Dave76]

If you didn't see any difference between a 830 and a HDD, there has to be something causing the SSD to be slow.
Was the SSD aligned?
What is the S1080 drive architecture?

 

[Ray8]

If you didn't see any difference between a 830 and a HDD, there has to be something causing the SSD to be slow.
Was the SSD aligned?
What is the S1080 drive architecture?

Everything is fine with the SSD, the system has been optimised for use with the SSD (using the Samsung software) and the tablet gets a Windows Experience Index of 3.0. The SSD gets a 7.7, but that's let down by other components, such as the CPU (Intel Atom N570) and graphics accelerator (the lowest scorer).

As I said, one component can be very fast, but maximum performance is still determined by all the other components. The tablet still performs very well, but the SSD hasn't contributed all that much in the way of performance boost or battery savings.

 

[Dave76]

Sorry to hear that.
When I put a SSD in the second HDD bay on my 4 year old laptop it had a huge performance increase and the battery life went from 3-4 hours to +7 hours. That's with a HDD still installed.
Would think at least you would get more battery life.

 

[Ray8]

I was expecting more battery life, but after reading a lot about the operating parameters of SSDs vs HDDs, sometimes HHDs can use less power. I guess it's a matter of swings and roundabouts with some systems and what you gain on the one hand, you lose with the other.

The Hitachi Travelstar HDD uses 0.68W at idle, 2.55W for sequential write and 2.34 for random write; whereas, the Samsung 830 uses 0.27W at idle, 3.38W for sequential write and 3.4W for random write (ref: Storage Review.com and Anandtech.com).

 

[hdmi]

With the price of RAM sticks having gone down alot lately, one could really start to wonder if adding an expensive SSD still makes proper sense IMO, especially now that the free space on a Ramdisk does not necessarily have to eat up system memory anymore (and for this purpose, I use Romex Software Primo RamDisk).

 

[azasadny]

I bought an Intel 120GB 330 SSD and a Samsung 128GB 830 SSD, each for less than $100 and they made a huge performance improvement in the PC's I installed them in. Replacing the HD with an SSD to boot Windows is the single most significant improvement I've ever made in any PC. Upgrading RAM, CPU video card, etc... doesn't even come close in the "bang for the buck" category!

 

[azasadny]

My Intel DG43GT motherboard uses DDR2 RAM, which is very expensive. I have 4GB of RAM and to "upgrade" to 16GB (max for the board) would cost about $300. Buying the Intel 120GB SSD and then using my WD 2TB Caviar Black HD as the secondary drive made a huge difference. I store all of my data on the server, so having a large HD is not really necessary. I power my PC up and I'm in Windows in 10 seconds!

DDR3 RAM is cheap and I recommend that you max out the RAM for your motherboard, combine that with a decent video card and the SSD and you're all set!!

 

[Ray8]

SSDs still aren't the equal of HDDs in at least one respect (other than densities): Flash Memory Survives 100 Million Cycles - IEEE Spectrum.

 

[pparks1]

Hi there
depends also on the SSD -- if the SSD is an old one then the performance wouldn't be THAT great -- but the newer one's (SAMSUNG, VERTEX etc) really DO FLY. The technology has improved hugely in the last 12 months.

Disagree. it's the random access time the provides the most performance from an SSD. This hasn't improved. The sustained read and write speeds have dramatically improved, but unless you are using your SSD for storage or trying to fill it to capacity in less then 2 minutes...it's not a huge advantage real world.

SSDs still aren't the equal of HDDs in at least one respect (other than densities): Flash Memory Survives 100 Million Cycles - IEEE Spectrum.

But who is using SSD's for long term storage? I'm using it as an OS, app drive and it will be replaced with an upgrade long before it's write life ever expires.

 

[Ray8]

But who is using SSD's for long term storage? I'm using it as an OS, app drive and it will be replaced with an upgrade long before it's write life ever expires.

I was refering to reliability. HDD still have the edge when it comes to long-term reliability where lots of read/write activity is occuring. Also, there are plenty of examples of SSDs failing unexpectedly and prematurely. Reliability is certainly improving, but not equal to HDDs. Remember also that many devices are now coming with nothing but an SSD, so they are working as storage devices as well as OS/program devices.

 

[pparks1]

Lots of examples of HDD's failing prematurely too. I'd bet dollars to donuts, the majority of SSD's which failed were probably running the "Sandforce" controllers too. <--While the Sandforce controllers might have the best performance numbers, I stay away from them. Too many failures. Haven't had an Intel or Samsung drive let me down yet.

 

[Ray8]

There's no doubt that HDDs fail and, as with SSDs, it's probably more to do with the quality of components than anything else. Enterprise level SSDs are without a doubt very reliable, but at a significant cost difference to consumer SSDs, and it's the consumer that we're really discussing here, especially the average consumer who wants the cheapest products possible.

Also, consumers usually want large storage capacity, for all their legally obtained songs, movies etc, so it's going to be a decision between something faster and more expensive, but with vastly lower storage capacity; or something a bit slower, but with vastly greater storage capacity. Usually, they choose the latter.

I've found Fujitsu and Hitachi laptop drives to be very reliable over the years. I guess by their very nature, laptop drives are designed to be reliable.

 

[Coke Robot]

I have to dispute the reliability of laptop hard drives. When something with precise mechanical moving parts goes mobile in the hands of the person used to dropping their phone and picking it with it still working in three months, OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yeah! Hard drive failure! There's also the fact as laptops are just mobile in their nature, plopping it down, closing the lid when the PC is on, moving it room to room when it's on, and being on the couch or a bed all will build up to hard drive failure. That's something I think most people don't understand, you can't do that.

This is based on the fact that in the past two years, literally the ONLY type of hard drive I've had to run data recovery on were all the laptop 2.5 inch hard drives because the drive failed and a new one had to be used, and in a couple of cases, a SSD. In two years, I think I've gone through about 10 or so 2.5 inch drives that needed recovery, as well as a 2.5 inch drive from an external enclosure. This is partly the reason why I suggest to people in getting a SSD, not just because for performance, but for reliability against wear and tear of the PC.

 

[pparks1]

As long as your computer has room for 2 drives, you don't have to choose one or the other. Get a reasonable sized and priced SSD for the OS and Apps, and a large capacity drive for the storage of your files. Best of both worlds.

 

[Dave76]

The failing SSD are usually due to the controller and firmware, both are improving with each new gen.

SSD Write Endurance 25nm Vs 34nm
In this link, these guys are running write tests on various SSDs, the rumors of SSD fragility are exaggerated.

Samsung 830 256GB Day 252

(GiB) 6,282,908
(TiB) 6,135
(PiB) 6.03

(Avg) 298.49 MB/s over the past 3400+ hours

And still going.

(GiB) 6,282,908 = 6,746,221 GB
(TiB) 6,135 = 6,745 TB
(PiB) 6.03 = 6.789 PB

The average desktop user writes between 7-10 GB worth of information per day.
You can figure out your average writes, and do the calculations.

Using 20 GB/day is 7.3 TB/year.
6,745 TB / 7.3 TB/year is 923.9 years.

A quick extrapolation for a 128GB Samsung SSD is 462 years.

 

[Ray8]

I have five portable PCs (laptop/notebook/tablet variants), one has a busted screen, one has a blown BIOS and the three others all work and are used regularly (the tablet attached to the dash of my 4WD when off road). I also have two portable storage devices, one with a busted screen (dropped on to rocks) and the other working fine (bounced all over the placed). None in all of their lives have had a hard disk failure.

Not many laptops/notebooks/tablets have room for two drives, the ones that do, are likely a substitute for a desktop. A know a lot of people and they don't own or want a desktop, they want a laptop or tablet for all of their computing needs. I'm not against SSDs, but for many people, they simply are not worth getting as a regular HDD is ample for their needs.

The one reason I bought the Samsung 830 was because of its reputed reliability vs the likes of OCZ which seems to have a reputation for failure. But a lot of people still buy OCZ.

 

[Coke Robot]

From my experience, once you drop a laptop a couple of times while running, you end up putting it on a course of hard drive failure. It may not happen right away, in six months, or in a year; but it will happen. And happen it will....

I would like to have a dual hard drive/SSD type set up on a laptop, but again, the wear and tear of using the laptop will affect the hard drive. It may be best to invest in flash memory, either SSD, SD, or USB.