View Poll Results: Have you tried using SSDs and would you want to be without one?

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  • I've tried SSDs and I never want to go back to using just HDD

    86 90.53%
  • I've tried SSDs and can't notice the difference to HDD

    0 0%
  • I've tried using SSDs and prefer HDD

    0 0%
  • I've never used an SSD.

    9 9.47%
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Thread: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

  1. #49
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    The thing is for me with an ssd is the performance boost is not quite enough. I'm not super serious about my performance anyway.

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Oh god yes

  3. #51
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan the bloke View Post
    Haha, the results are quite telling. The only people that wouldnt recommend them are the ones that havent used them

    ....
    That is simply not true. I have them, own them, and have used them.

    But .... whether they are recommended or not depends entirely on whether the difference they make to performance does, or does not, justify the cost, for a given user.

    Personally, I'm not bothered. Not bothered enough to yet get around to putting the Crucial M4 that's been sitting beside my monitor for months back into the machine. I probably will next time I build the OS, but at the moment, I'm not prepared to spend the time required mucking about transferring the OS from the current hard drive onto a drive I already own.

    Yes, my view is a minority on a site like this, but that's hardly a surprise.

    Consider this. A client comes to me and wants a spec for 6 machines to replace old machines in his credit control department. The machines are used for accounts software, some WP, email and not much more. Adding an SSD will add, say, £80-ish, per machine. So that business owner is going to want to know what benefit he gets for his extra £500, and the answer is ..... what? Quicker boot times? Guess how much he cares?

    If, in the user's normal use, and performance gains make no practical difference to usage, and make no difference to staff performance, then however "nice" the performance boost may be, it's unlikely to be justified.

    And the same applies to my day-to-day use at home. The machine may be a bit snappier, but the difference it makes to my computing experience is so small I really don't care if the SSD is in the machine or not.

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    I'm seriously considering an SSD for my build if I can keep costs down. My friends' SSD has his boot time down to under a minute.

    If I could afford it I would consider a RAMdisk, but 64GB of RAM is more than anyone needs to spend money on. Plus the most reliable method of creating a RAMdisk pushes boot times into the stratosphere.

  5. #53
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    Consider this. A client comes to me and wants a spec for 6 machines to replace old machines in his credit control department. The machines are used for accounts software, some WP, email and not much more. Adding an SSD will add, say, £80-ish, per machine. So that business owner is going to want to know what benefit he gets for his extra £500, and the answer is ..... what? Quicker boot times? Guess how much he cares?

    If, in the user's normal use, and performance gains make no practical difference to usage, and make no difference to staff performance, then however "nice" the performance boost may be, it's unlikely to be justified.

    And the same applies to my day-to-day use at home. The machine may be a bit snappier, but the difference it makes to my computing experience is so small I really don't care if the SSD is in the machine or not.
    The machine is a LOT snappier though - I'd argue that SSDs are viable for PCs in an office environment. You don't need large HDDs, as most data is stored or backed up on the network, but a smallish SSD will allow your employees to work faster. I'm speaking from experience - I put an SSD in my work machine and, when I'm in a different office using identically specced machines (apart from the SSD), the difference in usability is night and day.

  6. #54
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Agree with Spreadie's comment.

    As a office machine, most of the RAW data is usually stored on a NAS or server and workers access it depending on they needs.
    A SSD can speed up file openings marginally which results in time saving and less frustration from the workers side.

    At my work I just recently got a new machine and changing from a Athlon XP 2000+ to i5 (despite the illiterate populous protesting that a office PC don't need a upgrade) and the difference is really earth and sky. Too bad about the lack of SSD but DELL PCs don't usually come with SSD.

    -Boot time reduced from 8-10min to 1-2min.
    -Mandatory virus and security scan from 3h reduced to 25-30min.
    -Previously during scan absolutely nothing could be done.
    -Etc.

    Ban HDDs (500GB in a office PC is a waste) and help spread SSDs.

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Quote Originally Posted by Spreadie View Post
    The machine is a LOT snappier though - I'd argue that SSDs are viable for PCs in an office environment. You don't need large HDDs, as most data is stored or backed up on the network, but a smallish SSD will allow your employees to work faster. I'm speaking from experience - I put an SSD in my work machine and, when I'm in a different office using identically specced machines (apart from the SSD), the difference in usability is night and day.
    Viable, but not essential.

    A case could certainly be made for SSD instead of HD if storage requirements would allow that to be the sole drive, IF buying new machines. But, if that office already has the machines, the adding an SSD is an extra cost, and has to be justified as an additional cost, not offset by removing the HD from the spec.

    Your experience on "working faster" is also markedly different from mine, that being that while it makes a machine feel brisker and snappier, it makes little or no difference to user productivity.

  8. #56
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bonebreaker777 View Post
    Agree with Spreadie's comment.

    As a office machine, most of the RAW data is usually stored on a NAS or server and workers access it depending on they needs.
    A SSD can speed up file openings marginally which results in time saving and less frustration from the workers side.

    At my work I just recently got a new machine and changing from a Athlon XP 2000+ to i5 (despite the illiterate populous protesting that a office PC don't need a upgrade) and the difference is really earth and sky. Too bad about the lack of SSD but DELL PCs don't usually come with SSD.

    -Boot time reduced from 8-10min to 1-2min.
    -Mandatory virus and security scan from 3h reduced to 25-30min.
    -Previously during scan absolutely nothing could be done.
    -Etc.

    Ban HDDs (500GB in a office PC is a waste) and help spread SSDs.
    Unless I read you wrong, any improvements there come either from that hardware upgrade without SSD, not from an SSD, and therefore have no relevance to my remarks about SSD versus no-SSD. Significant benefits from going Athlon XP2000 to i5 is kind-of like comparing a 1970 Escort 1600 to a 2014 BMW M5 .... hardly like for like, and obviously a LOT quicker.

    That said, 8- minutes boot time suggests other issues, too. In 30 years of PC usage, dating back to when 8086 was state of the art, I've never had a PC take 8 minutes to boot.

    So it begs questions ....

    - state of disk fragmenration
    - state of frahmentation, perhaps, of MFT etc, which built-in defraggers don't touch
    - perhaps driver conflicts, with something halting progress until it times out
    - overloaded config files of registry (depending on OS)
    - remnants of old software not properly cleaned up and still loading into memory

    For instance, nany years ago, I tested one program (early Winfax) installing it on a fresh, clean OS install. Registry entries went up by about 1400. Then, never having even started the software, immediately uninstalling. Registry entries were stll nearly 800 up on the "clean" status.

    So, simply installing and imediately removing that package left some 800 registry entries behind. Multiply that by a few years and, perhaps, installs and uninstalls of software, upgrades that don't clean old detritus, old hardware leaving defunct drivers behind, and so on, and that might account for an 8 -10 minute boot time.

    I currently have two Athlon XP1800s, and an dual-CPU MP2000, here. Any of them could be booted and shut down, at least twice, inside 8 minutes. Probably three times. Come to that, and old server running dual Intel 550Mhz chips, and supporting hardware SCSI RAID, boots in under 2 minutes, with either XP or Win2000. Or Netware 4, for that matter, though that's long-since been removed.

    On the more general point, for many people, boot time is immaterial. I start my main machines in the morning, go and make my morning cup of coffee, and by the time I get back, they're booted and waiting. The limitation, therefore, is the taken to make coffee, and providing boot time is less than that, it matters not a jot to me is it's 5 minutes, or 5 nanoseconds, because I'm not there, I'm making my coffee.

    Much the same applues to many, maybe most, general office machines. They're only booted once, at start of day, and if the staff member has an IQ above 50, it's the first thing they do on arrival. Only rarely will they be booted again until the following day.

    It's nice booting in 20-30 seconds, but does it justify buying an SSD? Not for most business/office users. Obvioysly, there are exceptions. Developers booting multiple times for testing, or mobile users starting a laptop, for example. Or, home users that turn on a machine to use, and want it right now, not in a few minutes. But even that is really rather just "nice" than "necessary".

    So for most people, it's a balance of cost of the SSD versus the benefit derived. If an SSD costs £80, would you upgrade to save a few minutes of boot time and speed up your AV scan? Probably. If it cost £10,000 for that SSD, would you pay it, or would you schedule the AV scan for a quiet time and put up with the boot time?

    Or, as above the SSD costs £80, and you're in a decent job with decent disposable income, would you buy the SSD? Probably. But suppose you lost that job 6 months ago, your savings have dwindled, the bank are muttering about ocdrdue mortgage and repossession, utility companies are threatening bailiffs because you didn't pay "red" reminders, and you've just had a large tax bill hit you. Would you still buy the SSD, or would you buy food for the kids?

    £80 may be petty cash, or the difference between eating and not, depending on circumstances.

    I'll remind anyone still reading this that my comments were in relation to the remark that the only people not recommending SSDs are those that haven't tried them, and that there are many reasons why that assertion is, as I said, simply not true.

    SSDs are nice, and for anyone liking performance boosts and for whom the costs is trivial, they're certainly nice to have. But far from essential. And in my case, I'm not bothered enough to even make the effort to reinstall the SSD I have sitting here, until a convenient moment arrives. It simply doesn't make that much difference to my computing experience that I'm that bothered .... and I HAVE "used them".

  9. #57
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    I wonder how many installations of SSD's are used to fix a symptom, rather than solve a problem?

    As Saracen says, for a machine to take 8-10 minutes to boot is indicative of some underlying problem, which might still exist after the SSD installation, or might have ben fixed as a result of an OS re-installation following the change to an SSD.

    I am using an SSD in an OS X based machine - and it is fast, but then Apple software (BSD Unix based) tends to be fast booting anyway. The machine isn't used for storing much data, it is all stored on a server, but if I was storing data on the machine, I could get 8 times the storage capacity for about 2/3rds the cost of the SSD, by using a mechanical drive.

    Underlying OS design plays a huge part in boot times too. My Linux based server reduced the boot time by about 60% when the OS went from SystemV to systems as the control process - simply because it was more efficient at handling start up processes. (Further savings in boot time resulted from ditching Gnome3 - but thats another story.

    Those options aren't available with Windows based systems - you are stuck with the one file system, control process and GUI - but before rushing out to buy an SSD for faster boot times, it is probably worth spending some time optimising the operating system to fix any underlying problems that might be causing a slow boot.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wam7 View Post
    I'd expect someone who is a light user of a computer i.e. browsing, light office tasks etc might say they only notice the difference when booting into windows but a forum Admin!! I'm shocked.
    Perhaps forum admins have been around a bit and take a more measured and longer view of the latest in technology - after all, we have seen many advances come.... and go! :

    But we are grateful to the early adopters who rush in, while we stand back and observe
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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    ....

    Perhaps forum admins have been around a bit and take a more measured and longer view of the latest in technology - after all, we have seen many advances come.... and go! :

    But we are grateful to the early adopters who rush in, while we stand back and observe
    That may be partly it. Having bought my first "proper" computer in the 70s (Apple II) and my first PC in, IIRC, 1983 or 84, "performance improvement" has a different meaning. Case in point, an AutoCAD drawing of the Space Shuttle taking 20 minutes or more to redraw .... in wire frame mode. For a monochrome rendered version .... come back tomorrow. And no, I'm not kidding, or exaggerating.

    But if Wam7 thinjs I said what he said I did, he needs to reread it.

    Once again, SSDs make a difference to performance. But, how MUCH of a difference to performance? And does that difference matter to the user? The latter is subjective, and individual.

    If my car does 0-60 in 5.2 seconds, is it worth buying an upgrade so it does it in 5.1 seconds? Or 4.5 seconds? Does it matter on my daily commute?

    If my car does 155mph, is it worth having it delimited, so it'll do 190mph?

    Answer .... if I driving in rush hour London, it'll make NO difference to how long it takes me to get to work, or if it does save 5 seconds, it's immaterial. But if I take it to a track dah, it may make the difference between winning and not, or first and last.

    It makes no difference to my life if an SSD boots in 20 seconds rather than two minutes, because I'm not there while my PC boots. Or, at least, rarely there. And if Office loads in 2 seconds, rather than 5 seconds, how much writing can I achieve with that extra three seconds?

    If people are prepared to pay for the cost of an SSD, then it's either because they like that the OC feels snappier and that justifies the cost, ir because the increase in productivity justifies it, and that will depend on what they do with the PC.

    The reason SSDs are becoming so popular is that the cost has dropped to the point where the expenditure is almost a whim. But if even the smallest practical SSD cost £1000, what proportion if those that currently have SSDs would have them? A small proportion I bet, and that will be either those with lots of spare cash, or where usage really does justify the cost. And if they were £5000?

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Been running a SSD for a couple of years now. The first, OCZ Vertex 2E 120gb failed miserably so replaced it with my Current Sandisk extreme and upped the size to 240GB because 120GB wasn't enough (next one will be bigger again). I could never go back to just a hdd, the difference in performance is like night and day.

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    SSD's are the best thing to happen to PC's since Broadband

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    Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    I had two 128GB M4's in Raid0. When I did a virus check I was getting 1,000mb/s read speeds. It was stupid fast!

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    I switched to SSD last year and I can't imagine booting to Windows without one now. I went from a 1min20+ boot time, down to approx 25seconds.

    I run my Steam folder from the SSD and it's great having everything loading so much faster (I'm an impatient bugger!)

    I still keep an old HDD for storage though

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Tried, best single upgrade you can make that's not that expensive for what it does.

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    Re: Have you tried using SSDs, and would you recommend using them?

    Just got a MacBook Pro with retina display (2013) and I'm not really impressed with speed. I have only just got it and have used it for an hour total maybe, but bootup isn't any quicker than my PC at home running Mac OS X 10.8.5 (Hackintosh)

    I'm sure it would make a difference for RPGs - especially with Skyrim and all the mods I have installed (30+ - take around 20 seconds to load a scene when I'm in and out of doors etc!!).

    Other than that, I'm not impressed to far, but it definitely helps battery life on Notebooks.

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