I just installed a new SSD i bought off Amazon for about $95. A Samsung 850 Evo 250GB, not the Pro version. I currently have an older Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD installed and a WD Black 7200 RPM 1TB drive. After I installed the new SSD, I ran some read/write tests on the drives. I was absolutely floored at the performance of the new drive. The WD black is one of the fastest 7200 drives out there and the new SSD is at minimum 5 times faster, and on random small file reads and writes it is almost 300 times faster. For those unfamiliar, IOPS is Input/Output Operations Per Second. It is a common measurement for performance of storage across single drives or across a RAID. Here is the test info from my 3 drives: C: Drive - Kingston HyperX 120GB Sequential Read : 434.613 MB/s Sequential Write : 141.910 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 384.687 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 128.256 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 23.060 MB/s [ 5629.9 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 97.721 MB/s [ 23857.5 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 83.866 MB/s [ 20475.1 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 81.062 MB/s [ 19790.6 IOPS] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D: Drive - Western Digital Black 7200 1TB Sequential Read : 118.043 MB/s Sequential Write : 113.078 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 37.954 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 59.095 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.413 MB/s [ 100.9 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.874 MB/s [ 213.4 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.904 MB/s [ 220.6 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.721 MB/s [ 176.1 IOPS] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E: Drive - Samsung Evo 850 250GB Sequential Read : 525.866 MB/s Sequential Write : 504.608 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 477.023 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 383.137 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 45.908 MB/s [ 11208.0 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 104.168 MB/s [ 25431.5 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 319.272 MB/s [ 77947.2 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 289.719 MB/s [ 70732.1 IOPS]
The samsung drives are good stuff, I'm very glad I went with a 120gb 830 series when I upgraded a couple of years ago. I'm not likely to upgrade my desktop again with moving to indonesia in Jan but if I did there is no doubt what brand of ssd I'd stick with, the only question is how large of a drive that I would be willing to shell out for.
Magnetic drives are quite literally limited by the speed at which the wing can move across the platter, obviously we're nowhere near the theoretical limit, but round about 7200 rpm is about the best they've managed consistently at a reasonable production investment. There's plenty of issues with increasing the speed of rotation, not simply motor speed, you've got a narrow strip of metal flying along between the platters at 7200 revolutions a minute, even the tiniest deviation can be devastating, permanently scarring the platter, or worse damaging the wing itself. Sure it's a sealed container, so you shouldn't have to worry about outside influence much, aside from jarring (which is generally the worst possible thing, if the hard drive is working you absolutely don't want to be moving it.) Solid State is limited by none of these things, effectively they've turned a bank of ram chips into long term storage, now your limitations are entirely electrical in nature, how quickly can you find and access data stored in the bank, how quickly can you read a packet of data from the bank to transfer to the ram/processor etc... SSD's are hardly a perfect solution, they don't suffer from some of the weaknesses of the magnetic platter but they have weaknesses of their own, such as effective capacity at the moment. Comparable size drives are significantly more expensive among the SSD platform, and there's a fairly firm ceiling as to how much you can get within a consumer level cost. Losing power while transferring data within an SSD can cause some rather unpleasant side effects beyond those normally associated with the data in question. Of course, you no longer need to worry about jarring, unless you impact the drive hard enough to damage the silicon inside, or the components themselves, it'll last through just about anything short of an EMP.
I upgraded to a Crucial BX100 250gb a couple months ago and it is an amazing difference. Fresh Windows install took no time, especially considering all the restarts for updates and program installs.
The computer I built seems to have a SSD in it, but I can't access it, (or I don't know how), next time we're in TS can I ask you stupid questions?
I beg to differ... I have had someone ask me how to get their SSD to work. They told me that the clerk at the store told them to put it in the case and it should work perfectly. They said the had no clue why it wasn't working.. and were very frustrated by the whole thing...when I came over to their house to check it out. They did exactly as the clerk said. they just placed it inside the case like it would just magically work without it being plugged into anything. I was totally amazed of peoples stupidity that day.
Well, technically the question wasn't stupid... it was the people! That said, I have very high compassion for people who don't know their way around the computer. I remember still when we bought our first 36 kilobaud modem and had a ton of difficulty getting it to work. Like, I just connect the cables and open internet explorer? And it works? etc.. I draw the line of compassion to when you explain something perfectly to someone and then they come back 5 minutes later and you realize they didn't even listen to a single word you said.
I have to check myself a lot, I am trying to do better. You are falling into the trap that I have many times. That person is not stupid, they are ignorant of how to install a hard drive. The CLERK however, is stupid for telling someone just to put it in their case if they actually knew how to install it.
If you need some help, just grab me when I am on TS. Quick run down, when you install a new hard drive you need to go into Disk management, set it up and create a partition. Here is a link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/install-remove-hard-disk-drive#1TC=windows-7
I believe it was compusa which I have been to a couple times because of the deals they had going. 2 of 3 of those I listened in on some clerk trying to up sell some person on stuff he in no way needed. All he wanted was a computer to stream videos from YouTube and Netflix to a tv and this douche was trying to tell him he needs a icore7, 32 gig of ram, some 3 gig gpu. The other time this girl just wanted a computer for photo editing. Both times I just wanted to go up to them and tell them to quit shitting out their mouth and tell them the truth.
Just ordered a BX100 500Gb to help my home PC running off a regular HD. Can't wait as I have been using one at work for ages. Went BX100 because Skwi mentioned it and then I read reviews and noticed that the 500Gb was on special on Amazon....was heading straight for the Samsung 850 250Gb before that. Mostly, it means I can stay lazy and move my entire C: partition to it, which currently has 350Gb on it, without cleaning up!
They were bought by tiger direct if memory serves. One of my friends that live in Jacksonville Florida said the one near him closed up about two months ago. Got a lot of stuff for 50 to 70% off. They may have closed everywhere, have to check to see if the one near me is open.
I hate salespeople. They always try to sell you shit you don't need. They sell whatever gets them the most commissions, that's how far their 'help' goes. Pity the person who ever asks for a salesperson for help with what they need... Sigh. I don't think there are is anymore such a thing as customer service. It's just a bunch of people trying to sell you shit or take your money, forget about getting help or what you need. Theoretically some smaller shop, independent one or such might actually help you out, though they tend to be pretty greedy as well. There's also that thing about people shopping where it's cheap and then coming to your store to ask for help with bags full of shit they bought from the discount store down the road.
