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."

Read more at source:
Are SSDs the new RAM for boosting system performance? | ZDNet

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
a 2TB self powered USB3 drive seems to me the best system for a laptop which only has room for 1 HDD. Get an SSD for the OS and use the external drive -- the "passport" lines are about the size of an Iphone4 or Samsung smart phone ( a bit thicker of course).

If you don't want to carry an external drive just get a micro 32 GB SD card with an SD==>micro SD adapter - nearly all the laptops I've seen these days have an SD card slot so this gives you 32 GB of local temporary storage at ZERO weight if you need it. Personally I always take the drive as well.

seems to me you get the best performance like this - USB3 devices are incredibly fast as well -- 10 times faster than USB2 although in practice you'll get nearer 5 to 6 with the cheaper self powered drives -- still a HUGE improvement.

A 250 GB SSD is probably sufficient even if you run a Virtual machine or two -- I started with a 120 GB Samsung SSD --these are now quite cheap --at least half the price that I originally paid -- technology always works like that though

I use the external drive since I want a decent music and film collection when I'm travelling and I travel fairly frequently -- don't know where YOU live but these days TV just seems to be in terminal decline wherever you go --loads of boring "Celebs", endless ridiculous "Reality shows", puerile quizzes that any self respecting 6 year old could answer and incessant boring commercials. Now I have my OWN programs. !!


Did I regret buying SSD drives.

Absolutely not.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Kat]

In 20-odd years, I've only had one hard disk failure, an ancient 5GB Maxtor in a Pentium 2.

Must just be lucky...

Then again, I don't bump and throw them all over the place when they're running.


BTW, does anyone remember the 'Park' command?

 

[kbz1960]

In 20-odd years, I've only had one hard disk failure, an ancient 5GB Maxtor in a Pentium 2.

Must just be lucky...

Then again, I don't bump and throw them all over the place when they're running.


BTW, does anyone remember the 'Park' command?

I haven't gone to a ssd but yes I do remember the park command

 

[Ray8]

There's pretty much nothing worth watching on TV in Australia. Fortunately I don't require the space on my tablet, which came with a 320GB HDD (but can increase that to about 750GB), but now sports a 128GB SSD, but it also has USB 3.0/2.0 ports, full SD port as well as an internal mini PCI-E port, so I'm pretty well covered when it comes to storage.

One day I may look at getting an SSD for my desktop, but every time I think about it, I come to the conclusion that I'm not in that much of a hurry.

I thought all HDDs, for years now, have been designed to park automatically when inactive.

 

[jimbo45]

There's pretty much nothing worth watching on TV in Australia. Fortunately I don't require the space on my tablet, which came with a 320GB HDD (but can increase that to about 750GB), but now sports a 128GB SSD, but it also has USB 3.0/2.0 ports, full SD port as well as an internal mini PCI-E port, so I'm pretty well covered when it comes to storage.

One day I may look at getting an SSD for my desktop, but every time I think about it, I come to the conclusion that I'm not in that much of a hurry.

I thought all HDDs, for years now, have been designed to park automatically when inactive.

Hi there
see you are from 'OZ but was in a "Brit" ex pat bar in Brussels over the weekend -- LOVED the Rugby England vs New Zealand -- amazing that the lads from 'OZ where supporting the Poms against the mighty NZ ("All Blacks") team.

I know more about Football than Rugby but revelled in the absolutely raucous atmosphere in the Bar during the game - always knew there were loads of Brits in Brussels -- but never realized how many guys from 'OZ and NZ were working in Brussels too. -- great atmosphere !!!.

(6 nations Pub --rue du Getry -- Bruxelles 1000 - Brilliant pub with free Wifi etc).

Saw some guys there also with the new Windows 8 Phones --these looked fine too -- and they actually worked !!.

Have a good evening -- first time in my life have I seen 'Aussies actually cheering on the Poms !!.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Ray8]

When it comes to NZ vs anyone else, Aussies will support anyone else.

Cheers

Ray

 

[Kat]

I thought all HDDs, for years now, have been designed to park automatically when inactive.

They have been, you are correct.

But before then, there was the DOS command 'Park' which you'd run before shut-down.

 

[Ray8]

I do remember the Park command, but I can't remember when that was last required.

 

[Coops Turbo]

i'm all for technology marching on, I've never personally had any storage medium fail on me, be it spinner or SSD's and as such I just look at whats viable financially at the time from a speed and financial pov and use that.

also I don't really use desktop computing anymore at home, so smaller is better and for that SSD's cant be touched

at work we see HDD's fail instantly, after brief amount of use or sometimes they never fail in service life and we use stuff till it breaks, I still have PATA 20Gb drives out on site running ancient pc's that are seeing very low I/O but constant use and few power cycles and they are still rocking.

SSD's are less widely used and so in terms of commercial environment I haven't really got a view on them from a reliability pov, as said tho, from home use they have been fantastic

 

[Kat]

I do remember the Park command, but I can't remember when that was last required.

From memory, I think DOS 5 was the last OS with the command.

Pretty sure it was gone by V6.20

 

[dirtyvu]

an SSD will give you a greater boost in performance than any other kind of upgrade. more than a higher clocked CPU. more than a new graphics card. more than more RAM.

I've rescued ancient PCs, that would frustrate many people, by upgrading them with SSDs. Everything becomes so much more responsive. You double-click on Photoshop and bam, it's there. No 10-20 seconds to load (assuming it hasn't been cached from a previous load). A machine feels like a new machine just with an SSD upgrade.

For people that have never used one, really try it out. It'll totally change your mind.

Of course, an SSD doesn't replace your hard drives. My system has a 128 GB SSD for OS/programs and 3 HDD's for storage. I have another system with an 80GB SSD and some accompanying HDD's.

 

[Ray8]

That simply is not true; if it were, I would experience that 'bam' every time that I opened Photoshop or any other resource intensive program on my tablet. Sadly, I don't.

 

[pparks1]

That simply is not true; if it were, I would experience that 'bam' every time that I opened Photoshop or any other resource intensive program on my tablet. Sadly, I don't.

You should. We have used SSDs to upgrade 4 year olds laptops, and it likes a whole new machine.

 

[Ray8]

I can swear on a stack of bibles that I have not experienced that 'bam'.

 

[pparks1]

I can swear on a stack of bibles that I have not experienced that 'bam'.

Have you used an SSD anywhere else? You should see a noticeable difference.

 

[Ray8]

Well, I've been constantly refering to the use and effectiveness of an SSD in my tablet, not my desktop. That's what I said right back at the begining.

 

[jimbo45]

I can swear on a stack of bibles that I have not experienced that 'bam'.

Hi there
Although I believe your experience --it's just SO different from my own and other people's experience with SSD's.

I can only surmise that either your SSD has gone defective or there is some other issue with your hardware that it doesn't seem to be working properly.

If you read through various posts on this and the W7 Forum too you will find that the OVERWHELMING opinion by a huge majority is that they are glad to have installed SSD's and only wish they'd done it sooner --even on quite old equipment.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Ray8]

But are we talking about an SSD in a PC or in a tablet? If I had an SSD in my PC, then I have no doubt that I would experience a performance improvement. There's nothing wrong with my SSD, it's performing just the same as the day that I installed it. The Samsung SSD Magician confirms that all is well and everything is optimised.

 

[dirtyvu]

the tablet is the PC... ???

what tablet machine are you using and what ssd model are you using? I've upgraded 3 laptops and a bunch of desktops, including a Tablet PC and they all had vast improvements in performance.

 

[Ray8]

I use a Gigabyte S1080 with a Samsung 830 128GB SSD as my mobile unit. The Hitachi SATA III 320GB HDD that came with the tablet, and running Ready Boost, provides much the same overall performance as does the tablet with SSD.

I also have a Dell XPS Studio dual screen desktop, with regular HDDs.