anyone here using as SSD drive yet?

[lordhutt]

I just upgraded one of my pc's with a new mobo, chip, and ram. I thought I would upgrade the hdd as well and bought a 74gig Raptor for the OS....great drive, the only problem is it is noisy as hell...almost annoying!

I was thinking about replacing it with an ssd drive (as long as I can find good one at a similar size for around 250 or less) and was wondering what peoples experience with them was....any thoughts?

[rallynavvie]

You should be able to find a 64GB SSD for under $250. I saw a Patriot unit for $230 on Newegg that I'd probably trust. Reading the reviews on it made me want to stand myself in the eye though. Had one reviewer stating that it had slow seek/access times and that having two in RAID 0 would fix the issue. RAID 0 does not increase seek times, in fact it could slightly lower them. RAID 0 increases data throughput. But there are a lot of idiots out there who believe in computer fallacies

The downside is that they do draw more power and generate slightly more heat than most rotational drives (also because they don't "idle" like rotational drives). Also there have been reports that running SSDs with Windows causes some performance issues as Windows expect rotational drives used with its consumer OS. The only SSD I have is the boot drive on my Ubuntu box which I'm transitioning to be an HTPC so I can power it on quickly. I've not tried it with Windows as my 10k Rpators have been quiet enough for me.

[Schmendrick]

I am using a Sony G2 notebook with a 64GB Samsung SSD. The seek times are about 2 milliseconds, the heat generate is less than that of a hard disc, the only disadvantage is that it is still quite expensive. In Germany they are sold now for 646 Euros which is about 900 US$.
The cheaper SSD's are too slow to be used as a boot drive.

[MJA]

it's not worth it.let those drive rot in their warehouse

[jagabo]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/flash-ssd-hard-drive,2000.html

The idle power requirement has been fixed in some models.

[bendixG15]

I am using a Sony G2 notebook with a 64GB Samsung SSD. The seek times are about 2 milliseconds, the heat generate is less than that of a hard disc, the only disadvantage is that it is still quite expensive. In Germany they are sold now for 646 Euros which is about 900 US$.
The cheaper SSD's are too slow to be used as a boot drive.

For those interested. here's Samsung' specs ... http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/flash/Products_FlashSSD.html

[Seeker47]

No, but I heard part of a radio review (preview ?) the other day, regarding a new Toshiba laptop "green" model that has a 128G SSD in it, instead of a standard laptop hard drive. Sounded interesting, potentially, but the devil is in the details, and I think the price point is apt to be hard to swallow for awhile. (I did not hear them mention a price.)

[FulciLives]

it's not worth it.let those drive rot in their warehouse

I agree.

Let them know we aren't going to buy at such high prices!

If nobody buys them the price will come down.

I mean as nice as the concept is do we really "need them"? I say NO when normal drives are much larger in capacity and cheaper in price.

Maybe if they make the price nice though ...

- John "FuciLives" Coleman

[lordhutt]

Well, like anything else the price will fall over time. I was just wondering if the quality of the drive was worth it....how well they worked to be the main OS drive and such. I think I will just stick with my Raptor for now....

[MJA]

you can get the OCZ 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal for $99 after MIR ,many negative reviews

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC-TechBargains&cm_mmc=AFC-TechBarga...82E16820227344

why don't you try the VelociRaptor 150GB it's only $169

[rallynavvie]

I mean as nice as the concept is do we really "need them"? I say NO when normal drives are much larger in capacity and cheaper in price.

At the consumer level they're a bit frivolous right now. However at the enterprise level they're worth every penny for certain applications.

[Seeker47]

why don't you try the VelociRaptor 150GB it's only $169

You're referring to the WD line of 10K/rpm SATA drives, no ? Haven't seen the one you mention. I have a 75G. one (1st. gen. ?) that I bought a while back. The only other one I know of is the current 300G model. Cheapest price I've noticed on it is $279. when Fry's has it on sale -- but I haven't run any price comparison searches. That is an underwhelming "deal", being only about 30 bucks off list.

[jagabo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) - OEM... $179.99

[MJA]

it was $169 yesterday

[rallynavvie]

The Raptors have been available in 36, 74, 150, and 300GB capacities. The 300GB was only available in the SFF size but now you can also get the 150GB in SFF. Just make sure you aren't using those SFF drives for any SATA backplane devices as they apparently don't fit.

[jagabo]

I believe the older raptors (36 and 74 GB) are 3.5 inch drives and are very hot and noisy. The 150 and 300 GB Velociraptors are 2.5 inch drives in 3.5 inch housings and run quiet and cool.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3291&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3303&p=1

[retroborg]

It would seem that the SLC SSD are the better ones, but they're way too expensive to buy one at the moment.
The OCZ SSD 60GB (Sata II Core Series V2)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227360 is an MLC SSD and not that reliable as the SLC version.

I guess I'll have to wait for this technology to ripe before I start spending my hard-earned cash on this...

What about the fusionIO drive? Does it live up to its incredible claims? 600MB/s write and read??
http://www.fusionio.com/Products.aspx

[jagabo]

You can't afford an SSD drive and you're asking about FusionIO?

[MJA]

You can't afford an SSD drive and you're asking about FusionIO?

[rallynavvie]

I think the difference between the FusionIO and an SSD is that the former uses volatile memory so it needs to remain powered on like a RAM-disk. I thought EVGA had a cheaper version of that but you had to buy your own RAM to add to the card.

[jagabo]

Yes, there are DRAM based "drives" but I think FusionIO products use NAND flash.

[retroborg]

This RiDATA NSSD is it SLC or MLC?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820183202

But does it really matter for booting an O/S if it's SLC or MLC?
I mean with these speeds:
Sequential Access - Read 152Mb/s
Sequential Access - Write 96MB/s

and even the OCZ SSD 60GB (Sata II Core Series V2)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227360

Sequential Access - Read Up to 170 MB/s
Sequential Access - Write Up to 98 MB/s

They both put a 10000RPM HD to shame!

I'm really considering of getting one but I'll have to read through some forums 1st!

I also found this article concerning SSD:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/731-1/ssd-product-review-intel-ocz-samsung-silicon-...pertalent.html

[hech54]

I think the whole concept of SSD drives is very cool....but there is no doubt i will do the wait and see approach.
Hell....I'm a newbie to SATA drives.

[rallynavvie]

Sequential Access - Read Up to 170 MB/s
Sequential Access - Write Up to 98 MB/s

They both put a 10000RPM HD to shame!

Just an FYI: faster rotational speed drives don't increase data bandwidth much, if at all. The point of those faster drives (10-15krpm) is faster seek times.

Make sure to look at OCZ's support forums to read up on the issues and workarounds for using an SSD as a boot drive with Windows.