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Thread: HDD/SSD Possibility

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    HDD/SSD Possibility

    Hi Guys,

    I've been looking for a new home desktop - basic sort of home uses, little bit of gaming, nothing too demanding, LoL might be the most taxing and I don't play all that frequently.

    Anyway, I've come across a good deal in this:


    ASUS Brand Desktop
    Windows 8 64 Bit
    8GB RAM
    i5 3330
    Integrated graphics (option to add a GFX card)

    The final price will depend upon the Hard Disk - I have the following options:
    £350 for either 1TB HDD or 60GB SSD
    £399 for 2TB HDD or 120GB SSD

    I'm trying to keep the cost down since I'm on a budget so I'm aiming at the £350 options however:

    I'm not a hoarder so 2TB would be excessive for me, a waste of cash.
    That leaves the 1TB HDD (still might be excessive), or the 60GB or 120GB SSD's.
    I have spare HDD's so I was thinking it might be nice to grab an SSD and so the 60GB would be the cheaper option. I'm not sure if it's enough though.
    The plan would be to put Windows 8 on it, and maybe LoL and a browser. Would 60GB be enough?
    If not then the 120 SSD. I might then question the value of an SSD for that extra £50 instead on a new 1TB HDD?

    Any thoughts?

    Cheers.
    Last edited by Galant; 19-04-2014 at 03:30 PM.
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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Given the proposed use, why not go for a cheaper AMD APU based solution? Unless you have parts already, you can save quite a bit by getting an A8 APU but still have sufficient CPU power to do most if not all of what you need and have a better iGPU for LoL.

    On the hard drive front, if cost is such a concern, you will be perfectly able to get by with 60GB. Windows takes 20GB, LoL around 8GB? Other apps including your browser and office can have 5? Leaving more than 20GB or so for your pagefile, hibernation (disabling hibernation can get this space back), etc.

    Move your user files onto the secondary magnetic drive (which will help with any future formatting/migration). Shifting LoL and some other apps onto the magnetic can also be done.

    And maybe consider WIMBoot for space saving. I don't have a Windows 8 machine to test this out on but since you are building a new machine, it is a ripe time to experiment.
    http://hexus.net/tech/news/software/...-install-tech/
    http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/s...t-wimboot.aspx
    http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...OOT-discussion

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    I've been offered this deal on an i5 machine which I don't think I'd be able to beat generally speaking. I can always add a GFX card later if I want/need to.
    I don't think I'll be able to beat £350 for a similar machine, and even if I did manage it, in the long run, wouldn't having the better CPU already in place be a better solution than downgrading that just to be able to add in better GFX now?

    Or am I wrong?
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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    That is heavily dependent on the use, but an A8 6500 or 6600k for example are already 3.5/3.9 GHz quad cores with turbos in excess of 4GHz, easily capable of keeping up with many dGPUs in the budget arena and will happily power you through light gaming without. Maybe the A8 could even convince you that you don't actually need to drop in a card.

    I don't know what part shopping is like in Gibraltar (if that is where you are ATM) but a look at this thread can give you an idea how much more you can get out of a £350 budget, with R7 260Xs and 750/TIs in some builds.

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Part shopping in Gib isn't good. Only a few local shops. I'd have to buy online from the UK and ship it over if I wanted to keep the price down.

    To be honest, I'm happy with the i5 and no GFX at the moment. I think that should be more than sufficient for everything, and in the end, if I later want to splurge on a card I feel as though I'll have the better possible combination with an i5 and card rather than an APU that becomes less relevant once a decent card is added.

    I know that if I take the time to source lots of individual parts I might be able beat this machine for £350 but I don't think it'll be a massive difference. The main machine listed in that link didn't seem that much of an upgrade on the ASUS and so I'm not sure the extra effort would be worth it.

    My main concern was/is with the SSD/HDD choice.
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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Well I'm still perfectly happy with an HDD in my desktop. Sure, in windows 7 it's about 50 seconds from when I press the power switch to having a usable desktop (only about 30s to desktop but give it time to sort its 'behind the scenes' stuff out). Booting could also be faster on an HDD, I run a complex HDD setup with 4 partitions and some logical sub-partitions (to allow MBR) and have a 6s bootloader countdown included in my time above. Apps load fast enough for me... All in all I'm happy with an HDD, in your position I would get the 1TB HDD (I'm running 4 OSs off a 1TB and still have over 300GB free), you can always add an SSD later (I'm sure I will but getting my machine very quiet was a higher priority for me)

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    1Tb and a 60GB SSD may be enough as far as you are concerned.
    2Tb and a 120GB SSD for $49 more. You can not upgrade later for anywhere near that price.

    You say you do not hoard and that is all well and good. Games keep getting bigger and you never know what you will get into down the road though. Buy a bit bigger now while you have a steal of a deal and you will not regret it later!

    Just wanted to add a couple quick grab prices. Googled where you are from and you seem to live in a very interesting location, beautiful I might add. That being said I don't have any idea what your local prices are but to add a 60GB SSD and a 1TB HDD right now would cost me $120-$140 Canadian dollars plus tax and shipping. Those are just the cheapest ones on a couple big sites.
    Last edited by Stylin; 19-04-2014 at 08:10 PM. Reason: Added prices

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Just to clarify - it's either the normal HDD or the SSD, not both at that price.

    I do have some spare HDD's lying round. None are 1TB, but I don't think it'll be an issue.

    Gibraltar is beautiful but it can be a challenge getting hold of some things.

    A.
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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    O ok, hmm that is my bad. Well SSD are nice when it comes too boot times and accessing data for sure. Only having 60GB would have its limitations but pair it with an old HDD for storage and you are laughing.

    What games are you looking to play. I like my SSD for anything with large load times or games that loading in first can make a difference. Games like BF3 with there large maps the SSD pays off a bit, but the game with all dlc is 34.2GB.

    I was working with a limited budget when I bought my SSD but managed to get a 120GB SSD and even it feels too small now. I would have had too slap myself for buying a 60GB SSD back then.

    If it was me I would buy the crap out of that 120GB SSD and toss in a HDD after the fact. But if you don't load much directly onto the machine then there is no need for the extra space. Best you can do is decide what you need on the primary HDD now and figure how much space is left over and decide if it is enough.

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Just my 2c, but my system drive is a 256GB samsung ssd, and I do find space can sometimes be an issue (, and Im using ~90GBs of the 216GB available (after formatiing + overprovisioning), so be careful with a 60gb ssd

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Like Marcvs, I'd avoid the 60GB SSD. One of my machines runs W7, and there's 60GB-ish on the boot partition. As Win7 is, what, sub-20GB, the rest has built up from drivers, applications that insist on putting some files on C, some temp files, etc, because I never, EVER let an application install on C. My D drive is for applications. Yet, C has grown to 60GB.

    Could I thin it down? Move temp files, swap files, etc? No doubt. Probably. But it's a nuisance. Personally, given the price difference between 60GB and 120GB SSDs, my attitude is that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Hence, 120GB would be my minimum, and maybe, budget-permitting, bigger.

    So, SSD or bigger HD?

    I'm not, personally, a huge fan of SSDs. Yeah, they give a speed boost, and are nice, but necessary? Nope. For instance, that machine I mentioned above .... I have a 120GB Crucial M4 for it, and it's been sitting on my desk for months waiting for me to get around to putting it back in.

    So what do you get from the SSD. Much faster boot times, for a start. But I start my machine and go make a coffee. Takes me about 3 minutes. So, if my machine boots in 1 second, or 2 min, 59sec makes NO difference to me, as I'm off naking the coffee. If you spend lots of time testing stuff, and starting the machine up, boot time may matter. But if not, a minute or two once a day? I don't give a flying fig, personally.

    Next, SSDs will make the machine feel a fair bit faster. Loading big, disk-intensive apps, like Office, will be zippier, for sure. But does it really make any difference to productivity? Well, again, saving a few seconds when Office first loads, or shaving off a second, or fractions of a second, when switching apps, it's undoubtedly 'nice', but does it really matter? Not to me, but that's for you to decide.

    I've been asked about SSDs some number of times, and my answer has always been that they're "nice", but how much difference they make almost entirely depends on what you do with your machine. If you're a heavy user, and if you do lots of disk-intensive things, then you'll get the most benefit. If you're a light user and it's a general purpose machine, then with an SSD, you're paying for "nice".

    As for the larger HD option, well .... extra HD is for files, etc, is easy to add on later, if need be. Adding the SSD later, if you end up doing that, is doable, for sure, but trickier, and more of a pain.

    If you're going to add an SSD, the ideal time is at new machine/OS install time. Retrofitting one is just a bit fiddlier.


    So, finally .... given all I've said, and provided you have enough other HDs laying around for your needs for now and the foreseeable future, it seems to me you're choice is between space you don't need from the HD, or speed that isn't necessary but is "nice" from the HD.

    Hence, in your shoes, I'd go SSD, but I'd want 120GB or larger, not 60GB, the latter being, for me, just a little too tight.

    And that, from me, might surprise a few people here, since I'm known to not be a great SSD fan. But in that situation, where neither is necessary, but for the deal you need one or the other, that'd be my choice. Of course, in an ideal world, I'd pay for neither, because I don't need the SSD and like you, have HDs. I also have enough OSs and don't want to pay for more, which is why I'd buy parts I needed and build to my needs. But that's me, and may not be an option for you.

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Thanks for the input guys.

    Alright, so I have a fuller spec, and it's slightly lower than expected. The PSU looks like it might only be 350W (awaiting confirmation) and the mobo only has two SATA connections both of which are already in use, which means no second drive without adding extra via a PCI card. :Further opinions appreciated:

    Here's the spec with a 1TB HDD (although I wouldn't be buying from this site) http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-k5...ws-8-9BHW.html

    Processor Intel® Core™ i5-3330S (HD Graphics 2500)
    Chipset H61
    Operating System Windows 8 64bit
    MEMORY DDR3 1600MHz 4G *2
    Storage 1TB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
    Optical Drive SuperMulti DVD RW
    Keyboard Mouse USB Keyboard / Mouse
    Drive Bay 1 x 5.25"
    2 x 3.5"
    SATA 2 x SATA 3.0Gb/s ports
    Carder reader 4 in 1 MS, MS Pro, MMC, SD
    Expension Slots 1 x PCI-e x 1
    1 x PCI-e x 16
    Front I/O Port 1 x Card Reader
    1 x Headphone
    1 x Microphone
    2 x USB 3.0
    Rear I/O Port 1 x RJ45 LAN
    1 x 6 channel Audio I/O
    1 x VGA(D-sub)-Out
    4 x USB 2.0
    1 x PS2
    1x Com Port header
    LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
    PSU Peak 350W/ 300W

    For £350, with a minimum requirement of an i5 CPU, at least 4GB RAM, and Windows 8, and the only usable spare parts I have being an ATX case and a DVD optical drive,

    Do you think I could easily do better (as in make a normal purchase, not wait week by week for any special offers that might crop up) - bearing in mind it would be headed to Gibraltar, to that means no VAT on the price but any shipping would have to go international?
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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Erm, not quite sure how to put this.

    It all depends on your usage, Galant, and resources. But a few things about that spec make me nervous, and personally I wouldn't touch it.

    First, minimal Sata ports. Two just isn't enough, and I'd want Sata 3, not Sata2.

    Second, the PSU. It's probably adequate, but the spec just says to me 'pared to the bone' to get to the price, and I'm a bit nervous about 'pared' systems. There are some really horrible PSU designs out there, and they tend to be the dead cheap ones. And, anecdotally, they fail more often, and can do so spectacularly, taking lots of the rest of the machine with them. And, of course, the PSU is an "invisible" item that Joe Public doesn't think about, or not beyond the rather unreliable wattage rating.

    Personally, one of the reasons I build rather than buy is component quality control, and I don't, EVER, bung in power supplies of unknown provenance. If I was buying a custom-spec machine, it would have to have a PSU make I was comfortable with. I'd rather spend £40-£60 on the PSU and feel comfortable, than risk ending up with cheap far-eastern junk (not that all far Eastern stuff is junk, but that most of the junk is far-eastern).

    Because that spec seems to be pared to the bone on the mobo spec, I feel I have to assume it's pared on PSU too, and that's a risk I wouldn't take. Maybe that's overly cautious, but I've seen too many PC components wrecked by cheap PSUs (and, admittedly, some wrecked by not-cheap PSUs too) to take the chance.

    So, personally, the extra budget for peace of mind is money well-spent for me. YMMV. Just do it eyes open, if you do it.

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Honestly, once I got the spec, I started to get doubts.

    I'm beginning to resign myself to putting a machine together. I'd enjoyed the notion of just picking one up and not having to source parts but the old three-way equation inevitably rears its head gain: Price vs Convenience vs Quality. You can always have two but rarely can you get the third as well.

    My only problem with building a machine is I'm going to have to check all the websites to see if they will ship out to Gibraltar. More often than not that's the big obstacle and might limit my choices severely.

    If I'm patient I'm sure it likely I can build a better machine for £350 just not sure how easy it'll be with the delivery factored in.
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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    I'm not sure you'll save much by building. In years gone by, sure, but big companies buy at margins hard to get on one-offs.

    For me, the advantages over recent years have been that I can pick and choose exact spec, and exact components. And, of course, re-use whatever suitable bits I still have, which is often quite a lot. And, not pay for an OS licence I don't need, either because Linux is going on it or I already have a suitable Windows licence. And, of course, nowadays, re-using Win7 licences instead of getting W8 shoved at me, which I, personally, WILL NOT install on any more machines until and unless MS let me avoid MUI entirely. If they ever do.

    The "price" is the nuisance of building, the hassle if something goes wrong, and the absence of one place to moan at if something fails.

    In fact, money wise, it costs me, not least because I pick at least "solid" components (like PSU) if not premium ones, and don't risk a cost-cutter bunging junk in.

    PS. By solid/premium, I mean Enermax, Seasonic, Delta, etc, not el-cheapo unknowns, but generally, in my case, not paying for overly powerful wattage ratings (nothing I have needs more than 500-600w, and mostly, not even that) or "modular", which bothers me not at all.

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    Re: HDD/SSD Possibility

    Chuck a post up on the Scan forum and see what they say, probably easier to get everything from one place even if it costs a little bit more.
    If you really get stuck I would be happy to order bits and ship them to you.

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