Right then my tech savvy chums,

I have a bit of Christmas money burning a hole and I've finally decided that the most dissapoiniting thing in my setup is the Samsung spin point so I'm after an SSD to run windows/steam from.

The choice is bewildering and I have no idea what all the jargon means.

I am after a 128Gb, does any one have any recommendations?

I have an OCZ Vertex 3 in my MBP and it's awesome.

Generally I would stick to the decent brands (from research I did about 6-7months ago when I got mine) OCZ, OWC and Crucial.

They seem to make about the best ones. Have a look on Hot UK deals as they often crop up on there with decent reductions.

I got a corsair force 3 120, I paid £120 but they have gone up, they also do a force GT model, when I did the google it was came up as less VFM due being only little faster.

No complaints, used to hang for about 30secs when I first had it, but the fw update sorted it out, fw update simple as well plus no need to format drive

Crucial m4 & m225 and also a samsung one

all of these are much faster than mechanical drives and on paper the m4 is the fastest i have which doing day to day tasks is hard to tell as there all fast

what motherboard do you have?

I have one of the early asus sandy bridge boards that had the dodgy sata3 ports I can't remember the exact model number now, never swapped it as I wasn't using the ports. Going to be a nightmare if I have to swap it.

The OCZ Vertex are the fastest... however not without their issues. unless new FW has resolved it.

Im using a Crucial M4.. i did have a Corsair Force3 (which uses the same chipset as the OCZ, but it was flakey as fook and they announced a recall on them)

Sata 3 is needed, you big fanny, never swapped out a board before lol

i did have a Corsair Force3 (which uses the same chipset as the OCZ, but it was flakey as fook and they announced a recall on them)

All sorted now, has been since about August IIRC

either way... SSD will rock your world

either way... SSD will rock your world

I was gonna say similar, which ever one you get will pee all over the old skool HDD

Sata 3 is needed, you big fanny, never swapped out a board before lol

Cheeky git! The problem is my second to none cable tidying.. I'll have to undo it all!

I have sata3, it degrades over time apparently.

Cheeky git! The problem is my second to none cable tidying.. I'll have to undo it all!

I have sata3, it degrades over time apparently.

Cable managment is for girls, just lob it all in lol

It is a ball ache when it's for yourself, I don't mind when someone is paying.

Sata 3 degrading ?? is that what the issue with the ports was, you got same board as me IIRC, I can't think of the name right now though lol Z68 chipset maybe ??

use a sata 2 port then, not the same performance but wont be that noticeable unless you run benchmarks all the time

and whats cable management? if the sides fit its managed

Edited 29 December, 201114 yr by the mad monk

I have been using an OCZ Vertex 2 for 12 months with no issues, You need to enable AHCI for the SATA interface and your operating system needs to have wear levelling enabled (a new install of Windows 7 will normally automatically enable this provided the CMOS has the AHCI mode enabled).

System performance has not slowed over the course of the year, still seriously quick. Boot up takes around half a minute, but the majority of that is the CMOS, once it starts to read the hard drive, it takes around 12 seconds to bring up the login screen and a further 4 to be ready to start working.

Biggest step improvement I have ever made to my computing. Doubling processor and RAM speed have nothing on the speed boost a good SSD makes.

Chris

if anyone has an older nvidia chipset, like me, then read up on the ide controller as the nvidia one doesnt work properly with trim and ssd, you need to install the standard dual channel pci/ide controller. this is VERY easy to do but equally very easy to miss and wont be setup like this by default

Fusion I/O for the win

No need to use any SATA at all then. Failing that how about a nice 24 disk, with 20 10k SAS drives and 4 SSD drive hybrid array.

For a single SSD, the crucial M4 does seem to do well, but as with all drives it's down to checking they don't have firmware issues.

The HDD firmware guys are experts at the control firmware and they still have a few issues, the SSD people are no better than this (at best).

Would an SSD improve my laptop speed and could i just connect it as an external drive ?

Would an SSD improve my laptop speed and could i just connect it as an external drive ?

If your laptop has a traditional mechanical HDD then it would improve the speed greatly. Problem with laptop upgrades is, components can be heavily packed in and upgrades can be tricky depending on the model.

Would an SSD improve my laptop speed and could i just connect it as an external drive ?

You would need to re-install the os to the SSD to see any benefit, I doubt your lappy has USB3 connections so it would only be as fast as previous USB2 caddy (external)

If your laptop has a traditional mechanical HDD then it would improve the speed greatly. Problem with laptop upgrades is, components can be heavily packed in and upgrades can be tricky depending on the model.

Granted but the hard disk area is always the easiest to get to, usually two screws and you're in

Cheers gents!

Ordered a Corsair 120GB Force 3 this morning

Now i just need to backup windows and steam! Oh and contact Asus about my dodgy motherboard. :S

Cheers gents!

Ordered a Corsair 120GB Force 3 this morning

Now i just need to backup windows and steam! Oh and contact Asus about my dodgy motherboard. :S

Aye.. dont ghost between drives.... partition alignment on SSDs are different.. so fresh install required to get correct alignment (Win7/SVR2008 are the only MS OS's that have correct alignment out the box)

It will be a fresh install, should have said I need to backup my stuff.

Another question..

How do you guys with SSD's manage your data? My steam library is already bigger than the SSD ive ordered, but i dont play all of the games.

I read somewhere about setting up symbolic links with NTFS, but that sounds like it asking for trouble.

I've done it with the cheapie 64GB SSD I blagged free to put some of my bigger games on like L4D2, TF2, etc. Those which I don't play too often but take ages to load when I do feel like jumping in.

There's an app called Steam Mover which will do all the junctions etc for you. As far as I'm aware, there's no downsides of using junctions, they behave the same as symlinks do on Linux. About the worst thing that could happen is that if your SSD "falls off" the SATA bus, you'll be left with an empty folder on the source drive (which I'm assuming in your case is a mechanical HD). After a reboot, it should all go back to normal.

I guess in your case, you want to use the SSD as your OS drive? What I'd do is:

Do the installation as normal

Create a C:\Steam folder

Install Steam itself onto my secondary drive (the mechanical one)

Download everything or restore it from backups, whichever you do

Use Steam Mover to move the games I want on the SSD into the C:\Steam folder from wherever they reside on the mechanical drive

And careful managment of files etc.

I use this to see whats where and how big it all is http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview/

I got about 4 games on there the rest I just DL as needed whic atm is never as I'm currently addicted to BF3 lol