new to SSD's

Well the title says it all. I am just getting into SSD's and i thought corsair would be a good choice. My first question is, do the extreme series SSD's ship with trim compatibility. my second is, how fast will the speed degrade if i only install windows 7 x64 onto a ssd and leave all my other stuff on normal hdds? Third question is, how hard is it to set a ssd up IE formatting, installing windows 7 and on.

Get the biggest SSD you can afford. It is (among other things) the free space availability than is one of the biggest factors in the slowdown. But, don't worry about it. I am running Win7 x64 on an X256, firmware 1.1 which does not yet support trim. It has slowed down a wee bit according to the benchmarks, which I run every week or so out of interest. But, degraded or not, it is still MUCH more responsive and speedy than my previous setup, which was WD velociraptors in RAID-0. I mean really a lot better, not just imaginary wishful thinking. I'm lurking on this forum, waiting for the firmware update utility to be announced, but really, I'm delighted with the performance.

 

IMO there's really no point in doing any of the tweaks and tips often suggested. If you do a clean win7 install onto a clean SSD, the defaults are just fine. If it's not a clean install, but a restore from a HDD installation, best disable Superfetch and content indexing, and (if you dare) to avoid "trusted installer" forever fiddling with your disk, set user account control to OFF. You can, of course, move stuff onto a spinning disk to preserve the benchmark speed of the SSD, but that sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think? At the very worst, and degraded as far as it can be, write speeds will NOT be slower than the HDD, and read speeds will be at least 5 times faster, probably. Leave all the things that make your system responsive on the SSD, which is the quickest device. Keep the HDD for backups, big sequential files, stuff like that. There are those who would disagree with my prescription - lots of them - but only you know how you use your computer, so only you can judge what works best for you.

 

As to what firmware you will get, that will depend on your retailer's stock levels, I guess. I hear they are making them with firmware 2.1 now, but I got another X256 for my laptop yesterday, and it was 1.1. No matter, it will all be resolved sooner or later.

 

Don't wait.

cool thanks for the reply. i would get a bigger one but im revamping my pc ie, 5870 video card, yada yada yada

I would disagree with getting the biggest drive you can afford; get the drive that is big enough for your needs (if you can afford it).

 

There are some inherent limitations with SSD's, the biggest one is that they don't like being written to time and again; this is what causes performance degradation and is also what shortens their life. So, if the programs/games you intend to run 'write' a lot to the drive then you would be better off running these from a standard spinning hard drive and leave your SSD to the operating system.

 

There is a sticky on tips and tweaks that will minimise the writes to your SSD which are still valid whether your firmware supports TRIM or not. TRIM will help to keep performance high, but it will not stop wear and tear on your drive if it is being constantly written to.

 

@ Cadencia .... running a benchmark now and again to verify that performance has dropped (you should see this visably in real world use) is OK, running benchmarks regularly writes data to your drive in large chunks - which is how it achieves its figures - and as such you are degrading performance and the life of your drive.

 

There are many articles about the lifespan of an SSD, all of these are based on theory and not real world use; SSD's haven't been around long enough in the general pool to determine how long they will last under normal use. So, anything you can do to preserve the life of the drive is good, anything that is harmful avoid it.

 

SSD's are excellent when they are used and treated correctly - however, having said that the main area of use is in the 'need for speed'. If you are running intensive applications that need fast cpus, fast memory and fast hard drive access then SSD's are the business. If you are just running office programs and surfing the Internet (i.e. general run of the mill daily computing) then an SSD is an excess and an expensive one at that. If you are a technophile then you will 'want' and SSD ;-)

well first off. i am getting the 64gb x series drive from newegg second i am going to do the tweaks and stuff recommended in the stickies, third the only 2 games that will ever see this drive are Star trek online and bad company 2. so it will only be a os drive pretty much

Davyc, you are right, running a benchmark all the time is dumb. I reckon ATTO writes about 4GB for one execution - about 2% of my available free space. If I were using a 64GB SSD, it would be more than 100% of my free space. Because I write about 15GB per day to the SSD (on average, for all uses including the occasional benchmark) it takes me, I reckon, about 10 days to rewrite each free block on my disk once. Say I expect 5 years of life, that means at the current rate, each block has to survive 183 re-writes at least. I reckon it should. But, say I had a 128K SSD. My free space would only last 2.8 days before I had rewritten every block. So, to last 5 years, each free block has to survive 651 re-writes. Still perfectly OK. I could just squeeze my system into a 64GB disk, by shifting out some excess stuff. But that would put me in the situation you are concerned about - namely wearing the disk out because every day I would be writing to each free block several times over. Those blocks would wear out quite quickly, don't you think? I would have to do as you suggest and move all the small and frequently used files to the HDD.

 

But the main point for me is this - I don't really care how long it lasts, within reason. I want the computer to be quick and responsive. So, I put all the files that influence quickness and responsiveness on the SSD, or on RAM, give it plenty of elbow room, and trust the wear levelling algorithms in the firmware - and the manufacturer's warranty!

 

Naturally, my advice is based on my own experience, and yours and others will be different. Like you say yourself - use at your own risk.

Exactly on the nail Cadencia .... we all use computers differently and for different purposes. Experience is gained through time and use - we eventually end up knowing what is right and wrong for us and what is good and bad for our equipment.

 

@cvrtsniper

 

64GB X-Series is a good drive and more than adequate for Windows 7, programs and a few games. I use an X-64 and it has performed well - I have noticed that 'some' programs actually run slower on the SSD than they do on a regular HDD. This is both during installation and execution. Watch out for the size of your swap file, especially if you have a lot of memory. Generally Windows will create a swap file 1.5 times the size of your total amount of memory; totally unnecessary, so check the size and reduce it accordingly, this will free up a huge chunk of valuable space.

 

I have Windows 7 Pro 64bit installed, office 2010, graphics programs and web development programs installed. Also got Terminator Salvation and Quake 4 on it and that takes up about two thirds of the capacity of the drive. I've got 8GB of memory so I reduced the Swap file from 12GB to 1GB max. I run the Wiper tool about once a week to initiate the internal controller TRIM function, which will become US once the new firmware is out.

 

Because I test a lot of software I always have a spinning HDD with Windows 7 64bit installed and I jump between the two. The only 'real' noticable area I can see a difference in, is in the boot time. Launching programs is perhaps a few milliseconds faster on the SSD but not really noticable in real use. If I launch Outlook, Word or Excel they're marginally faster on the SSD. Other intensive programs such as my graphics programs (adobe and corel) and my web development gear (dreamweaver and fireworks) may load slightly faster (we're talking a few seconds) but don't actually perform any better.

 

Because I am a technophile I want the latest and best, I love tinkering and getting my hands dirty, but we also have to realistic. SSD's are very expensive and personally, whilst I love mine, I am loathed to recommend them to anyone who just uses a computer like most people do; i.e. for a surfing the net, emails, messenger, writing a few letters, etc. But as I said if, like me, you're a technophile you will WANT one lol

Over benching SSD's is a bad idea but nobody should be put off using their drive because of a fear of wearing it out.

 

If launching programs for you is only milliseconds faster then something is wrong with your config. Coming from a WD6400AAKS to a single X32 is night and day. Photoshop loads in 3 seconds, not 10, Outlook, IE, Chrome etc are instant compared to 2-3 seconds with the old HDD etc. Of course a program will not perform better if it's not HDD bandwidth intensive, that comes down to the speed of your CPU and RAM, maybe GPU too. As game levels are highly compressed, gains will be minimal on level loading time as the bottleneck will be shifted from the HDD to your CPU and RAM.

 

Using a PC with a SSD installed as a regular machine is absolutely fine. By the time the drive comes even close to failing it will have already outlived its usefulness. Obviously you would be slightly better off in these circumstances if the drive supports TRIM and/or proper garbage collection, but even without, under normal usage, including using system restore and having all temp files and internet cache on the SSD, degradation is slight. Hammer the drive with IOMeter however and expect to have to do regular SE's.

Yes. My Photoshop CS4 loads up in my laptop with its brand new X256 in 2 or 3 seconds, compared with the 20 seconds plus when it was coming from the Seagate spinning drive. Boot time on the laptop is less than 10 seconds from power on for a cold start, quicker coming out of hibernation. It used to take 110 seconds from power on to desktop visible, then another 50 before it settled down and was useable. The desktop takes longer for the self-test than loading the OS.

 

On my 8GB desktop machine (Win7 x64 ultimate, previously Vista), I've had paging turned off for three months now, and only once have I been warned of an impending virtual memory problem, when I was doing a Photomerge of 9x21 megapixel images in Photoshop - but it survived and continued. And I have my Firefox cache in RAM too. It's worth a try if you have the RAM, because that will prevent a potentially large file being planted on your SSD, where free space is precious.

 

BTW, I mainly use my computer for Photoshop and other photography-related programs and program development in C++, plus the usual web surfing and emails office applications. It's turned on an average of 12 hours/day, and I sit at it an average of 8. It spends 30 minutes to an hour per day doing backups. I haven't really enjoyed a game since King's Quest nearly thirty years ago - my reaction times are far too slow for the shootemups, and they stopped making puzzle games, so I got out of the habit.

 

Nuff said.

@Psycho101

 

I did say that programs (adobe/corel) launched a few seconds faster - from 10 seconds to 3 is a few seconds; my point was that if you have a 'need' for speed then SSD's are the way, however if shaving those few seconds off a load time is not 'that' important then you are in the realms of excess and expensive excess at that. If anyone 'wants' an SSD because they have cash to flash then fine, but if you are strapped and wondering if this is the right road to travel down then I would say no.

 

This is not a jibe at SSD's or any manufacturer in particular, but more good sense and practicality than anything; if you do not need faster program launches, if you do not need boot time in <20 seconds then what is the point in splashing out hundreds instead of tens? It's always been known that the speed trap in a PC is the hard drive and SSD's go a long way to addressing that limitation in conjunction with other elements within the box, but at a price.

 

As much as I admire the technology in an SSD I will stand by my original thoughts in that they are an expensive alternative to spinning HDD's and I cannot and will not recommend them to people who will not see any 'real world' benefit from using them. I use SSD's and spinning hard drives in real world use everyday and all day and the difference between them in this instance is marginal.

 

For high end use, rendering, video work etc I would say use them; for general programs (Office, etc) and surfing the net, no - at least not until the price comes down to a reasonable level. As with any new technology we pay a high price for early adoption and I don't see it as fair or acceptable to encourage people to part with a large sum of their hard earned money if the benefits over what they are currently using is small.

...nobody should be put off using their drive because of a fear of wearing it out.

 

Agreed. Buying an SSD and then trying to not use it does't make sense. The benefits range from snappy to amazing and they are definitely 'real world'. Dunking a SSD in a bucket of water is harmful, using it is not.

 

I benchmarked my SSD when I got it. I use the heck out of it and now the benchmarks are lower. When I get to the point where performance is worse than standard drives in RAID0 I'll take some action when it's convenient. I've been playing with workarounds in this forum as an excuse to tinker but they are not required.

 

My only regret is not buying an SSD sooner.

It would be pointless buying any piece of equipment and then not using it. Of course SSD's are faster than spinning SSD's and depending on what you use your computer for then in some instances an SSD will way out-perform any spinning drive.

 

I've often said (even on these forums) that you can't wrap your SSD up in cotton wool and be afraid to use it. However, my whole point with regards to this post is that if you only use your computer for daily run-of-mill computing then you will see very little benefit for spending hundreds on an SSD. It's a bit like telling your neighbour who has a Fiat Punto and uses it to go to the shops twice a week to buy a Ferrari.

 

Shaving off a few seconds here and there and perhaps noticing that a program opens a little quicker is not enough to justify the expense IMO.

 

If however, you are using resource intensive programs that needs a fast CPU, tons of memory and a zippy SSD then I am with you all the way. If you WANT and SSD and have the cash to flash then go for it! But, again, my point is that if you are toying with the idea of getting an SSD because everyone says they're brilliant, but you are concerned by the cost of them and are not sure that you will gain any great benefits from using one, then stick to spinning drives until the costs come down.

 

The other thing I've noticed about SSD users is their obsession with benchmarks; if their drive slips a MB or so they panic and wonder if anything is wrong. It seems that more time is spent tweaking, benchmarking and complaining about the lack of TRIM than is spent on actually using the drive for what it was intended. We don't see this level of paranoia with spinning drives.

 

SSD's are new technology, they have flaws and limitations and require a little more attention than spinning drives; for the general computer user this is loading them with too much for very little benefit, which, again, was the whole point behind my comments.

My reason for buying an SSD was the answer to the question:

Which is the most cost-effective way to give an (unnecessary) upgrade to my system (which is about 1,5 years old).

I agree that SSD are not cheap... but people who like PCs for the sake of it (meaning those people like me that like the technology and find the right excuse to buy new things they don't really NEED) will often change cpu or memory or the whole pc in order to gain a 10-15% improvement (if they are lucky).

Compared to those type of costs an SSD is not amongst the most expensive purchases, and in most cases the % of "felt" improvement is higher.

 

If we evaluate the matter on a pure cost/benefit basis, for people using the "basic" applications they could easily keep a pc for 6-7 or more years. I feel that PC have started to be "overpowered" for those kind of applications already 5 or 6 year ago.

 

I would divide the population of PC users in 2 main groups:

Those who like to play with it and those who just use it.

For the first group the fact that they "also" use it is often the official excuse to make the "playing" part justified (only a handful of such users really use it to the point of getting back the value of their money).

These people fine tune the applications, keep their system clean, do backups, install and deinstall applications and every once a while do a fresh reinstallation. All this keeps their pc in its best conditions and a performance improvement is mostly achievable only thru a HW upgrade.

These people are the SSD buyers... because they "want it".

 

The second group slowly drive their pc to be so clogged that in the end it slows down to an unacceptable degree... and then feel like they need a new pc because the old one is slow.

For these people I wouldn't recommend an ssd (at least not now)... because HW is not the real cure, is just the easiest cure for the symptoms because it gives them a clean start.

This doesn't necessarily imply that it is the "wrong" or "right" answer... because if you add-up the time spent on pc maintenance by the first group of people.. the "money" equivalent would be astronomical. So HW may actually be the right answer for those who don't like to fiddle.

Another "right" answer would be an Ipad or similar "user-proof" device.

 

After all… lots of people that don't know how to change a tyre buy a Ferrari or similar. But it doesn't give them a quicker trip home->office->home... and is better if they choose the automatic version... less likely to be stalled by the driver.

 

The SSD currently is a special Ferrari model with manual gear and filters+oil-changes every ONE thousand miles. Nice... but not the suggested commuter transportation method… unless you spend most of your week-ends in your garage taking care of it.

@ Panco

 

You're absolutely right about the divison of people who use computers. Whenever someone comes to me and asks advice on buying a new computer/upgrading the first words out of my mouth are "what will you be using the computer for?".

 

I love technology, live and breathe it and lap it up. For me the purchase of an SSD was out of sheer curiosity, not because I 'needed' one lol. It was an extravagance and one which has taught me a great deal about the technology, its limitations and its good points.

 

For those who are technophiles and have cash to spare - buy one and enjoy it; but buy one that fits your needs because they are expensive and they may not give you everything you expect them to.

 

For everyone else, if your needs demand a high spec PC and fast drive access then again buy one that fits your needs. Once the price begins to drop (not for the forseeable future as NAND prices have gone up) then I can see them being taken up by more people who don't really need them but want one anyways.

 

On a lighter note there are people out there who haven't a clue about computers but have to use one because their jobs or lifestyles demand it. I've had a few comical enquiries for help such as: The guy who couldn't find the 'any' key on his keyboard and the instructions told him to press 'any key'. Or the woman who thought her mouse was a 'footswitch' similar to one found on a sewing machine and though it was a bit fragile for stamping on. It does kind of make you smile in sympathy lol ;-)

...

The other thing I've noticed about SSD users is their obsession with benchmarks;.....

 

Just to prove the point :laughing:

 

Her are the benchmark (for fun) of my previous poor old raptor 74GB

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Beta3 © 2007-2010 hiyohiyo

Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/

---------------------------------------------------------------

* MB/s=1,000,000bytes/sec [sATA/300=300,000,000bytes/sec]

 

Sequential Read : 64.587 MB/s

Sequential Write : 65.230 MB/s

Random Read 512KB : 14.977 MB/s

Random Write 512KB : 34.552 MB/s

Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.572 MB/s [ 139.7 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.451 MB/s [ 354.3 IOPS]

Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.944 MB/s [ 230.5 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.457 MB/s [ 355.8 IOPS]

 

Test : 1000 MB [C: Used 23.4% (13.9/59.6 GB)] (x5)

Date : 2010/02/07 15:23:32

OS : Windows XP Professional SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)

 

These are for the SSD X64:

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Beta3 © 2007-2010 hiyohiyo

Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/

---------------------------------------------------------------

* MB/s=1,000,000bytes/sec [sATA/300=300,000,000bytes/sec]

 

Sequential Read : 200.301 MB/s

Sequential Write : 99.203 MB/s

Random Read 512KB : 152.094 MB/s

Random Write 512KB : 96.573 MB/s

Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 29.040 MB/s [ 7089.8 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 11.751 MB/s [ 2868.9 IOPS]

Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 32.202 MB/s [ 7861.9 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 14.938 MB/s [ 3647.0 IOPS]

 

Test : 100 MB [C: Used 21.2% (12.6/59.6 GB)] (x5)

Date : 2010/02/08 23:19:10

OS : Windows XP Professional SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)

SSD system after a cleanup + wiper + ramdisk with all temp files and swap file

 

......and to make SSD going :!oops::eyebuldge:eek:

 

.... here are the benchmarks of the ramdisk I just created with SuperSpeed Ramdisk Plus 10:

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Beta3 © 2007-2010 hiyohiyo

Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/

---------------------------------------------------------------

* MB/s=1,000,000bytes/sec [sATA/300=300,000,000bytes/sec]

 

Sequential Read : 4721.903 MB/s

Sequential Write : 2956.184 MB/s

Random Read 512KB : 4472.922 MB/s

Random Write 512KB : 2907.860 MB/s

Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 387.536 MB/s [ 94613.3 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 316.045 MB/s [ 77159.5 IOPS]

Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 562.712 MB/s [137380.9 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 448.061 MB/s [109390.0 IOPS]

 

Test : 100 MB [R: Used 22.7% (116.0/509.8 MB)] (x5)

Date : 2010/02/08 23:13:19

OS : Windows XP Professional SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)

Well said and well executed lol ;-)