I'd question why you need 500 GB of SSD capacity, rather than going the small SSD plus large hard drive route if you need a lot of capacity.
Amen.
A 60 GB SSD amd a 1 TB SATA media drive is cheaper and works as well.
The only exception is if power consumption or heat needs to be kept really low, which is common in laptops. There the large SSD is still the best solution.
I'd question why you need 500 GB of SSD capacity, rather than going the small SSD plus large hard drive route if you need a lot of capacity.
Amen.
A 60 GB SSD amd a 1 TB SATA media drive is cheaper and works as well.
The only exception is if power consumption or heat needs to be kept really low, which is common in laptops. There the large SSD is still the best solution.
Maybe i'm not understanding something right, and i apologize if im sounding stupid lol!
What would a small SSd and my large HD do for me? Are you saying "Take your most played games, put THOSE on SSD with windows" or is there a way for my games to swap out on the SSD?
EDIT: what im troubled over is installing/uninstalling whatever game i'm wanting to play at the time- uninstalling from the SSD deletes data, so my saves would be lost....Seems the'hassle-free' way of doing it is just to get a big enough one to put all my games on? am i mistaken in something?
I'd question why you need 500 GB of SSD capacity, rather than going the small SSD plus large hard drive route if you need a lot of capacity.
I have a 1terabyte HD now, and it's almost full....granted some of it is programs and such, the large base of it is games....to utilize the ssd, one needs to install the game to it....so i'd have to install all the games i play to it...im at 819 right now, so i figure about 500 is my games.
what benefit would i get from a small SSD? i'd have to install/remove games each time i wanted to play them yeah? as always, thanks for the info's and thoughts
EDIT: if there was some sort of way for me to swap out games easily on the SSD from my HD, i'd do that! just need to know the basics on it ^_^
How many games do you have, anyway? Because if they're fairly large games, it's going to take several dozen to get to 500 GB. For smaller games, it could take hundreds. Surely you don't have that many games that you absolutely can't uninstall.
Programs really don't take that much space. I've got a 120 GB SSD and no hard drive for my desktop. I have seven games installed, and the SSD isn't anywhere near full. And that's in addition to the OS, with letting Windows 7 claim however much space it wants, as well as other programs such as browsers.
Maybe i'm not understanding something right, and i apologize if im sounding stupid lol!
What would a small SSd and my large HD do for me? Are you saying "Take your most played games, put THOSE on SSD with windows" or is there a way for my games to swap out on the SSD?
For some games, it's as simple as copying the folder back and forth. Surely you don't have dozens of games that you play on a daily basis. Even a 120 GB SSD would probably have plenty of capacity for whatever the last several games you've played are.
Maybe i'm not understanding something right, and i apologize if im sounding stupid lol!
What would a small SSd and my large HD do for me? Are you saying "Take your most played games, put THOSE on SSD with windows" or is there a way for my games to swap out on the SSD?
For some games, it's as simple as copying the folder back and forth. Surely you don't have dozens of games that you play on a daily basis. Even a 120 GB SSD would probably have plenty of capacity for whatever the last several games you've played are.
Ah, thanks, that seems to be where we split paths, so to say lol. i wasn't following that i could easily and quickly swap games out on the SSD. if that is the case, i'll look into one for sure! I thought 'installing' a game meant it was there, no getting it off but by deleting. i wasn't aware just taking the game folder or whatever it may be called and swapping it basiclly 'uninstalled and installed' the game. many thanks....i'll investigate
EDIT: also, yes, most of my space is games i assume...i have about 30 on my desktop screen alone, much more i drag out when i want to play them. Also, DOES EMULATOR games count with an SSD as far as loading times? Those are factored in to the 500 gig monster you cant understand lol. id wager MOST of my space may be those, as i have soooooo many ps2 and other console games installed.((Used to be a Streamer for a website-that's why i have so many))
the ssd you have will be for your os (w7 64 bit i assume)and the game you play these days so it doesnt need to be humongeous it isnt used for storage the other is there for that it is there to not throttle your gpu or cpu on average if the ssd is 2011 you should have a fair speed but check just to make sure and like i said do no relly on standard method use the way ms use to select microsd i would say the exact term they use but i dont remember .something about sequancial speed vs something else etc<
the way i understand you could have 2 300 mb/s ssd and one would be 3 time faster then th other because of the ms selection thing.hope this help
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your computer to boot up an extra couple of seconds faster? To get your zones to load a few seconds faster? Didn't think so. Don't buy into the gimmick that the rest of these guys have bought into and just wait for the technology to get better and cheaper. -waits for flame for being rational-
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your computer to boot up an extra couple of seconds faster? To get your zones to load a few seconds faster? Didn't think so. Don't buy into the gimmick that the rest of these guys have bought into and just wait for the technology to get better and cheaper. -waits for flame for being rational-
Well, no, i don't suppose ANYONE NEEEEDS to have these things...but i guess i would call myself a computer 'enthusiast' i guess? i'd like to stay up to date with tech just to do it- a hobby if you will.
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your computer to boot up an extra couple of seconds faster? To get your zones to load a few seconds faster? Didn't think so. Don't buy into the gimmick that the rest of these guys have bought into and just wait for the technology to get better and cheaper. -waits for flame for being rational-
We get it,you dont think the OP should because 'you' think its a waste of money.Thats your opinion which is fine but dont tell other people how to spend there cash.You are actually coming across like you are envious or something which i am sure is not the case,right?
Maybe i'm not understanding something right, and i apologize if im sounding stupid lol!
What would a small SSd and my large HD do for me? Are you saying "Take your most played games, put THOSE on SSD with windows" or is there a way for my games to swap out on the SSD?
EDIT: what im troubled over is installing/uninstalling whatever game i'm wanting to play at the time- uninstalling from the SSD deletes data, so my saves would be lost....Seems the'hassle-free' way of doing it is just to get a big enough one to put all my games on? am i mistaken in something?
The SSD is faster, silent, uses less power and generates no heat.
To run the OS, the swap file and the demanding game you play right now on it will increase the performance of your computer, it will boot faster and anytime you load something from the SSD it will be faster. It will not greatly increase the FPS while you play but it will lower loading time a lot.
Besides that, there is good reasons to have a few huge 1,5 TBs SATA drives or similar to run less demanding or rarely played games on as well as movies (or whatever) on.
I myself have a system drive based on 4 raided SSDs (I had too much money a few years ago), 2 x 1 TBs drives, an Icebox with about 2,5 TB in and a Deltaco USB device where I can slide in any old harddrive in without rebooting. Loads of space and great performance.
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your computer to boot up an extra couple of seconds faster? To get your zones to load a few seconds faster? Didn't think so. Don't buy into the gimmick that the rest of these guys have bought into and just wait for the technology to get better and cheaper. -waits for flame for being rational-
How much is your time worth? An SSD might only save you a few seconds here and a few seconds there, but it can easily add up to a couple of minutes over the course of a day. That comes to maybe an hour per month, or 30-50 hours over the life of the machine. Is it worth $200 to get 30-50 hours of your life back?
And what about the aggravation? A hard drive doesn't make your computer stall at random times. It makes it stall at the worst possible times: exactly when you're trying to do something.
What if your computer crashed with a blue screen of death once per day? It only wastes a couple of minutes. And unlike the time that an SSD saves you, it would be a couple of minutes all at once, and thus easier to work around. But how much would it be to make the computer stop crashing like that, and spare you the annoyance?
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your computer to boot up an extra couple of seconds faster? To get your zones to load a few seconds faster? Didn't think so. Don't buy into the gimmick that the rest of these guys have bought into and just wait for the technology to get better and cheaper. -waits for flame for being rational-
ask me if a ssd is worth it?depend on the game,for final fantasy 14?hell ya ssd is a must for world of warcraft?not needed,see it is all situational.on average your better off finding something else you need like more ram if you arent at 8 gb.
it is like processor:amd supposedly sucvk at processor,weird check the a8 3850 gpucpu (no expernal gpu)and comapre it to any gpucpu intel make and it crush intel offering in gaming!so like i say everything is relative
as for ssd speed if you are inclined on speed raid 10 ssd is probably your best bet
ask me if a ssd is worth it?depend on the game,for final fantasy 14?hell ya ssd is a must for world of warcraft?not needed,see it is all situational.on average your better off finding something else you need like more ram if you arent at 8 gb.
it is like processor:amd supposedly sucvk at processor,weird check the a8 3850 gpucpu (no expernal gpu)and comapre it to any gpucpu intel make and it crush intel offering in gaming!so like i say everything is relative
as for ssd speed if you are inclined on speed raid 10 ssd is probably your best bet
The processor is not at all as important as the GPU today, CPU was more important in the days of 3DFX but now an average CPU and a great GPU beats the other way around easily, except in a few badly coded games.
Do you mean raid some SSDs with Raid 10 or to raid 10 SSDs with raid 5???
Anyways, even in Wow the shorter loading time is a benefit unless you have more time than money. It is a consideration everyone have to make by themselves.
In EQ2 I actually got a rather high increase in FPS in some zones like Neriak, but that is due to bad coding and because it kinda chokes the computer with loading lots of crap while you move.
Maybe i'm not understanding something right, and i apologize if im sounding stupid lol!
What would a small SSd and my large HD do for me? Are you saying "Take your most played games, put THOSE on SSD with windows" or is there a way for my games to swap out on the SSD?
EDIT: what im troubled over is installing/uninstalling whatever game i'm wanting to play at the time- uninstalling from the SSD deletes data, so my saves would be lost....Seems the'hassle-free' way of doing it is just to get a big enough one to put all my games on? am i mistaken in something?
The SSD is faster, silent, uses less power and generates no heat.
To run the OS, the swap file and the demanding game you play right now on it will increase the performance of your computer, it will boot faster and anytime you load something from the SSD it will be faster. It will not greatly increase the FPS while you play but it will lower loading time a lot.
Besides that, there is good reasons to have a few huge 1,5 TBs SATA drives or similar to run less demanding or rarely played games on as well as movies (or whatever) on.
I myself have a system drive based on 4 raided SSDs (I had too much money a few years ago), 2 x 1 TBs drives, an Icebox with about 2,5 TB in and a Deltaco USB device where I can slide in any old harddrive in without rebooting. Loads of space and great performance.
Thanks for clarifying again, i was stuck at the point of understanding i could swap out the actual game files instead of uninstalling it from SSD then reinstalling another one,therefore losing my game data/savedata. If swapping the files between HD and SSD does truly work, then i would do fine with just a small 200 gig one i think....much info to chew on! Thanks
Much faster than laptop HDD's, whether 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM due to 2.5" platter size
Not mechanical so banging your laptop will never cause the head to scratch the platter
Contributes almost no heat to the system
Cons:
Money
I would buy a 120GB SSD, make it your main OS drive with your MMO's on it, and keep your mechanical hard drive in there for mass storage with the power saving set to shut it down after 5 minutes of inactivity.
Hard drives in laptops are an even bigger bottleneck than in desktop systems because the physically smaller hard drives. The outer track of a hard drive is the fastest because it covers more surface area in one spin than the inner track. A laptop hard drive is missing 1" of outer track, and is tuned to run cooler (re: slower). Most laptops have the processor speed and memory capacity to be very snappy, but they aren't, because the hard drive chugs.
You will notice this speed in multitasking, streaming textures in game, boot time and game load time. The last two are usually not a big deal to people, and the multitasking speed depends on how you use your laptop, but the streaming texture speed is pretty noticeable in MMO's when you enter crowded areas or a new area.
Heat buildup is also a big issue in gaming laptops. My buddies have 3 gaming laptops and they all have to use those laptop stands with fans to stop their laptops from BSOD'ing. This is why I suggest never putting 2 HDD's in RAID in a laptop - there's almost no performance gain, and it doubles the heat output. I don't know if you've ever touched a HDD while it's been running but they can get VERY hot. SSD is the opposite - almost no heat output, and performance is great.
Majority of the people who own SSDs will tell you to get one. I got the Crucial M4 and I have absolutely no regrets in getting it. SSDs are simply amazing and totally worth the price for one (even if it's a 64gb one). As Quizzical said, if space is such an issue you can always copy/paste most game directories to and from the SSD to make such whatever game you're playing get the benefits. Each time you do it (depending on the game size) shouldn't take you longer than a few minutes.
A 1tb platter hard drive is around 180mb read/write with slower seek times.
SSD come in a wide range of read/write times up to 900mb with way faster seek times. This what makes windows start up faster and other programs.
BUT SATA 2 max out around 200-300mb read/write. SATA 3 is around 500-600mb.
Buying guide:
So, figure out if your motherboard supports SATA 2 or SATA 3.
If SATA 2 you would have to buy 2 ssd with around 200mb read/write with great seek times and raid them. These are usually price around 100dollars with 64gb.
If SATA 3 buy one 500mb read/write SSD with capacity of 120gb but price around 200bucks. You can add another one later for raiding.
The price of 1tb platter drives around 150dollars because of short supply. If you have sata 2 It would be better to stick with HDD just make sure you are buying a 1tb platter. However, a sata 3 motherboard performance difference makes the SSD worth it!
-- "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
If SATA 3 buy one 500mb read/write SSD price around 200bucks. You can add another one later for raiding.
Just wanted to mention that the write speed isn't so important for SSD's, unless you're continually swapping programs between it and your storage drives. It's part of the reason the Crucial M4's are so popular right now, they have a lower write speed than a lot of other SSD's but the trade off is a good read speed for access and tend to be much more reliable and also don't degrade as fast as most of the other makes.
If SATA 3 buy one 500mb read/write SSD price around 200bucks. You can add another one later for raiding.
Just wanted to mention that the write speed isn't so important for SSD's, unless you're continually swapping programs between it and your storage drives. It's part of the reason the Crucial M4's are so popular right now, they have a lower write speed than a lot of other SSD's but the trade off is a good read speed for access and tend to be much more reliable and also don't degrade as fast as most of the other makes.
Correct, I just want people to start looking at the stats of the SSD. There are a lot of crappy SSD out there!
-- "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
Thanks for clarifying again, i was stuck at the point of understanding i could swap out the actual game files instead of uninstalling it from SSD then reinstalling another one,therefore losing my game data/savedata. If swapping the files between HD and SSD does truly work, then i would do fine with just a small 200 gig one i think....much info to chew on! Thanks
That was not actually what I meant by swap file but yes, you can easily move the game between your drives, but if you plan to run the game from the other drive you either need to change the shortcut or start it by pressing the .exe file.
Swap file: A disk file used to temporarily save a program or part of a program running in memory.
Comments
Amen.
A 60 GB SSD amd a 1 TB SATA media drive is cheaper and works as well.
The only exception is if power consumption or heat needs to be kept really low, which is common in laptops. There the large SSD is still the best solution.
Uhm, you want to run the OS and a few games on the SSD so 4 or 8 GBs ain't enough.
A small SSD and a large SATA is a lot better choice.
You mean IYO its a waste? If you have the cash then its not a waste of money at all.Maybe i'm not understanding something right, and i apologize if im sounding stupid lol!
What would a small SSd and my large HD do for me? Are you saying "Take your most played games, put THOSE on SSD with windows" or is there a way for my games to swap out on the SSD?
EDIT: what im troubled over is installing/uninstalling whatever game i'm wanting to play at the time- uninstalling from the SSD deletes data, so my saves would be lost....Seems the'hassle-free' way of doing it is just to get a big enough one to put all my games on? am i mistaken in something?
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
How many games do you have, anyway? Because if they're fairly large games, it's going to take several dozen to get to 500 GB. For smaller games, it could take hundreds. Surely you don't have that many games that you absolutely can't uninstall.
Programs really don't take that much space. I've got a 120 GB SSD and no hard drive for my desktop. I have seven games installed, and the SSD isn't anywhere near full. And that's in addition to the OS, with letting Windows 7 claim however much space it wants, as well as other programs such as browsers.
For some games, it's as simple as copying the folder back and forth. Surely you don't have dozens of games that you play on a daily basis. Even a 120 GB SSD would probably have plenty of capacity for whatever the last several games you've played are.
Ah, thanks, that seems to be where we split paths, so to say lol. i wasn't following that i could easily and quickly swap games out on the SSD. if that is the case, i'll look into one for sure! I thought 'installing' a game meant it was there, no getting it off but by deleting. i wasn't aware just taking the game folder or whatever it may be called and swapping it basiclly 'uninstalled and installed' the game. many thanks....i'll investigate
EDIT: also, yes, most of my space is games i assume...i have about 30 on my desktop screen alone, much more i drag out when i want to play them. Also, DOES EMULATOR games count with an SSD as far as loading times? Those are factored in to the 500 gig monster you cant understand lol. id wager MOST of my space may be those, as i have soooooo many ps2 and other console games installed.((Used to be a Streamer for a website-that's why i have so many))
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
the ssd you have will be for your os (w7 64 bit i assume)and the game you play these days so it doesnt need to be humongeous it isnt used for storage the other is there for that it is there to not throttle your gpu or cpu on average if the ssd is 2011 you should have a fair speed but check just to make sure and like i said do no relly on standard method use the way ms use to select microsd i would say the exact term they use but i dont remember .something about sequancial speed vs something else etc<
the way i understand you could have 2 300 mb/s ssd and one would be 3 time faster then th other because of the ms selection thing.hope this help
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your computer to boot up an extra couple of seconds faster? To get your zones to load a few seconds faster? Didn't think so. Don't buy into the gimmick that the rest of these guys have bought into and just wait for the technology to get better and cheaper. -waits for flame for being rational-
Well, no, i don't suppose ANYONE NEEEEDS to have these things...but i guess i would call myself a computer 'enthusiast' i guess? i'd like to stay up to date with tech just to do it- a hobby if you will.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
We get it,you dont think the OP should because 'you' think its a waste of money.Thats your opinion which is fine but dont tell other people how to spend there cash.You are actually coming across like you are envious or something which i am sure is not the case,right?
The SSD is faster, silent, uses less power and generates no heat.
To run the OS, the swap file and the demanding game you play right now on it will increase the performance of your computer, it will boot faster and anytime you load something from the SSD it will be faster. It will not greatly increase the FPS while you play but it will lower loading time a lot.
Besides that, there is good reasons to have a few huge 1,5 TBs SATA drives or similar to run less demanding or rarely played games on as well as movies (or whatever) on.
I myself have a system drive based on 4 raided SSDs (I had too much money a few years ago), 2 x 1 TBs drives, an Icebox with about 2,5 TB in and a Deltaco USB device where I can slide in any old harddrive in without rebooting. Loads of space and great performance.
How much is your time worth? An SSD might only save you a few seconds here and a few seconds there, but it can easily add up to a couple of minutes over the course of a day. That comes to maybe an hour per month, or 30-50 hours over the life of the machine. Is it worth $200 to get 30-50 hours of your life back?
And what about the aggravation? A hard drive doesn't make your computer stall at random times. It makes it stall at the worst possible times: exactly when you're trying to do something.
What if your computer crashed with a blue screen of death once per day? It only wastes a couple of minutes. And unlike the time that an SSD saves you, it would be a couple of minutes all at once, and thus easier to work around. But how much would it be to make the computer stop crashing like that, and spare you the annoyance?
Yes, it is.
ask me if a ssd is worth it?depend on the game,for final fantasy 14?hell ya ssd is a must for world of warcraft?not needed,see it is all situational.on average your better off finding something else you need like more ram if you arent at 8 gb.
it is like processor:amd supposedly sucvk at processor,weird check the a8 3850 gpucpu (no expernal gpu)and comapre it to any gpucpu intel make and it crush intel offering in gaming!so like i say everything is relative
as for ssd speed if you are inclined on speed raid 10 ssd is probably your best bet
The processor is not at all as important as the GPU today, CPU was more important in the days of 3DFX but now an average CPU and a great GPU beats the other way around easily, except in a few badly coded games.
Do you mean raid some SSDs with Raid 10 or to raid 10 SSDs with raid 5???
Anyways, even in Wow the shorter loading time is a benefit unless you have more time than money. It is a consideration everyone have to make by themselves.
In EQ2 I actually got a rather high increase in FPS in some zones like Neriak, but that is due to bad coding and because it kinda chokes the computer with loading lots of crap while you move.
Thanks for clarifying again, i was stuck at the point of understanding i could swap out the actual game files instead of uninstalling it from SSD then reinstalling another one,therefore losing my game data/savedata. If swapping the files between HD and SSD does truly work, then i would do fine with just a small 200 gig one i think....much info to chew on! Thanks
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Pros:
Cons:
I would buy a 120GB SSD, make it your main OS drive with your MMO's on it, and keep your mechanical hard drive in there for mass storage with the power saving set to shut it down after 5 minutes of inactivity.
Hard drives in laptops are an even bigger bottleneck than in desktop systems because the physically smaller hard drives. The outer track of a hard drive is the fastest because it covers more surface area in one spin than the inner track. A laptop hard drive is missing 1" of outer track, and is tuned to run cooler (re: slower). Most laptops have the processor speed and memory capacity to be very snappy, but they aren't, because the hard drive chugs.
You will notice this speed in multitasking, streaming textures in game, boot time and game load time. The last two are usually not a big deal to people, and the multitasking speed depends on how you use your laptop, but the streaming texture speed is pretty noticeable in MMO's when you enter crowded areas or a new area.
Heat buildup is also a big issue in gaming laptops. My buddies have 3 gaming laptops and they all have to use those laptop stands with fans to stop their laptops from BSOD'ing. This is why I suggest never putting 2 HDD's in RAID in a laptop - there's almost no performance gain, and it doubles the heat output. I don't know if you've ever touched a HDD while it's been running but they can get VERY hot. SSD is the opposite - almost no heat output, and performance is great.
Majority of the people who own SSDs will tell you to get one. I got the Crucial M4 and I have absolutely no regrets in getting it. SSDs are simply amazing and totally worth the price for one (even if it's a 64gb one). As Quizzical said, if space is such an issue you can always copy/paste most game directories to and from the SSD to make such whatever game you're playing get the benefits. Each time you do it (depending on the game size) shouldn't take you longer than a few minutes.
A 1tb platter hard drive is around 180mb read/write with slower seek times.
SSD come in a wide range of read/write times up to 900mb with way faster seek times. This what makes windows start up faster and other programs.
BUT SATA 2 max out around 200-300mb read/write. SATA 3 is around 500-600mb.
Buying guide:
So, figure out if your motherboard supports SATA 2 or SATA 3.
If SATA 2 you would have to buy 2 ssd with around 200mb read/write with great seek times and raid them. These are usually price around 100dollars with 64gb.
If SATA 3 buy one 500mb read/write SSD with capacity of 120gb but price around 200bucks. You can add another one later for raiding.
The price of 1tb platter drives around 150dollars because of short supply. If you have sata 2 It would be better to stick with HDD just make sure you are buying a 1tb platter. However, a sata 3 motherboard performance difference makes the SSD worth it!
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
Just wanted to mention that the write speed isn't so important for SSD's, unless you're continually swapping programs between it and your storage drives. It's part of the reason the Crucial M4's are so popular right now, they have a lower write speed than a lot of other SSD's but the trade off is a good read speed for access and tend to be much more reliable and also don't degrade as fast as most of the other makes.
Maybe one day I'll get an SSD, but I'd rather spend the extra hundreds on a top of the line video card or CPU.
Correct, I just want people to start looking at the stats of the SSD. There are a lot of crappy SSD out there!
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
That was not actually what I meant by swap file but yes, you can easily move the game between your drives, but if you plan to run the game from the other drive you either need to change the shortcut or start it by pressing the .exe file.
Swap file: A disk file used to temporarily save a program or part of a program running in memory.
SSDs are definitley worth it for OS and application loading speed. For actual gaming, probably not.