Solid State Drives

[Crusoex]

Does anyone have any experience of using these? How much faster than regular Hard drives are they? I've heard they are very expensive. Is it worth the cost? I'm lookingto move my system disk onto a faster harddrive and just weighing up the pros and cons.

Thanks

[aidanjt]

Yes. (The good ones are) much faster at read performance, write performance degrades over time, but usually stays ahead of HDDs. And it depends on what you're using them for, but normally the gains don't justify the outlay, sometimes you can build a faster RAID array of HDDs, gain significantly more storage space, and save money at the same time.

There's a bit of a debate on this on this thread: http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...what-next.html

[Crusoex]

Thanks for the info. I'd consider getting one but just saw the costs and think the outlay is too much for me! Guess in another couple of years though they'l become a lot more mainsteam. Just need some time...

[aidanjt]

Thanks for the info. I'd consider getting one but just saw the costs and think the outlay is too much for me! Guess in another couple of years though they'l become a lot more mainsteam. Just need some time...

Indeed, I'm of the same opinion.

[Crusoex]

I guess one big pro is theyr much less likely to failure as no moving parts. Never had an HD fail on me yet but still, reduced risk is always a bonus. Correct me if Im wrong...as im just hypothesising.

[aidanjt]

*Shrug* I doubt smacking an SSD with a hammer will do it much good either. And electronics aren't immune from random failure. I've had RAM sticks go belly up after a few months for no good reason.

[tpfoster]

Yeah, as has been said- they are probably not worth it at the moment.

[watercooled]

ATM I'd say SSDs are far too expensive for mainstream use (the very cheap ones aren't much faster than a HDD) so if you want high performance you could setup a RAID0 array or, like me, follow this and create a smallish partition at the start of a normal HDD for your OS.

[GSte]

I guess one big pro is theyr much less likely to failure as no moving parts.

Possibly, but from what I've read the life-expectancy of SSDs isn't that good either, whch did surprise me. And there are a few other issues too, have a read here:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=18468


Saying that though, SSDs do improve Windows boot times significantly from what I've read, and applications also snap open quickly when using an SSD..... like you though, the pricing is too prohibitive for me yet.