Fast PC Startup - SSD?

[htid]

My computer is about 5 years old now and my boot drive is a 160gb Samsung Spinpoint, with a 500gb Spinpoint for my documents. The 500gb is easily enough space for now, but my boot drive seems to be having some problems, plus I'm getting bored with how long it takes to boot. I basically want a new boot drive that is fast, so that when I press the "on" button, I'm on the desktop ready to use the computer pretty quickly (I reckon it's about 2 minutes right now). Now I'm not that computer savvy any more, but I would guess this is also affected by how full the HD is and how often it's formatted etc. Without taking that into consideration though, would a SSD be the way to go? I reckon £200 is the max I'd like to spend, and I currently only use 70gb of the 160 (so it doesn't need to be massive). I'm not sure about all this Sata I/II/III but I have an ASUS PB5 if that helps.

Cheers!

[kalniel]

Windows 7 would probably be a better investment if you don't already have it. Sleeping vs turning off would also give you a more or less instant boot, and £200 would more than cover the difference in electricity bills

SSDs are great, but boot time shouldn't be the only reason to get one.

[htid]

Thanks for the info...in my first post I also started typing "I still have Windows XP..would upgrading to Windows 7 be worth it"? Then thought to myself "don't be lazy, google it!" so I didn't ask

I should probably google this too, but what's the point in SSD then if not for speed?

[GoNz0]

speed, silence, bloody fast small read/writes (IOPS) compared to platter drives.

[kalniel]

Oh SSDs are certainly about speed, but the one-off boot speed increase isn't where you will notice it, it's the instantaneous loading of applications/webpages/image caches etc.

Going to windows 7 will get you a more noticeable increase in boot loading times (and possible application loading too).

After you've got win 7 and you still want a boost, then sure, get an SSD, but win7 is the better of the two IMHO.

[Skulltrail]

You could also shave a few seconds off the boot time by disabling feature you don't use in the BIOS - eSATA, FireWire or other such things, especially if they are on a different controller.

[r_j_k_p]

ocz vertex 2e 120GB

have one and it boots in 25secs. probably the best purchase on my pc.

[Kumagoro]

64 GB C300, move my docs to the HDD and get win7

[htid]

Thanks everyone.

Oh SSDs are certainly about speed, but the one-off boot speed increase isn't where you will notice it, it's the instantaneous loading of applications/webpages/image caches etc.

Going to windows 7 will get you a more noticeable increase in boot loading times (and possible application loading too).

After you've got win 7 and you still want a boost, then sure, get an SSD, but win7 is the better of the two IMHO.

The only thing there is, W7 is £115, then if I decide to buy the SSD later, that's another X amount, whereas if I get an SSD now, I can (I think) get W7 OEM...guess that's something I'll have to decide!

[Saracen]

.... Now I'm not that computer savvy any more, but I would guess this is also affected by how full the HD is and how often it's formatted etc. Without taking that into consideration though, would a SSD be the way to go? ....

An SSD might be one way to go but unless you're not bothered about the money, there's a couple of things to try first.

Yes, fullness of HD makes a difference but if you've got 90Gb free on the boot drive, I doubt it'll make much. More relevant might be defragging it, if you haven't done it recently. That certainly can make a noticeable difference.

But more relevantly, XP is great at adding drivers and registry entries, but FAR less good at taking them out again. I remember installing one package to test, years ago, and it added (from memory) about 1000 registry entries (yeah, a thousand, no kidding) and on immediate de-installation, only took about 300 out. Net result, 700-ish totally unnecessary registry entries, each of which is getting read at boot.

And the same often happens with software components, especially where there are shared libraries. You install something and it loads shared components, but if you then de-install, it doesn't remove those shared components just in case something else you have needs them. The result can be stuff getting loaded into memory that isn't needed, and it all takes time to do.

So .... if de-fragging doesn't make enough difference, consider a format and XP re-install. Odds are that will speed up boot times a LOT. Just take care you have everything you need to rebuild first, like hardware drivers, app installation discs, and so on. I'd also make a list of software installed, browser add-ons and so forth, or you'll forget something.

And finally, before doing it, obviously, back up anything you value, and take care over emails, bookmarks, etc.

Anyway, to that point, you've not spent a penny.

If you don't mind spending, then Win 7 is certainly one way to go, and the benefits go beyond boot time, though my experience is it's better there, too.

And, it's worth thinking about W7 if you're going to reformat the existing drive to get rid of all the stuff I mentioned above that XP seems to like to hoard. If you're going to the trouble, and time (and it can be a lot of time) of rebuilding the OS and apps, and getting everything right, it's a very good time to think about an OS upgrade to Win7. If you spend days getting a fresh XP system working and still aren't happy, you'll spend days again if you then switch to Win7.

So, only rebuild onto XP if you either don't want to pay for W7, or if you have hardware or software not supported by W7.

Personally, if it's boot times you're after, I'd go that way before an SSD, and only go SSD (for boot times) if that's not enough. But there's no doubt SSDs make a considerable performance difference, but it's more about (and I'm probably going to start an argument with this) the feel of the PC than any difference that is of practical, real-world productivity benefits, certainly of the order to justify the cost.

It's a bit like driving a Porsche Turbo rather than a hot hatch - sure, it's a fair bit quicker, and no doubt feels a lot nicer, but does it really make any appreciable difference in the time it takes to commute to your office?

And that analogy leads to my ultimate conclusion - if you can afford the Porsche approach and don't mind spending the money, go for it. If budget is more of an issue, there are ways that might give you want you want without buying an SSD. But might not. The only way to be sure is to try it, because otherwise you're depending on other people's value set of whether it makes adequate difference to justify the cost. Personally, I'd go Win7 before SSD because I get far more value from it. But if you have and want to spend the money, go for both.

[OilSheikh]

Do you have a SATA Hard drive OP?

I bought a few SATA Samsung 500GB Hard drives recently and they are damn good.
£30 and silent ( speciality of Samsung hard drives ) and very fast as it's the F3 model. You might want to try one first before forking out on a SSD. You might just be impressed.

[htid]

It's a sata one yeah. I think for now I'll just get W7 and see how I go, then decide if it's worth going the SSD route.

Cheers everyone!

[Sputnik]

It's a sata one yeah.

Still depends how old it is, Some of the older Sata drives I have were much slower than the Samsung F3's.