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To SSD or not to SSD?

Do you SSD?

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coelo

coelo

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I just bought a Vertex 4 128GB SSD and so far, I'm not impressed.
After formatting the drive and getting it loaded with the OS, they came out with a firmware update which doubles the performance of the drive, but erases all your data.

Is this an acceptable level of quality for storage these days?

I am wondering how many people out there are using SSD's and having to go through the process of cloning their drive, formatting, and then restoring their drive whenever a firmware comes out. Granted, it is great to have improved performance, but the real point of hard drives to me is that the data stays there, in tact.

When You can buy a 3TB traditional hard drive with a 5 year warranty for $149.99, and a new Vertex 4 (low end manufacturer OCZ) costs $114.99 for a measly 128GB... Is there any reason at all to get an SSD?

In addition, what am I supposed to do with a 128GB drive?
I mean to say that, isn't all the benefit of the SSD lost as soon as I have to transition to my traditional hard drive to get my photos, music, and video?

So, basically the SSD boots up my computer faster, and opens safari lightning quick.
That's about all I can see and I think this drive is headed back to the store until 1TB of SSD is under $200.
 
your comments clearly indicate that all you care about primarily is mass storage and not speed since your only examples were boot times and "safari loading lightning quick". For basic web surfing and other common tasks I would say an SSD is probably not worth it (unless of course you dont need a ton of storage, then why not).

For me, I dont think I could live without the SSD in my macbook. I have a 2006 macbook white version. I was ready to just can it and buy a new computer because it was so pathetically slow even after installing a new WD caviar black 500gb hdd (7200 rpm).

I bought an uber cheap 60 gb ocz vertex 2 sometime ago just to "play around". My macbook runs faster now then it did on the first day that I bought it, and I think for my the purpose of that macbook I can probably have it running for another few years without a hitch. It opens programs, switches songs, and boots faster then my friends 2010 macbook pro (no ssd). I can open multiple images in photoshop from a cold boot faster with this SSD then I could boot alone without it... can't complain for the 65 ish dollars I spent.

I guess for me, the purpose of this SSD was to bring new life to aged parts.
Others that have used SSD's for different purposes I'm sure can list more benefits!
 
I'll be getting on the SSD bandwagon once they become cheap enough and the ratio between space and price is favourable to the former.
 
I don't know about OCZ being "low end". The vertex 4 is supposed to be one of the very fastest, but I can understand that being frustrating. I've updated the firmware twice on my 128GB Plextor M3 without data loss. As far as "You can buy a 3TB traditional hard drive with a 5 year warranty for $149.99", where is that? I've only seen those bare-drive Seagates for that, and they have only a 1 year warranty. I've had one for three months now and so far, great. Maybe WD Green, but that would be a SLOW OS drive.
 
Bill the Cat said:
I don't know about OCZ being "low end". The vertex 4 is supposed to be one of the very fastest, but I can understand that being frustrating. I've updated the firmware twice on my 128GB Plextor M3 without data loss. As far as "You can buy a 3TB traditional hard drive with a 5 year warranty for $149.99", where is that? I've only seen those bare-drive Seagates for that, and they have only a 1 year warranty. I've had one for three months now and so far, great. Maybe WD Green, but that would be a SLOW OS drive.
Click to expand...


Microcenter, Seagate Barracuda 5 year warranty 3TB 7200RPM 6 GB/S SATA - $149.99
 
Nothing compares to an SSD, It's a must for any modern PC.
 
I think I would agree with OP that the benefits of SSD as for now is only for fast boot drive and open up fast applications. As my daily works are dealing with converting large RAW photo files, I don't think the price at the moment would justify for me to do a mass storage with it. All my photo data files right now are all being stored into 2TB WD Black Edition which for me is capable of handling all the Photoshop processing quite fast as compared to my old WD Green.

Until the price of SSD will become more affordable, I would stick to my magnetic drive and 20secs booting time to ML using 1TB WD Black is good enough for me at the moment as I seldom reboot my PC once it is up just put it into sleep.
 
KidCastro said:
Nothing compares to an SSD, It's a must for any modern PC.
Click to expand...

ha ha, I don't know about that.
I guess you either have a lot of money or you don't have large files.

I went to the computer store and asked around to see what people are using SSD's for and most people who were using them had little storage needs, either they didn't do any video work, had relatively small photo/music libraries, or regularly deleted content off their drive. When I asked about the performance benefit of using an SSD with a traditional hard drive they told me to just get a bigger SSD as there isn't any benefit beyond boot up times and loading apps if you are going to be retrieving data from a traditional HDD.

There are just too many limitations to SSD's right now, price, storage, destructive firmware updates... my measly 128GB drive just went to 120GB after the latest update and I found that the speed of the drive is highly variable based on how full the drive is.

I guess if I had like $3k to blow I'd get 5 or 6 512MB drives, lol.

I guess the do suit a particular purpose, very limited imo.
If I still had my macbook pro with a 120GB drive, and I didn't need more storage, then I would upgrade as it would be a nice speed boost (basically what another poster said), but outside of that I cannot see SSD being very useful and I really don't think it is necessary for a modern PC.
 
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